News

On August 6, ASWB Board members met in person for the 2021 Board Advance! It was the first in-person meeting of the Board since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

In July, ASWB committees met in person for the first time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic some 15 months earlier. Volunteers and ASWB staff were equally excited about the opportunity to meet in person.

When enforcing the practice act against persons alleged to have violated the law, regulatory boards are constrained by the authority delegated to them by the legislature. Social work boards are created and authorized via legislative enactment of statutes.

Updates from ASWB members and volunteers

Social justice has been an underlying force in ASWB’s value structure since its inception. When social work regulators formed ASWB in 1979 to develop the licensing exams, it was with the intent of protecting the public. Public protection is one of the highest forms of social justice.

After the COVID-19 pandemic caused the 2020 ASWB Education Meeting on regulatory research to be canceled, it seemed that the third pillar of the strategic framework, Curate research for best practices in regulation, would become stalemated.

Live session held May 20 drew hundreds of attendees.

“We know how hard the work can be,” said Tim Brown, former president of the ASWB Board of Directors, when he introduced the awards session at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Delegate Assembly.

June 30 marks the five-year deadline set by the ASWB Board of Directors in 2016 for member boards to comply with exam use policies, and the majority of boards that use the exams have done so. The COVID-19 pandemic slowed things down considerably as emergency orders changed the landscape of regulatio

The concepts of perceived bias and conflict of interest principles remain critical to social work boards and their important public protection mandates.