| |
Frequently
Asked Questions
What is the Center for
Clinical Social Work?
Why was the Center founded?
What is the mission of the Center?
Is there really a crisis in clinical social work?
Why should I join the Center as a member?
How do I become a member?
How does the Center define clinical social work?
How does the Center compare to other national social
work associations?
What is the Center’s Bill of Rights for Clinical
Social Workers?
What are the Center membership benefits?
What are some of the discounted goods and services?
What issues does the Center address?
How does the Center conduct education and interventions?
What is the Center for Clinical
Social Work?
The Center for Clinical Social Work is a national organization
for all clinical social workers, in all practice settings, committed
to serving their interests and fighting for their rights as professionals.
The Center is just that—a national center for the various
branches of clinical social work. It consists of major operating
units focused on:
- standards, certification and credentials (ABE)
- membership and advocacy
- education, research, and training
- collaboration (Leadership Council of Colleague Organizations)
back to top
Why was the Center founded?
No profession should be without a strong national organization
that serves all of its members. Our profession, in all of its
diversity, will be enriched by a unifying Center which offers
a shared professional identity as well as support and advocacy.
Psychologists and others have strong national organizations, and
have benefited enormously.
The Center fills the need for professional leadership at a time
of crisis. Market research, commissioned by the American Board
of Examiners and carried out by Bowen Marketing Consultants, indicates
that clinical social workers are losing their sense of professional
identity and looking for national leadership in the areas of professional
recognition, career advancement, better pay, educational opportunities,
and many other areas in which they do not feel well represented.
back to top
What is the mission of the Center?
To be the national voice of the profession of clinical social
work, guardian of its values, and champion of its rights.
back to top
Is there really a crisis in clinical social
work?
We think so—and you have said as much, in responding to
Bowen Marketing Consultants’ independent research into the
state of clinical social work nationwide. We need to address the
health, status, and future of clinical social work now. Key research
findings:
- Many schools do not adequately prepare graduate students
for clinical practice.
- Often, clinical supervision is not available in work settings.
- Younger clinical social workers tend not to self-identity
in terms of their profession.
- Younger clinical social workers are not being supported,
rewarded, or recognized as professionals.
- State licensure laws and regulations differ greatly, without
uniformity or portability
- Mid-career colleagues are passed over for promotion and not
adequately compensated or valued for their abilities.
- Older colleagues express alarm about the state of the profession
and the sense that it is drifting
- There has been no national organization that demands the
respect and the rights that clinical social workers deserve.
back to top
Why should I join the Center as a member?
As a member of the Center, you will have a partner in all aspects
of your career. The Center membership will entitle you to a powerful
advocate, asserting and fighting for a National Bill of Rights
for Clinical Social Workers and addressing the concerns—financial,
professional, competitive, regulatory—of all clinical social
workers, including you personally. Anyone interested in the advancement
of the profession of clinical social work may become a member.
back to top
How do I become a member?
You may join online by clicking “Here.
You may download the Membership Form by selecting “Join
the Center (PDF)” or call the office 1-800-694-5285.
Annual membership is priced at $115. It is $95 for members of
Center-affiliated clinical social
work societies and $75 for those who hold the BCD advanced-practice
certification. Students may join gratis, and entry-level clinical
social workers may join for $25. We offer easy ways to pay including a recurring billing option where you pay yearly broken down by payments each month with our credit card processor.
All members must attest to a Code
of Ethics.
back to top
How does the Center define clinical social
work?
Clinical social work is a mental-health profession whose practitioners,
educated in social-work graduate schools and trained under supervision,
master a distinctive body of knowledge and skill in order to assess,
diagnose, and ameliorate problems, disorders, and conditions that
interfere with healthy bio-psychosocial functioning of people—individuals,
couples, families, groups—of all ages and backgrounds.
back to top
How does the Center compare to other national
social work associations?
The Center focuses solely on clinical social work, its
special issues, its practitioners in all settings, and its needs
as a profession, including advocacy with public and private sectors.
It is creating a national network of colleague organizations and
is playing a national role in the marketplace and among policy-makers.
Other organizations may focus on the field of social work, or
on clinical social work at the state level, but no other national
organization has clinical social work as its sole focus in combination
with national board-certification, national advocacy, and a national
constituency.
back to top
What is the Center’s Bill of Rights
for Clinical Social Workers?
The Bill of Rights is a distillation of
the Center’s principles and capabilities: through it, the
Center’s members may see how the Center can help them secure
their rights to practice as professionals.
back to top
What are the Center membership benefits?
The Center offers beneficial programs like a bill of rights, advocacy,
education, marketing, and discounted goods and services, all aimed
at improving the status of clinical social workers and the profession
itself. The benefits of membership are:
- Partnership with a powerful national professional organization
- A Bill of Rights for Clinical Social Workers
- Advocacy for you personally—pay, career advancement,
recognition as professional
- Discounts for you of $150-plus on goods and services
- Self-promotion kit (coming soon)
- State and regional interventions with regulators, employers,
payors
- Access to CE activities
- Access to job-postings
- Newsletter
- Access to position statements on practice topics
- Strengthened professional identity, connections, and voice
The Center offers members-only discounts for publications, continuing
education, legal services, office furnishings, and other goods
and services of professional and personal benefit.
back to top
What are some of the discounted goods and
services?
The discounted goods and services will be available to its members
within months of their joining. They include special members-only
discounts with publishers, continuing education, legal services,
office furnishings, and other goods and services of professional
and personal benefit. All told, they amount to a value of more
than $150 per year.
back to top
What issues does the Center address?
The Center’s agenda is embodied in its Bill
of Rights for clinical social workers at each level of professional
development, from graduate school to advanced practice. The Center
works to promote and defend those rights, to educate the marketplace
and intervene when necessary, to conduct and encourage research,
to take positions, and foster cooperation needed for success.
- Recognition for clinical social work as a respected profession
- Federal- and national-level representation and advocacy
- Reform of practice scopes of state laws to achieve national
professional level
- Standard-setting and certifications (ABE)
- Court briefs, lawsuits
- Interventions with regulators, insurance companies, employers
- Position statements on practice issues
- Collaboration with other organizations
- Need for improvement in graduate education
- Scholarships for graduate students
- Increased funding of SW research
- Identifying best practices
back to top
How does the Center conduct education and
interventions?
The Center has a fulltime staff, including specialists available
for consultations about any issue that affects the Center’s
members professionally. Building on the traditions of the American
Board of Examiners, the Center intervenes with courts, agencies,
federal and state regulators, legislatures, Congress, insurance
companies, competitors in other professional disciplines, and
any entity that needs a better understanding of the value and
rights of clinical social workers.
back to top |
|
