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Show cial Workers' 113,000 members now have private practices, with another 15 percent in private practice part time. Among young social workers, the draw of full-tim- e private practice is even stronger. A 1984 study found that 86 percent of entering M.S.W. students in direct services a cates of gory that encompasses about all social workers wanted to go into private practice. The appeal is no mystery to Marshall Feldman, 34, a Columbia student. "In an agency, you're expected to see 25 or 30 clients a week," says Feldman, who interns at a nonprofit mental-healt- h clinic. "Multiply that by $50, and you get over $1,200 a week, over $50,000 a year. In an agency, you might make $25,000 if you're lucky. Naturally, you start thinking. . ." Deny the needy? That sort of thinking has some observers worried. In the rush to cash in on private practice, they fear, social work may be abandoning its commitment to the disadvantaged a commitment goy chariing back to its roots in ties for paupers and the mentally ill. Statistics back up that fear: from 1982 to 1987 the percentage of NASW members in public agencies fell 20 percent. "I get very upset when I hear students say, 'I'm going to come here and then go into private practice'," says Danna Wood, director of job development and information service at the Columbia School of Social Work. "Those who have the least are the ones who need us the most." In the face of federal budget reductions and the lure of lucrative private practice, however, the most surprising thing may be that so many social workers retain their commitment to helping the poor. When Regina Medina graduated from California State at Chico in 1986, she knew she wanted to work with disadvantaged youth. Now, as an M.S.W. student at the University of Southern California, she interns at a clinic for emotionally disturbed and sexually abused children in Los Angeles's depressed Watts district. "There's such great potential in this population, but so often it's misdirected," says Medina, 27, who works with children four to 16. "They're deprived of education they need, and the they can get involved with gangs and drugs. To neglect them is unfair." As long as that attitude survives, the boom in nontraditional social work won't see the profession abandoning its old constituency but broadening its base to include new ones. Stephen West with two-third- BERNARD GOTFRYD Serious business: Shefelman with PatMaloy, Dow Jones employee-service- s NEWSWEEK manager 19th-centur- clear the way. Patients' disenchantment agencies or government A with drawn-out- , number, expensive Freudian analgrowing antipoverty programs. led boom in the short-terto has a or business work in pracysis however, private tice, where salaries are higher and casetherapies that social workers practice. And 3 22 of 1972 states now require insurers to pay social In less loads only percent taxing. nontra-ditionaworkers for therapy, allowing them to comAmerica's social workers served in settings; in 1987 the figpete with psychiatrists and clinical psyure stood at 20 percent. chologists. "If I can do the therapy just like business: Carolyn Shefelman a psychologist, why should I be paid less Minding counts herself among the nontraditional-ists- . because I'm a social worker?" says Carolyn She works in the burgeoning field of Lim, 24, a graduate student in social work occupational social work at New York's at the University of Chicago. Brownlee Dolan Stein Associates, which Many therapists work in public proclinics. runs employee-assistanc- e programs for grams or nonprofit mental-healt- h But for others the ultimate goal is setting up more than 90 U.S. corporations, including Ford Motor Co., Dow Jones and News their own private practice. More than 15 Inc. Shefelman, 29, earns nearly percent of the National Association of So-week, em$30,000 a year counseling e ployees with family and problems and running corporate workshops on stress management and AIDS. The number of U.S. companies with such programs more than doubled between 1975 and 1984 to more than 5,000. The reason: "Businesses are beginning to realize that what happens to their employees affects the bottom line," says Nancy Randolph of the Council on Social Work Education. Perhaps the biggest force behind the profession's recent recovery is the entry of social workers into psychotherapy a specialty that in most states requires an M.S. W. and two years of supervised experience. Alof social workmost e fulltherapart-timor ers did py in 1986, up from STEVE LEONARD just four years earlier. Several developments have helped Playing by new rules: University of Chicago's Carolyn Lim child-protectio- n m l, for-prof- it drug-abus- iJ .11 two-thir- one-quart- er 40 NEWSWEEK ON CAMPUS YT H Iff fy& ' V Noelle Gaffney in Chicago, and Terry Allen in Los Angeles Boston David BarbozaiV; MAY 1988 |
