BILL NUMBER: S8597

SPONSOR: BROUK
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the mental hygiene law, in relation to establishing a
social worker residency pilot program; and providing for the repeal of
such provisions upon expiration thereof

 
PURPOSE GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

Section 1 of the bill requires the commissioner of mental health to
establish up to three 3-year Social Worker Residency pilot programs in
community behavioral health organizations.

Requires the pilot program to provide supervised postgraduate clinical
social work experience as required pursuant to Section 7704 of Article
154 of Education Law at no cost to the resident.

The bill authorizes the commissioner to develop and establish all other
standards applicable to the program, including evaluation criteria.

The evaluation criteria for the pilot program shall at least include:
              

a. any improved ability for community behavioral health organizations to
recruit newly licensed clinical social workers as part of the pilot
program;

b. substantive focus of the pilot program training on Evidence Based
Models meaning scientific models with track records of clinical success;

c. the pilot program providing continuing education for participating
social workers of at least one day per week;

d. the pilot program providing clinical supervision hours for the social
work graduates, which count towards licenses that increase their scope
of practice;

e. the percentage of the pilot program participants who achieve a full
Licensed Clinical Social Worker license; and

f. the average length of employment for licensed clinical social workers
employed with community behavioral health organizations hosting the
social worker residency pilot program.

Section 2 of the bill establishes the effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

A highly skilled and adequately sized workforce is complementary to and
necessary for the success of the State's investments in increased behav-
ioral health capacity. Most trained therapists who serve Medicaid popu-
lations in the context of a Medicaid mental or behavioral health clinic
are Licensed Social Workers who are typically expected to serve a
patient panel of at least twenty clients that often have complex presen-
tations that are a blend of medical, behavioral, and social needs. This
is a daunting prospect that can discourage newly graduated social work-
ers from taking positions at community-based agencies who serve under-
served and vulnerable populations. Additionally, community-based agen-
cies are competing for social workers with venture backed for-profit
providers and the rapid growth of telehealth as a modality for mental
health services which has further incentivized practitioners to focus
more on private practice serving commercially insured patients.

One solution to stabilize community-based behavioral health services and
address the workforce crisis is to create a postgraduate clinical train-
ing program offering fellowships for Licensed Social Workers through a
residency program. This initiative would not seek to establish new post-
graduate training requirements that might limit the number of people
eligible to provide care; rather, it would facilitate workforce growth
by offering more advanced training opportunities and creating a pipeline
of therapists who have experience providing therapy to complex popu-
lations. This pilot program would fund only one day a week of training
for residents while they perform Medicaid reimbursable counseling for
the other four days of employment. The Jewish Board of Family and Chil-
dren's services has a program model that has been successful and popular
among its social workers.

In comparison to behavioral health professionals, both the Federal
government and the State support the training of medical professionals
through various initiatives, including enhanced payments to hospitals
and federally qualified health centers for graduate medical education
(GME) and scholarship opportunities such as the Nurses for Our Future
program and the Diversity in Medicine Scholarship program. GME funding
alone for New York State is $1.9 billion.

All social worker residency program participants would be given full-
time salaried opportunities with a placement in a clinical setting for
social workers who are already licensed. As such, the program would
offer a supportive pathway into clinical practice for recent graduates,
practitioners transitioning between settings and others who wish to
develop competency in delivering care utilizing evidence-based practice
models.

Within this framework, the State has the opportunity to set parameters
for social worker residency programs, including establishing measurable
outcomes, setting standards for wages within the programs and identify-
ing areas of focus around the structure and content of the programs. A
State-led establishment of postgraduate social work opportunities would
help expand New York's long-term capacity and create a national model
for investment into advancing behavioral health care, while providing
additional support for an increasingly racially and ethnically diverse
profession that is mostly comprised of women working with vulnerable
populations.

Social workers are crucial to the mental health crisis throughout New
York State and provide a continuum of care especially required for
complex cases. If effective, this pilot could be used as a scalable
model to be replicated in hospitals or educational institutions of
social work.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

This is a new bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS; .UP OFF;

THIS BILL IS SUBJECT TO AN APPROPRIATION.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Effectively immediately and shall be deemed repealed six years after
enactment.