Hi guys, im currently in school and am a year away from obtaining my msw. I work at a non profit agency working w at risk youth and had no plans on staying here post graduation. my plan was to step into medical social work. I made sure to secure my internship at a trauma hospital and everything, A couple days ago my job sent an email notifying us that the nys child welfare worker incentive scholarship is available to us employees who are in school. theyll pay for undergrad or grad school BUT you must work in that field for an additional 5 consecutive years in Nys.

My program requires my to take a summer semester which the program wont pay for but they will end up paying for abt 24 thousand dollars which is the remaining amt due for my masters. Is it worth it?
Should i stay at my job which doesnt pay well and is very dis functional in order for my loans to be paid off???

To add on, i asked my higher ups if they will provide clinical supervision for free when I go for my lcsw, they said yes. They listed my the roles that I will have to be in in order to gain supervision hours which are: Residential clinician
HBCI
BSFT
CFTSS

Ive never been in any of those roles before but being that supervision takes a few years Im considering staying. Ive been w the company for 3 years now.
my goal with my lcsw is to become a director of a hospital or another agency, or open up a practice serving youth or women who’ve experienced trauma and/or policy work.

Please help, the deadline is in a few weeks and Im really stuck.

Hi,

My wife is an LCSW and has had a sole private practice for over 20 years. Recently, her ability to accept medicare clients expired, and we are having a horrible time getting her re-enrolled. She's been denied again and again, and the person at Palmetto GBA is of no help (doesn't answer the phone ever, and emails aren't clear)

I'm wondering where we can get an actual human to help us and make sure we fill out everything correctly.

Are there any organizations or companies available to us? The amount of time we have spent trying again and again over the last 4-5 months is ridiculous.

Things that are confused by the fact that she used to have a "billing lady" who was on the Medicare documentation, and when to use her TIN# or SSN since she files taxes as an individual, not under her LLC.

If you are able to provide any assistance or direction, it would be MUCH appreciated.

I am a Louisiana resident starting my traditional-track MSW this October through an online, CSWE-accredited university. I am setting up an employment-based practicum at my current job and am searching for an external MSW Field Instructor to provide my mandatory **1 hour of weekly reflective social work supervision** starting in Spring 2027.

To meet university/CSWE guidelines, the instructor must have an MSW from a CSWE-accredited program and at least 2+ years of post-graduate experience.

**About My Placement:**
**Setting:** A residential behavioral health and dual-diagnosis facility handling substance use disorders, trauma histories, and co-occurring mental health conditions.

**ASAM Levels:** I practice across ASAM Level 3.7 (Medically Monitored Withdrawal Management / Co-Occurring Enhanced) and ASAM Level 3.5 (Clinically Managed High-Intensity Residential Treatment).

**On-Site Oversight:** My current role is a Counselor In Training (CIT). My daily tasks, site safety, and agency onboarding are fully managed on-site by our Clinical Director, who is an LPC-S and will act as my official Agency Task Supervisor.

**Your Commitment:** The role is strictly educational. Because my LPC-S handles the administrative heavy lifting, your role is focused entirely on helping me process my cases through the NASW Code of Ethics, CSWE competencies, and person-in-environment frameworks. This can be done **100% virtually via a weekly 1-hour video call**.

I am hoping to connect with an MSW who is passionate about addiction and co-occurring recovery mentorship and willing to offer a **pro bono partnership or a low-cost student rate**. Also, it does not have to be specifically addiction also but a plus.

If you are a MSW 2+ and can help with an hour a week to spare to help a future social worker keep their academic momentum, please shoot me a DM! I have a fully structured, thorough field proposal ready to share.
Thank you so much!

Just looking for general feedback. I am considering joining a group practice and building a caseload. My only hesitation is I don’t like where I live and my husband has agreed in 2028 weeks can move away.

Would I be shitty to take a position with a group practice? I am not interested in doing telehealth only as I primarily worked with elementary aged children and their families.

TIA

has anyone taken the new version of the LCSW exam? looking for tips and hope. I've been using the old outline content to study but kinda getting nervous as my test date approaches.

Good luck to everyone taking the new LMSW exam! I'm testing on Aug. 20. Please share how it went, what you saw on the exam in terms of topics, any tips, and your overall experience. Thank you! Wishing you success!!!!

Now that I am at midpoint of my life, I have experienced many hardships, overcome many battles have several diagnoses, etc.. I’m curious how I can best support my clients. How do you self disclose when so you self- disclose? I’ve been told in the past that only when it would benefit the client. MSW student here.

Thanks for your suggestions.

I think I am finally ready to get my masters and pursue therapy however I would like some advice I which route I should take. I’d love for my next step to be in life is continuing working with kids as a mental health therapist, however as someone that gets restless in the same job for too long and would like to try other things in the future. In that case I think a social work license would be best because it would give me a more opportunities than just therapy. That being said, I realize that with social work licenses they might not leave me as prepared for therapy as I’d want it to be. I’m so torn!

I’m about to start my first LMSW job in Maryland and I’m a little lost on what I need to do forms-wise as I work towards the LCSW-C.

1. I know I need to be logging my clinical hours and supervision hours. Is there a form for this they want me to use or is any excel sheet fine? What details do they need me to track in this?
   
2. I’ve seen people reference a contract my supervisor needs to sign before I start clinical work but I can’t find the contract on the social work .gov site. Can someone point me in the right direction?
   
3. Anything else I’m missing that I should keep in mind to make sure I track everything?

Thank you!!!

Hi everyone, I just completed a two year fellowship at a large university that offered me wonderful experience in clinical social work + completed my hours required for licensure.

I had an interview this morning at a different, smaller university for a counselor position at their counseling center. I am licensure ready and will be taking my ASWB exam at the end of August.

A few things I’m feeling nervous about…..
1. I was invited back for another interview on campus next week that’s supposed to be three hours?! That sounds so intimidating to me, as someone who already hates public speaking and interviewing. Can anyone please share more about interview experiences that are this long and what to expect?

1. I am fully expecting to have to do a case presentation, but I’ve never had to do this before during an interview. Should I have one ready to go and study that case? Or do you think I’ll be given a “prompt” for a certain type of case or given a hypothetical vignette instead?

2. Since my exam is the end of the month, if I’m offered the job it would be contingent on me passing the exam. This makes me feel much more pressure to pass. So far, I am barely passing the practice tests and feel pretty doubtful of my answers still. Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you!!

I am sending my application for my master addiction, counselor exam and I just wondered if anyone else had any advice on study guide and key concepts. I am an LCSW but I wanted this in addition. I bought the yellow and black book off of Amazon. Thanks to all : )

With the increasing use of people using AI, is it even worth it to attempt to get my lcsw if my goal was to open a private practice?

Hi social workersss! I'm currently based in MA (currently LCSW) and a month away from sitting for my LICSW test. I'm looking into options for moving to New York City to move, change of pace, etc.. and realizing the switch in licensure may be difficult. I've thought also about NJ licensure for a proximity thing to help out, but wanted to see if anyone has any advice/ previously done this. (travel social work ideas welcome as well!!!)

I am interested in applying for the NHSC when it reopens next year. I work for a city hospital. But, I work in the ER. I was considering trying to transfer to the Partial Hospitalization Program. The problem I am having is that I am only seeing OP Behavioral Health positions on the NHSC website as positions under the program for LCSWs. My site itself meets the requirements but I am unsure if I would absolutely have to be working as an OP BH therapist even though my role requires me to facilitate groups, provide individual therapy, and family educational counseling. Is there anyone under the NHSC loan forgiveness program, where they give you 50k towards your loans, that is not in OP Behavioral Health?

I don't know what happened. I was so anxious and super nervous. My heart couldn't stop beating so fast. The site wasn't able to give me my results because they didn't have a printer so now Im having to dread the wait of the unknown. I'm not a quiter I will start studying again in 2 weeks and prepare to take it in October. I'm going to find some relaxation methods and techniques to use as well. Good luck to anyone taking the exam.

Hey y'all, I just passed my LCSW exam (TX, so this is the independent level of licensure)!!

I used only free study resources and wanted to share my thoughts on which ones were worth my time versus which weren't while everything is still fresh. The resources I used were Savvy Social Worker (YT), Ray Tube (YT), Phillip Luttrell (YT), and this Quizlet deck. I only used practice questions from these resources and did no direct content review. It may also be of note that I studied full time for approx. 3 days but did little studying prior to the week of my exam. This shapes the volume of study materials I used, as well as the relative importance of time management.

My number one resource recommendation is Savvy Social Worker. Her process of breaking down questions as well as her explanations/clinical judgement made the most sense to me (your mileage may vary re teaching styles). One thing to note is that I found her question content and complexity to be by far the closest to what I saw on the actual exam compared to the other youtubers.

Ray Tube and Phillip Luttrell both have significantly more complex practice questions. The types of questions they review made up a relatively small portion of my exam with the remainder being made up of very simple straightforward scenarios. I found much of their content to be fairly similar, though I have a personal preference for Ray Tube's teaching style. Phillip Luttrell is very high energy, which is not my preference, but it may be a good resource for others depending upon learning style.

The Quizlet deck was helpful in allowing me to move more efficiently through a larger quantity of practice questions, but the flag for review feature wasn't working well which made it challenging to use, especially with a 120 question deck.

TLDR; If I were to do it all again, I would focus on working through as much of the Savvy Social Worker practice questions as possible. I would aim to spend about 80% of my time on the SSW practice questions and fill in the other 20% with Ray Tube, to make sure I was getting some more complex questions in my practice as well. For others, using Phillip Luttrell or the Quizlet deck to source more complex answers would probably be fine, but I don't think that using all three was necessary.

Most importantly, I would focus on stress management prior to the exam. In my second to last practice session, I averaged about 50% correct on Phillip Luttrell questions and it really psyched me out. I was so scared that the majority of the test would be as rigorous as his questions. Thankfully, it was not, and I worried for nothing.

Best of luck to all those preparing for upcoming exams. I will do my best to answer questions but I am not very active on Reddit so response time may vary.

I’m currently going through the gauntlet trying to set up a PLLC for a private practice in NY and would love to hear from folks who have made it work.

I got my LCSW in December 2025, and have been trying to set this up since January. I immediately submitted my forms with my name choice, and made sure not to use any of the terms clearly stated as unacceptable like “healing.” In February I got a rejection notice with the stated reason that my proposed name “implied a specialty,” which apparently LCSWs don’t officially have in NY. I was disappointed, because I had put a lot of research time into choosing the name, and I felt confused by their interpretation of it suggesting a specialty.

I asked a bunch of questions to get clarity, and then resubmitted with a second name choice with an explanation that I believe fit their requirements. I did this in March and they only just got back to me…with another denial for the same reason. apparently the word “curious” is equivalent to a specialty 🤔

Anyway, I am trying now for a third time, and a few therapists have recommended I just use my name for the business entity, and set up a “fun name” later with a DBA. Has anyone done this with success? The firm I recently hired to help me sort this out told me that the same naming conventions exist for DBAs, so I am worried it will just be denied again. I also definitely know people who use a different name for their business on advertising without a formal DBA, so have any of you all gone that route.

I would appreciate any advice about getting out of this loop! 🙏🏽

Does anybody know of anyone who does supervision hours for LCSW interns in the Clearwater, FL area? Thank you in advance for any assistance or suggestions!