Following the release of a horrifying report from the Association of Social Work Boards acknowledging significant racial disparities in license exam performance, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) has written to social work boards across the country urging them to pause the use of ASWB social work licensing exams.
ASWB
Social work exam data shows major racial disparities
On Friday, the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) released a report detailing four years of data on its various exams. The report shows that white examinees were almost twice as likely as Black examinees to pass the ASWB Clinical Exam on their first attempt. This data supports the notion that license exams are more than passive recipients of existing inequities in training, and instead actively heighten racial disparities in the mental health work force.
Studying for clinical social work licensing exams
Every clinical social worker entering the profession in the US faces the hurdle of social work licensing exams. Each state now requires an ASWB Exam, with most using the Clinical Level Exam for LCSW licensure. Typically, the exam must be taken at the completion of at least two years of full-time, supervised, post-masters experience. Many states also require some kind of Law and Ethics Exam (called Jurisprudence in some states), though this is more varied. As you approach either of these exams, how can you best prepare? Here are five things that can help:
Four myths about clinical social work licensing exams
If you’re in the process of preparing for social work licensing exams, you may be dreading them. Those fears may be based on what you’ve heard about the exams — and what you’ve heard may not be true.
I hear complaints about clinical social work licensing exams on a regular basis. Some of the complaints have merit, but most are based on mythology. It’s as if we (quite understandably) have anxiety-based associations with our testing process, past or future, and then conjure up rational-sounding but factually baseless complaints about the process in an attempt to justify those fears.