Social Workers are encouraged to work in the field from the moment they begin school - this isn’t abnormal in the world we live in, we all have to work to pay our bills. However, SW’s are often thrown right into the “fire,” going to school full time, working full time, and doing an internship part-to-full time all in an atmosphere that is pretty traumatizing. We finish undergrad burnt out already, in debt, and doing jobs that hurt our hearts, feel disrespectful, and largely tell us we’re never going to do better if we don’t try harder and make our participants try harder.

Guess what, though… there was no “try harder.” At the same time we were taking classes about the impacts of trauma and racism and classism, we were also working in a system implicated by all of it, that didn’t want to change! I got tired of that really fast. My professors got tired of me really fast, and some of my supervisors did, too. I often had the same argument - it really didn’t seem like the framework we were all in was going to do anything to help us, so how were any of us going to “try harder” when we were all trying the hardest we possibly could, and still hurting ourselves with the feeling of failure? For our participants - that meant homelessness, relapse, losing their kids, and so much worse.

Social Work is a system built on traumatizing its workers with low pay and moral implications while getting by on subsistence service provision for the most vulnerable, and I desperately want to change that. As much as I love being a therapist, my first love was in Social Administration and Community Organizing - I love sharing perspectives and sitting with people who can open mine further, as uncomfortable as that is. The great thing about my flavor of neurospice is I’ve been uncomfortable forever, and I really don’t know anything else. I’m here for it - always.

I have a dream for social work education, at least in PA, where the most vulnerable social workers do not have to “carve time out of their workdays,” they don’t have to pay for their own CEUs, and they don’t have to prove the worth of a program like Trauma-Informed MI to their supervisor. I am still up-and-coming myself, though, and I do not have the ability to spend what it takes to do the applications and administrative work without pay for the work and help with the fees, at least for now. I believe in transparency, so here is what I would need for my first training - my goal is to hold this training in March 2027, in honor of National Social Worker’s Month. I recently learned more about these options and I changed my mind about the route I intend to take - Approved Continuing Education Provider. This option takes more work from me and more community engagement from you, but less money - I think we’re all worth that.

Here is what we are looking at:

Application fees: $1,200 - this option requires that I submit a completed, pre-recorded training that has had an attended audience; and which has an evaluation and an exam included with the materials submitted to NBCC. These materials allow NBCC to ensure my training is effective, that the CEUs they provide for it are actually representing educational value. I appreciate that, but I will need the help of community members to get that done; and I will not be able to provide credits for the training I record to submit. I also will have to cancel paid therapy sessions to make room for training and typically I would charge tuition for training to offset that. I will update with that information when I have a better understanding of what the structure “piloting” and recording the training for submission would be.

The reason I have decided to take this route, rather than the Single Program application, is that rather than being able to give a single program 18+ times; I would be able to submit the program we record together and the evaluation and exam people utilize in connection one time, and if it is approved, I would be able to update the training myself and provide it with new information for credits just by maintaining my general certification requirements. This would allow me to do “live” online trainings when I develop a new trauma informed MI module, and then keep them in a library on here for a very small fee that would allow folks to complete training for CEUs through at-home study! This option provides new avenues of accessibility!

https://nbcc.org/resources/ceproviders/apply#ce-provider-applicants

More information regarding registration fees will follow in months to come, should I reach the goal of application fees by October 31, 2026. No one will ever pay a fee for CEUs.