Our Future Is Formed By Today's Choices

 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.

The Future of Social Work: Supporting SB1604

Starting and completing a college education is not an easy feat, and this is especially true for social work students here in Illinois. As a social work student myself, I have seen the stress that trying to finish an undergraduate degree can cause. As a requirement to complete a social work degree, the student will normally finish around 400-420 hours of work in a field placement. A field placement means that the student will be working in an agency under the supervision of a fully qualified professional. This adds up to around 30 hours a week of work. However, it is important to note that all of this work is unpaid. On top of the 400 hours of unpaid work, the student will also have to pay the tuition for the actual fieldwork class. In many of my classes, I have classmates who are non-traditional students going back for a degree who already work full-time jobs and have families to support. Unfortunately, for them to be able to finish their education, they will have to put their paid work on the back burner for their field placement. Whether this means completely quitting a job or simply cutting the hours spent at work, a great amount of income will be lost while the student completes their field placement. For families who completely depend on their income, they will be struggling financially for months until they can return to work. 

There is a solution to this ongoing issue of getting more students to finish their social work degree. The solution is Senate Bill 1604. This bill states that schools can apply for grants to give their students stipends to cover tuition and the cost of their work. This would greatly help in the field of social work, as it would allow more students to comfortably finish their education without having to sacrifice financial resources. Not only would this bill allow more students to finish their education, but it would also make the field of social work more appealing to the masses. As of now, there is a severe shortage of social workers across almost every specialty. There is a great need for school social workers, as our state is seeing a deficit of jobs that we cannot seem to fill. Our schools are struggling, and having more school social workers will help our children and their futures. This will also provide more workers in the much-needed and vast growing fields of mental healthcare and senior healthcare. Many students will turn away from the field of social work when looking for an occupation simply because of the sheer commitment it takes to complete the degree. Having to finish 400 hours as an unpaid internship is a great barrier that is in the way of allowing the field of social work to flourish. By supporting Senate Bill 1604, you will be supporting the quality of life of future generations. 

Letter to Governor asking for increased spending on financial aid to college students

 Governor J.B. Pritzker

Office of the Governor
207 State House
Springfield, IL 62706

Dear Governor Pritzker,

I hope this letter finds you well. My name is [Student Name], and I am a student at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS). I am writing to express my concern about the recent Executive Order proposing cuts to financial aid for Illinois students, which will directly impact my ability to continue my education.

I understand that financial decisions are often difficult and that budget constraints must be considered. However, I urge you to reconsider these cuts, as they will have a significant negative impact on students like myself and our communities. 

Here are a few points I ask you to consider:

• Impact on Low-Income Students: Many students, including myself, rely on financial aid to pursue their education. Cuts to financial aid will disproportionately affect low-income students, preventing them from attending college and stifling their potential.
• Increased Student Debt: With fewer financial aid options, students will have no choice but to take on more debt, which will create long-term financial burdens. This will make it even harder for us to contribute to the state’s economy after graduation.
• Impact on Workforce Development: Illinois has a vested interest in producing a highly educated workforce. Cutting financial aid will reduce access to higher education, ultimately impacting the state’s competitiveness in industries that rely on skilled labor.
• Community Impact: Many students come from communities that already face challenges. Financial aid is often the only thing that allows students to break the cycle of poverty and give it back to their communities. The cuts would not only harm the individuals affected but also hurt the communities they would otherwise help to uplift.

As a student and future contributor to Illinois’ workforce, I strongly believe that investing in education is essential to building a stronger, more prosperous state. While I understand the need for fiscal responsibility, I urge you to consider the long-term economic benefits of a more educated population, which ultimately pays dividends for the state. By cutting financial aid, we risk creating a less educated workforce that is unable to contribute effectively to the state’s economy.

I appreciate your time and consideration of my request, and I hope you will reconsider the proposed cuts to financial aid. Thank you for your service to the people of Illinois, and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
[Student Name]
University of Illinois Springfield

It is a well-crafted letter to the Governor.  

I think it would have been better to specify whether you were concerned that cuts to federal financial aid would harm Illinois college students, and you were asking the governor to increase state funding to replace the lost federal funding, or whether the Governor had announced cuts to financial assistance to Illinois students, and you were asking the governor to reconsider this budget allocation decision. Your use of “Executive Order” suggests to me that you are referring to a presidential cut to student financial aid, in which case you ought to have made some sort of a suggestion that Illinois needs to provide a counter-example to what is happening at the federal level   Aside from that, let me focus on the many things these letter does well.

I like how you politely acknowledge why the Governor might not follow your advice.  You write that you understand the need for fiscal responsibility, which shows that you have empathy for the position of your audience.  Also, you directly address this objection by making an argument that the long-term benefits of financial aid for college students will be greater than the cost of providing financial aid. This is actually fairly well-supported by research.  Funding for transportation infrastructure, higher education, K-12 education, and prevention (preventing STDs, violence, crime, unwanted pregnancies, substance use disorders and addiction, etc.) are all the sort of government spending that brings in cost-savings in the long-run. 

I think it is generally a good move to provide a bulleted list of points in favor of whatever you are advocating. The points should be brief and convincing, and this is true of the four points you provide in your list.

You make an argument about fairness, but you are not explicit in your case.  Yes, it is wrong that a cut in financial assistance will disproportionately harm students from lower-income households.  Why is that wrong?  There are three points you could make.  Education should be available for everyone to pursue their potential as far as they can, and their financial means should not determine how far they go in their education—only their ability or interest should limit their educational progress.  That is one assumption (one shared in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) about access to education.  And another point regards the purpose of public higher education in a democracy.  That is, public higher education is a tool in a democracy for persons from lower incomes to receive the training and expertise that will help them enjoy upward mobility and a move into an adulthood with higher incomes.  That is, public higher education allows for a meritocracy where individual merit, rather than individual wealth, will be the primary determination of how much income a person earns.  The governor to whom you have written is a person who has enjoyed inherited wealth, and has a demonstrated sense of obligation to create a society where other people can also rise up to wealth.  Thus, he stands in contrast to those with inherited wealth who prefer to have wealthy families keep all their wealth and create barriers to prevent the rise of new wealth out of the lower classes.  The other point is that persons with higher educations tend to earn more money and generally cost the government less in terms of welfare spending.  So, it makes good sense to educate young people from the bottom half of the income distribution so that they will earn higher incomes in their careers, pay more taxes, and be less likely to suddenly become poor and need use of the social welfare safety net during economic downturns. 

These points could have been added, but really, you already cover several good points in this letter.