The current degree/experience requirement for Family Services Occupational Group is much too restrictive.  The requirement of having a four year degree from an accredited college is certainly reasonable, but restricting the type of degree and/or experience to "human services related" has severely limited our ability to recruit qualified individuals to fill our staffing needs.  When a local Department of Social Services (LDSS) agency cannot offer an interview to a teacher, law enforcement officer, or even a LDSS employee who works in Benefit Programs because they have the wrong degree and their experience isn't considered "human services", but we can offer an interview to person who just graduated college with a degree in a "human services" field with no applicable experience, there is something wrong.  

I would recommend that the Department leave the requirement for a four year degree in place, but remove the limits on the type of degree and definitely remove the human services experience requirement. This will help the LDSS agencies in recruitment and hopefully help alleviate turnover. 

Thank you.

The current requirement of possessing a human service degree and/or human service field experience limits potential qualifed applicants.  The requirements for consideration of these applicants should only specify a bachelor's degree in order to expand the number of potential candidates for these local positions.  

As a Director of one of the many LDSS that have struggled recruiting quality FSS, believe I can safely say that something needs to change. The two-pronged solution......to me.......is fairly siimple. Well, at least simple to type. 

We need to expand our interview pools, while also attracting a higher quality applicant. 

To expand our interview pools.......we must loosen the restrictions. I believe we should modify the degree requirement to simply be "any BA/BS Degree", and do away with any human services related experience requirements. (For agencies that actually do need to narrow their interview pools, they could include preferred requirements of a human services degree and/or human services experience. Everyone wins.)

To attract a higher quality applicant............FSS Salaries should be addressed in a meaningful manner. Our workers are our foundation. The best training, systems, and policies will not help if our foundation is not strong. 

Sincerely,

Trevor Hensley

In order to increase the applicant pool the degree requirement should be expanded to include degrees in Education and Social Science just to name a few.  The current degree requirement is very limiting and makes it very difficult to attract candidates.  I believe broadening the degree areas would strengthen the applicant pool.

Edna Davenport