Licensing Rule Change Eases Hiring

The District's child welfare agency has made significant progress toward ending its staffing crisis by hiring dozens of social workers in the past month, the result of a recent change in licensing requirements.

After losing almost 25 percent of its workforce in an exodus over the summer, the Child and Family Services Agency reported last week that it had hired 41 social workers in just a few weeks. That gets the agency more than halfway to its goal of replacing about 60 who left.

According to Mafara Hobson, spokeswoman for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), 32 of the hires do not have licenses. They will receive the same training as other hires but will be under supervision by a licensed social worker until they get their licenses. They will have four chances in the coming year to pass an exam and become licensed.

The change in requirements was first discussed soon after the city's attorneys reached a court agreement to avoid another federal takeover of the agency. D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) negotiated with the city's Board of Social Work to help the agency work toward reaching its full strength of about 250 social workers on staff, which was part of the court agreement.

The agency requires social workers to have a master's degree in social work and a license. The rule change permitting them to be hired before they are licensed was enacted as a temporary response to the sudden drop in staffing levels, but city officials say it could become permanent if it works well.

Although recent graduates from social work programs are eligible under the new standards, the rule change is primarily aimed at experienced social workers from other jurisdictions who are licensed there but have not taken the exam to get a license in the District, said Margot Aronson, president of the Greater Washington Society for Clinical Social Work.

Many of CFSA's new hires fit that description.

Wells, a former social worker, said a license is usually needed for private practice, such as marriage counseling, but it is not required of most social workers in the country.

"D.C. is one of the few jurisdictions in the country that essentially requires almost all their social workers to have a master's in social work," Wells said. The graduate degree ensures that District social workers are well-educated.

Easing the licensing requirement to spur hiring is not a new idea. Former CFSA director Olivia Golden tried something similar when she took over the agency in 2001 as it was exiting federal receivership.

"We were able to hire people as trainees, working within a framework, and they needed their licenses in 90 days," said Golden, now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

She said that as director, she was often frustrated each spring watching top graduates at social work schools go to agencies that did not require licenses to start work.

The D.C. agency tried recruiting at top schools and helping graduates schedule the licensing exam quickly so they could be eligible to work in the city soon after graduation. But it was tough to compete with jurisdictions that have different standards.

"Our ability to hire was constrained," Golden said. So the agency came up with the trainee position and gave signing bonuses to those who already had licenses.

Some of the new hires never passed the licensing test. The agency had to let them go and spend the time and money to find someone to take their place, Golden said.

The new system could prevent that problem by giving the trainees four chances to pass the exam in a year while still working, Aronson said.