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Malpractice Insurance

Practicing Outside of Scope?

1/5/2018

1 Comment

 
I am a recent MSW graduate student currently working as a medical case manager. My ultimate goal is to do clinical therapy. My agency provides the credentials I need to make this a reality: LCSW supervision and CEU opportunities. However, I am worried that I do not have enough clinical experience to make this transition. I am considering applying to fee for service therapy jobs to improve my clinical abilities, in addition to my current job. I wanted to gather other opinions about this idea. Has anyone been in similar situation? What have you done to gain clinical experience? Was it difficult to switch from case manager to therapist positions? ​
1 Comment
Dr.D.
1/5/2018 08:44:21 am

Your question reflects that you are thoughtful and ethical. I would be somewhat concerned that trying to do therapy too soon out of grad school borders on practicing outside of your scope, standard 1.04 "Competence
(a) Social workers should provide services and represent themselves as competent only within the boundaries of their education, training, license, certification, consultation received, supervised experience, or other relevant professional experience."

The Code of Ethics would advise that if you do so, to make sure your clients know the limitations of your expertise (informed consent) and that you receive adequate clinical supervision. Certainly it is done but doing so with the least amount of risk is paramount.

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