Regulation

Bridge boundaries of social work regulation

Increase consistency of regulation across jurisdictions

• ASWB Member Services publishes “Social work electronic practice policies and regulations,” which identifies how ASWB member jurisdictions are managing the mandate for public protection with growing trends for telehealth and social work electronic services (electronic practice/e-practice). The information was compiled from input submitted by ASWB members as well as a review of social work regulations and policies in the 64 jurisdictions that are ASWB members.
• Regulatory research was conducted on behalf of member boards and stakeholder organizations on a variety of topics during the year, including review of legislation to match licensure categories to model law in Delaware; supervision requirements to students and licensees; and research for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Develop processes to verify continued competence across jurisdictions

• Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program approved 35 new providers and renewed 69 established providers of high-quality continuing education courses for social workers. In 2016, ASWB had approved 202 CE providers, who published 2,872 courses on the ACE Search database. A total of 48 jurisdictions accepted ACE in 2016.
• New Jersey Course Approval Program approved 426 new courses and renewed 37 in 2016.
• ASWB began publishing a quarterly continuing competence newsletter that is distributed to social work continuing education providers approved by ASWB’s ACE program or providers that have courses approved through the New Jersey Course Approval Program.
• The sixth practice analysis in the history of ASWB got under way. The practice analysis was conducted to ensure the exams reflect current social work practice. The job analysis survey was sent to 200,000 social workers in the U.S. and 20,000 in Canada, resulting in development of new blueprints that are approved by the ASWB Board of Directors for release in January 2018.