We need more social workers to help families

Mark Nichols, Henderson

Thursday, April 28, 2011 | 2:02 a.m.

The governor’s proposed budget cuts are contrary to the interests of Nevada’s working families. It seems impossible for Gov. Brian Sandoval to lead Nevada out of our painful recession when his budget perpetuates an undereducated workforce.

A contributing factor to Nevada’s social condition is the lack of social workers. Nevada’s social workers serve our working families when change and challenge negatively affect their lives. They are on the front lines with extremely limited resources protecting our children, elderly and vulnerable populations.

Nevada needs more social workers and the governor’s budget will be doing harm to working families.

Nationally, there are 640,000 social workers or 207 for every 100,000 people.

Similar-sized Kansas, with 2.82 million, has more than 6,300 social workers, or 225 for each 100,000 residents. Idaho has 1.55 million residents and 3,200 social workers, or 208.6 per 100,000.

Nevada, with our 2.64 million residents, only has 2,311 licensed social workers. That is a mere 87.5 per 100,000, the most extreme shortage in the nation.

Similarly, Nevada has the most extreme shortage of social work education programs in the nation. We currently have two bachelor and two master’s programs.

Similar-size states average more than twice as many accredited social work programs. If this underfunded higher education budget is approved and the bachelor of social work program at UNLV is eliminated, only Wyoming would have fewer social work education programs.

Again, Nevada needs more social workers and eliminating any of our social work education programs will hurt the working families and vulnerable Nevadans.

The writer is the executive director of the National Association of Social Workers, Nevada chapter. He also is a graduate school student in social work at UNLV.