Public Health Committee
March 9, 2020
Submitted By: Stephen Wanczyk-Karp, LMSW
The National Association of Social Workers, CT Chapter representing over 2,400 members statewide, supports section 41 of H.B. 5417. This section will increase the number of home study/online continuing education hours that licensed social workers can attain for license renewal. The current maximum is 6 hours and the new maximum under this bill is 10 hours.
A review of other states found that 32 states allow more hours of online training (as a percentage of required hours) than CT does. The CT percentage is 40% that is also the percentage in Maine. If CT increases the hours to 10 of the 15 total required hours our state will be at 66% that is slightly above the median for most states.
Given the wide range of online continuing education programs available to social workers, the accessibility of such programs, and the reasonable costs of most online education, this increase in hours will advantage CT’s licensed social workers, of which there are over 10,000 licensees.
We thank the Public Health Committee for including in H.B. 5417 this increase in home study/online continuing education hours.
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