Senate Bill 1604 is a powerfully basic establishment of two critical programs that address the shortage of qualified social work professional across Illinois by providing a stipend for school social work internship and grants to higher education institutions to support social work field placement. It is up to us to make sure it passes. Our elected officials need to be held accountable to working for the people who elected them to office and not only for their own special interest. Senate Bill 1604 is in the best interest of the general public now and in the future.
Currently there is a shortage of behavioral health workers across the country. The need for behavioral health workers has increased. Social workers are needed in the schools especially in vulnerable populations. There are at lease 200 open school social work positions across the state of Illinois. This means valuable services and interventions are not being utilized because the positions are vacant. Harming our most valuable future commodity -our children. The aging population and the opioid epidemic are areas I which social workers are needed desperately to assist older persons by providing interventions, mental health counseling and serving as a resource liaison. Mental health services provided by social workers can have a gamet of specialties including substance use counseling. The homeless and the incarcerated are areas in which the demand for social workers is heavy and increasing.
Social workers have a shortage due to the high educational requirements, lack of funding or incentives for workers in rural areas, significant professional demands and complex challenges. Senate Bill 1604 will address financial barriers to the educational attainment as well as the shortage of workers which will help with some of the professional demands and challenges. Currently students have to complete 400 hours of field placement or internship. That must be done while paying for the class that requires the field placement. Often these field placement are unpaid. Most students are working to help fund school and non traditional students like me have to work full time while attending classes part time. Will I need to reduce my paying job hours to get the field placement hours I need? That is the dilemma many students find themselves in. Paying to learn on a job that would normally have someone being paid to due. It is an unfair barrier to attaining soil work degrees and certifications.
Some will argue that there is no money in the budget. I say to those arguments that we either find the money now to get qualified professionals in place where they are needed or we pay later with the results of not having qualified social workers who serve as mental and behavioral health professionals as well as caring for our most vulnerable populations, the elderly and poor, and our greatest assets for our future-our children in schools who can thrive and be successful with proper interventions from school age instead of later mental health or incarceration or being non productive members of society. The choice is ours pay now for better mental health services or pay later for more emergency room visits, hospital stays, homelessness, substance abuse, crime and incarceration.
Fight for our future communities now by raising your voices. Call your state senator. Email your representative. Talk about this bill. Post on social media about what is going on. Demand a government that works for all of us in this great state of Illinois. You can find your elected officials here https://www.elections.il.gov/electionoperations/districtlocator/districtofficialsearchbyaddress.aspx. Let them know that you support SB 1604. Please pass it. Our students, children and communities deserve better.