Proposed Legislation Will Remedy Flawed Social Worker Waiver System

In March the Coalition, along with dozens of non-profits from across the state joined together to demand a change in a law that makes it a felony for a non-profit to hire a licensed social worker without a waiver.

Today, we stood with other children’s camp supporters, human services organizations, and lawmakers to urge passage of new legislation that would remedy this senseless and potentially harmful policy.

From today's Press Release:

Both the law and the manner in which it has been interpreted and implemented by the State Education Department have left many organizations with a number of unacceptable choices:

• Dismiss valued professional staff who serve the children at summer camps and provide vital social work services in communities across the state – and close these vital programs;

• Continue to employ them at risk of being accused of a Class E felony;

• Sign a waiver application that may contain unavoidable false statements;

• Sign an application containing the private home telephone numbers and addresses of volunteer board members even though the statute does not require this and it may present safety concerns;
• Ask volunteer board members – for each board on which they serve – to write detailed letters and provide decades-old court documents from even the most minor past offenses such as civil disobedience or petty crimes of their youth.

“As a community based non-profit organization serving 3,500 homeless people each day through a dozen programs, Coalition for the Homeless is committed to providing the highest quality services for our clients, and assuring that other organizations are able to do the same,” said Shelly Nortz, Deputy Executive Director for Policy. “Government can do better than this, and we are so grateful to our bill sponsors for recognizing and advancing a “win-win” solution for our valued employees and the clients they serve,” said Ms. Nortz.

You can read the Coalition’s April 26, 2012 Memorandum of Support for the bill here.