One Last Licensure Update Before the New Year

SOCIAL WORK LICENSURE MODERNIZATION ACT

As you know, the House Behavioral Health subcommittee held a hearing for HBs 5184-85 on November 9th and then the legislature adjourned for the year later that day. Therefore, the bills are still in committee and have not been voted on.

We do not anticipate updates on these bills until later in January 2024.

We encourage you to email members of the House Behavioral Health subcommittee and thank them for the hearing.

In addition to thanking them, you can discuss some of these points as well as adding your own personal story.

There is no evidence to indicate that the ASWB exams are able to serve their intended function of differentiating social workers who are able to practice safely and ethically from those who are not. For over a decade, social work researchers have been raising validity concerns about the exams and ASWB has done nothing.

The only assurances that the exam is valid come from the ASWB itself. This demand to trust without the ability to independently verify needs to be considered in light of the organization’s obvious conflict of interest. As the developer and seller of the exam, ASWB has a clear profit motive to affirm the exam’s legitimacy. And the numbers help to tell the story - in their most recently filed 990, ASWB indicates combined profits of over $9 million in calendar years 2021 and 2022.

Michigan has strong systems already in place that ensure competency, including having the highest number of post-graduate supervised hours needed before becoming clinically licensed. 

What truly maintains the safety and level of competency in clinical social work is our education, supervision, and postgraduate training. A standardized test does not ensure anything, aside from how well someone took a test. Our programs, placements, jobs, supervisors, and licensing boards hold us accountable.

We will update the main licensure changes page if there are any changes.

Lt. Governor Gilchrist Signs Bipartisan Bills Reforming Michigan’s Juvenile Justice System

Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist signed first of its kind, bipartisan legislation transforming Michigan’s juvenile justice system and investing in diversion and re-entry services to better position Michigan’s youth for successful adulthoods. 

In 2021, Governor Whitmer established the Michigan Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform, which brought together advocates, former justice-involved youth, and law enforcement. The Task Force’s report found that in 2019, nearly half of all cases initiated in juvenile court in Michigan were for repeatedly missing school or property crimes. In many of these cases, offenders were detained or incarcerated. Over 60 percent of youth placed in detention committed a status (truancy, curfew violations, running away) or a misdemeanor offense. A patchwork of different standards and available resources created inconsistencies across Michigan’s youth justice system. 

This package implements many of the Task Force’s 32 data-driven recommendations. Some of them are as follows.

Diversion - HBs 4625-29 connect youth with resources by allowing juvenile courts and law enforcement to use risk and mental health screening tools to be more flexible about whether to keep a juvenile out of detention or court and keeping them in diversion programs

Fees - HBs 4636-37 lower costs for families of juvenile defendants by removing burdensome fees and costs

You can read more about the package here. https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/news/press-releases/2023/12/12/gilchrist-signs-bipartisan-bills-reforming-michigans-juvenile-justice-system