I  have to believ that the Virginia Board of Social Work has not intentionally created a large and growing pool of licensed, available, highly trained and educated social orkers who are prevented from working in the Commonwealth.  Surely the Board is both eager to uphold the standards and etehics of the social work profession and to provide a pool of highly-qualfied social workers which are sorely needed.

Instead, the Board ofSocial Work has created a choke-hold on the widely accepted licensure by endorsement.  It is clear that the Board is willing to further jeoparadize the already l imited access to mental health services by Virginians.

Graduate social work licensure standards which rest upon educated at an accredited graduate school of social work, hands-on training, endorsement by their clinical supervisors and successful completion of the licensing examination are considered the 'gold standarad' for social work practitioners.  Yet Virginia's Board says that it will not accept licensure by endorsement from other states if that individual has temporarily interrupted their practice by a "time out" for baby card, military serice, or other such  needs.

In such cases in similar professions, the widely accepted practice is to accept otherwise highly qualified social workers once they have completed the requisite continuing education units to update licensuire.

As a clergyperson and a pastor concerned about human needs for help and healing, I urge the Board to make a course correction and to rewrite the licensing reequirements to bring them into conformity with best practices nationally and to thereby allow access to quality mental health services by Virginia residents.