Clinical social work Archives - Page 8 of 9

NLRB: Private university teaching and research assistants can unionize

August 25, 2016August 25, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

The National Labor Relations Board declared this week that student assistants at private universities are employees and have the right to unionize. The decision overturned a 2004 precedent. It will allow thousands of teaching and research assistants to use collective bargaining to demand better pay and working conditions.

License portability: Where the professions stand

August 15, 2016August 15, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

Since the qualifications for each of the psychotherapy professions is largely consistent across state lines, it makes sense for the professions to do what they can to make it easier to take your license from one state to another. In recent months, there have been a handful of advances in license portability. Here’s where each of the professions stands today.

What to do with exam prep material after you pass

April 12, 2016April 12, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

Over the past months, a number of readers have privately, and very kindly, asked whether I would be okay with them selling their used copies of my exam prep book, Preparing for the California MFT Law & Ethics Exam, once they’re done with it. In short, I am. But selling isn’t your only option for using test prep materials after you have passed the test you bought them for. And there are a couple of options you shouldn’t take. Let’s run down the list of what you can and can’t do with used exam prep materials.

Five wrong things therapists say about law & ethics

March 7, 2018March 29, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

I am part of several online groups for psychotherapists, on Facebook and elsewhere. We talk about ethics, about theories, and sometimes about cases (without identifying details, of course, to protect confidentiality). Most of the time, when people say something that isn’t right, the collective wisdom of the group corrects the error. That’s one of many positives of social media: It allows professionals all over the world to share information and hold each other to high standards of knowledge and behavior.

Sometimes, though, a myth or misstatement is so common that the collective doesn’t effectively stop it. Here are the five misstatements about legal and ethical issues that I see most often from therapists.

Proposed Massachusetts law would give therapists collective bargaining

May 5, 2016March 8, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

The so-called “gig economy” — best exemplified by ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft — has brought political attention to the plight of workers who are hired as independent contractors rather than employees. As independent contractors, these workers typically have no ability to engage in collective bargaining, often receive little or no benefits, and have limited workplace protections. The attention they are receiving might end up helping therapists and counselors who take insurance — or who would, if the pay and benefits were better. It could also help clients by improving accessibility of care.

APA torture loophole is in other ethics codes too

July 13, 2015July 13, 2015 by Ben Caldwell

The American Psychological Association apologized on Friday for its actions that allowed psychologists to participate in the torture of military detainees. Those actions are detailed in the extensive “Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture” (otherwise known simply as the Hoffman report). It is the most thorough examination to date of how APA staffers, aiming to remain in the good graces of the Central Intelligence Agency and (especially) the Department of Defense, actively sought to create ethics policies that allowed psychologists to be involved with torture and shielded them from consequences for doing so.

Licensing exams get a failing grade

July 11, 2017June 9, 2015 by Ben Caldwell

Note: The following is an edited excerpt from Saving Psychotherapy: How therapists can bring the talking cure back from the brink. You can buy it on Amazon.

Licensing exams do not assess your effectiveness as a therapist. They aren’t meant to. That bears repeating: License exams do not assess your effectiveness as a therapist. They are a licensing board’s best effort at assessing whether you have the minimal knowledge (not skill, knowledge) to be able to practice independently without being a danger to the public. That’s all. When therapists decry the fact that license exams are nothing like doing therapy, they’re right – and their point isn’t relevant. Exams aren’t supposed to be like therapy. If you want to know how good you are as a therapist, look elsewhere, because exams are not and are not intended to be a barometer of clinical effectiveness. They are a somewhat crude assessment of safety for independent practice.

With that aim in mind, do they work? Do licensing exams make therapists safer?

There’s remarkably little data to answer that question.

What Indiana’s religious freedom law means for therapists

April 2, 2015March 31, 2015 by Ben Caldwell

Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed into law by Governor Mike Pence last week, has raised a great deal of controversy. In the psychotherapy community, the law could have an immediate impact in the form of professional events and conferences moving out of the state. In the longer term, the bill is likely to impact training and practice by making it harder for universities and licensing boards to discipline discriminatory behavior.