If you are working as a social worker, it’s obvious that you cannot overlook the requirements specified by your state licensing board, especially when seeking renewal to continue practicing. Interestingly, most of the state boards, except for a few exceptions like the ones in Colorado and New York, have specific requirements, which must be met under all circumstances. Usually, these requirements pertain to continuing education hours; for instance, Massachusetts, the state with the highest number of social workers (22,012), requires all Licensed Social Work Associates (LSWAs) practicing within the state to complete 10 Social Work Continuing Education CEU hours.
Other states may not have whopping tallies, but they do have their own requirements. In fact, even states such as Indiana and Maryland, which house merely 5,805 and 6,115 social workers respectively, have clearly specified the number of CEU hours required by the state boards. Here, it is worth mentioning that irrespective of what the requirements are, you can complete the number of hours with exemplary ease. For this, you can really use some Social Work Continuing Education CEU courses. However, with numerous courses easily available these days, you may find it a challenge to choose between them.
Things that can help
To begin with, you need to ensure that the course you go for meets all the requirements of the state board that would be renewing your license; else, taking the course is unlikely to serve any purpose. Nevertheless, some of the other things that may come in handy when making the choice are:
- Medium of learning: When considering CEU courses, you can either attend classes by going to an institute in person, or learn in the comfort of your home as per your convenience. Especially if you have a hectic schedule, it makes more sense to go for the latter.
- Course content: Whether you are a social worker or a counselor, or for that matter even a marriage & family therapist, you cannot expect to see an improvement in the way you have been handling your clients if the courses you take do not provide you with useable information. Therefore, it is important that you take a closer look at the content, find out if there are some case study examples or not, and then make the pick.
