September 13, 2019
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) (
https://www.socialworkers.org/) is the largest membership organization of professional social workers in the world, with more than 120,000members. NASW works to enhance the professional growth and development of its members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies.
Social work practice in behavioral health promotes well-being through by assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental illness, substance use, and other addictions. More and more, mental health professional are categorized as “therapists” as we have seen in recent articles and reports, which has significant implications for the professional identity of specific workforce groups like psychiatrists and clinical mental health counselors. We will explore this area, as well as how we can work together on strategic policy and program initiatives in light of the Presidential election cycle.We can also explore opportunities to work together on overarching areas on improving access and delivery or care.
Next StepsWe mentioned that we want to work with NASW other organizations to reframe our overall messaging so that policymakers recognize the value proposition that behavioral health stakeholders offer to our communities. Otherwise, our resources and messages will be scattered and not effective. This activity could provide an opportunity on how NASW and AMHCA could work together in informing voters--through special tool kits--on the behavioral health issues over the next year leading up to the Presidential Election.
As a follow up to our discussion, we are going to explore potential ways where we could collaborate. Some of the topics we discussed included:
- Facilitating a Conference Call Meeting between NASW’s and AMHCA’s Executive Committees to explore potential bridge-building strategies and durable partnerships
- As part of that discussion, we would like to exchange ideas on state licensure portability and endorsement issues and how we could potentially address our respective member’s needs.
- We would like to continue to explore how clinical mental health counselors could participate in NASW’s Insurance Programs across the many products that NASW offers.
- Examine potential support by NASW on the Medicare Mental Health AccessImprovement Act which would allow mental health counselors to gain reimbursement for services rendered to Medicare beneficiaries.Anything you can do on that front to facilitate a conversation within NASW would be greatly appreciated.
We also would like to explore the potential for sharing and posting respective content on our websites, offering complimentary exhibit space at our respective conferences or related events, and sharing other resources that could address the mission and needs of each organization.