SOCIAL WORKERS IN and outside of Massachusetts could see clients across state lines more easily under a policy senators embedded within the chamber’s economic development package.
The Senate adopted a Sen. Robyn Kennedy amendment to the policy-heavy $575 million economic development bill (S 3178, as amended) that would pave the way for Massachusetts to join a multistate social worker licensure compact.
“It is critical that we support the social work workforce in our state to give them all the tools they need to operate here while also ensuring clients are protected and can continue care with providers they trust,” Kennedy said on the Senate floor.
The proposal is meant to improve an individual’s access to care when cross state lines. Qualified social workers would also face fewer financial and administrative burdens associated with acquiring licenses to practice in other states. Social workers with a multistate compact license would be able to practice in other jurisdictions that are part of the compact. And the multistate license goes both ways: those in other states that are part of the compact could treat patients who relocated to Massachusetts.
Currently, social workers have to apply for an additional license in the state where their client has relocated to in order to continue seeing them. It’s often an expensive and lengthy process, which Kennedy said puts vulnerable clients at risk of losing continual access to care they need, particularly those who move out of state for college, or patients from other states undergoing medical treatments in Massachusetts. Members of the military, and their family, who frequently move can also benefit from the uninterrupted access to care the compact intends to support.
“That continuity of care is just really what’s at the core of this to be able to say ‘you can continue, you know, if you’re having a an episode or if you’re having, you experience a stressor and you want to be able to have a conversation with your clinician, you should be able to do that,'” Kennedy told the News Service.
Kennedy said 30 other states, including the other New England states, have joined the compact.
The amendment’s language is similar to legislation Kennedy and Rep. James O’Day filed (S 252 / H 380). Kennedy’s bill has been pending in the Senate Ways and Means Committee since November. The Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure advanced a redrafted version (H 5272) of O’Day’s bill that has been in the House Ways and Means Committee since March.
The Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, which has more than 6,000 members, supports the Bay State joining the compact. During a September committee hearing on the legislation Rebekah Gewirtz, the group’s executive director, said the organization has heard from “so many” members who want Massachusetts to join the compact.
Gewirtz said that Massachusetts joining the compact can help fill in gaps in access to care created by shortage of behavioral health workers.
“There’s a real recognition across the field, across [National Association of Social Workers], across social workers at large that this is a problem when people can’t gain access or maintain access to the people who are helping them and supporting them in their lives,” Gewirtz told the News Service.
Social workers can offer almost identical one-on-one counseling as a psychologist, Gerwirtz said. Social workers usually focus more on factors in a client’s broader environment like housing and financial challenges that may contribute to them seeking care. Meanwhile, psychologists hone in on someone’s clinical mental health diagnosis. Still, not all social workers focus on therapy as some also connect people with community resources they may need.
Senators also adopted an amendment from Sen. Cindy Creem allowing Massachusetts to enter a psychology interjurisdictional compact, which also seeks to provide patients with consistent access to care and address similar issues as the social worker compact. An adopted Sen. Sal DiDomenico amendment would include Massachusetts in the physical therapy interstate licensure compact.
If enacted, social worker compact licenses won’t be available right away. Kennedy said a commission made up of representatives from other states that have adopted the compact is still meeting to finalize the compact’s terms and is expected to do so in the coming months.
Massachusetts joined the nurse licensure compact under the Legislature’s 2024 economic development bill. Activating that compact in Massachusetts has been stalled in the face of delays of getting required criminal background checks because of backlogs at the Federal Bureau of Investigations, according to a July 20 newsletter from the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association. The association and the Organization of Nurse Leaders – New England wrote a letter to the Bay State’s congressional delegation asking them to back legislation that would streamline the federal criminal background check process.
A provision enacting the social worker licensure compact was included in the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies’ version of the economic development bill. The Joint Committee on Ways and Means cut the language from its redraft of the bill. Representatives did not include an amendment from O’Day enabling Massachusetts to join the compact in the House’s economic development bill (H 5576).
The policy is in play as both chambers’ economic development packages are destined for a conference committee where negotiators are tasked with finding common ground on the policies and spending senators and representatives have proposed.
