Alternative Pathways to Social Work Licensure: A Critical Review and Social Equity Policy Analysis

ABSTRACT

Purpose

In August 2022, the Association of Social Work Boards released a long called for pass rate analysis that revealed significant disparities. While many states look to cease the requirement of the Bachelors, Masters, and Advanced Generalist exams in their licensure process, status quo bias leads to hesitancy to remove the requirement of the Clinical exam.

Method

A critical review was undertaken to identify possible alternatives to the current multiple-choice competency-based exam which yielded three assessment formats (oral exams, portfolios, and performance assessment/simulations) and two alternatives (jurisprudence exams and provisional licensure). Informed by an Afrocentric lens, we undertook a social and racial policy analysis to examine alternative pathways for licensure from the perspective of a social work board member. We centered our analysis on the impacts on (1) Black social workers, who currently have the highest pass-rate disparities; (2) social workers whose primary language is not English, and (3) social workers with disabilities who have anecdotally reported difficulty with getting testing accommodations. We rated each alternative on four social equity analysis criteria of procedural fairness, access, quality, and outcomes. These ratings were computed into an overall rating for each alternative from equitable to inequitable.

Results

We found jurisprudence exams and provisional licensure have the best possibility of being equitable pathways to licensure, with potential impacts on the regulation of supervision and continuing education.

Conclusion

Anti-racism and social justice as praxis require social work as a profession to divest from competency-based testing to eliminate racism in our own professional policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work licensure
• competency-based exams
• standardized exams
• social and racial equity
• policy analysis

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the #StopASWB group for their contributions and community which helped birth this analysis.

Disclosure statement

The author(s) report they are all active in advocacy work in this area. We have no financial conflicts of interest related to this manuscript.

Notes

1. The 12 grand challenges were initially developed in 2013 and while ending racism was proposed, it was not initially selected. In 2019 the grand challenges report suggested that addressing racism and injustice existed throughout the grand challenges. In 2020, it was announced that a 13^th grand challenge of eliminating racism would be added as the previous commitment statement was not strong enough or specific enough: https://grandchallengesforsocialwork.org/grand-challenges-for-social-work/announcing-the-grand-challenge-to-eliminate-racism/

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.