CA SWs voice support for SB 6259

BILL WOULD HELP RELIEVE CHILDREN’S SOCIAL WORKERS OF STUDENT DEBT

HOTLINE 1/18/18 On the airwaves and in the halls of the Legislature, WFSE/AFSCME social worker members beat the drum for a program to help these dedicated workers pay off the crushing student loan debt they took on to get the specialized degrees.

The bottom line is a life dedicated to helping abused and neglected children shouldn’t leave social workers in debt.

Local 1221 member Sandy Hilzendeger told the Washington News Service in a radio interview carried by stations across the state today that help with their student debt would entice more young people into the social work field and keep good state social workers from leaving. The annual turnover rate is more than 20 percent.

“Whether they put food on the table for their families, they have that little bit of extra to spend on their own kids,” she said. “For the newer folks, it is a much larger burden for them.”

In Olympia, Local 843 CA Social Workers Charles Loeffler, Nolan Manion and Jeremy Streck urged lawmakers in the Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee to support recruitment and retention of CA social workers by passing SB 6259, the bill that would create the social work professional loan repayment program.  Read their moving testimony at: https://wfse.org/news/ca-sws-voice-support-sb-6259

And to show their appreciation to the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Kevin Ranker of the 40th Dist., the three social workers presented him with a huge thank you card signed by a slew of their colleagues.

The committee is scheduled to vote on SB 6259 next Tuesday, Jan. 23.

WFSE priority bill SB 6259, to support recruitment and retention of CA Social Workers, creates a student loan repayment program.

"Annual turnover statewide for child welfare workers was over 20 percent (in 2016), with some regions experiencing turnover as high as 30 percent. Contributing factors to high turnover include low wages, high caseloads, and low morale."

Local 843 members appeared before the Higher Education & Workforce Development Committee to urge the Senate to pass SB 6259.

TESTIMONY of Charles Loeffler, WFSE Local 843

Creating the social work professional loan repayment program.

Good morning. My name is Charles Loeffler. By day I’m a child welfare social worker in King County, but I’m here today speaking on behalf of the Washington Federation of State Employees in support of this bill.

The job of a child welfare social worker is a master’s level position. Many, like me, enter into the agency just out of grad school. They carry knowledge and skills which they apply in tangible, life changing work daily--and tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.

Relief will help each individual worker uniquely. I support this bill because it will help retain expertly qualified personnel in a job that’s extremely difficult, but vital to our state.

Child welfare social workers are asked to find resources where there are none; to motivate change in people who have lost hope and often times view them as the enemy; and to do this with standard-defying high caseloads. The work is complex and emotionally draining. Estimates I’ve heard from experienced workers on the front line are that it takes anywhere from two to three years to really get it.

Yet as rampant vacancies cycle through recruits that train, take on cases, and then leave six to twelve months in, morale among those remaining is desperate.

Practice suffers from a deficit of experienced mentors for the new generation. The prospect of a job elsewhere is an ever-present temptation. If this state is serious about providing for the vulnerable children who are placed into its care, then public child welfare social work must be made a competitive job of choice for the highly qualified workers it hopes to retain.

Because at the end of the day, this is not a question of what’s good for social workers. It’s a question of how to do right by our kids.

Children in foster care have had everything ripped from them: their families, their communities, even their identities. Each let-down, each goodbye, is a new wound. And each time their case gets handed to a new social worker to review, assess, meet the parties, and start working on it again marks a prolonging of that child’s slow journey home.

This bill helps make this job competitive for the highly qualified professionals that Washington’s children deserve to have serving them, and provides incentive for workers to stay long enough to really learn and begin thriving in their positions. Thank you.

TESTIMONY OF NOLAN MANION, WFSE Local 843

Hello, my name is Nolan Manion and I work for Child Protective Services in the King Southwest office in Kent. I am representing the Washington Federation of State Employees and I thank you for the opportunity to speak here today.

I graduated from Washington State University in 2013 knowing that I wanted to make a difference in the world but hindered by the student loan debt that I had accrued. It took awhile to find the right job but being a CPS investigator has given me that chance to truly make a difference in the lives of the children and families that I work with. However, the financial burden of student loan debt has prevented me and many of my colleagues from truly serving our communities to the best of our abilities.

Being a social worker is challenging work and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the children in our state is only made more difficult when having to worry about how you’re going to pay your own bills and put food on the table.

This student loan debt repayment program would alleviate a burden in the lives of many state workers that would allow for more thorough and effective assistance to those children and families in need.

Enabling social workers to engage with parents and protect children, free of the financial stress of student loan debt, will not only benefit the families that we work with directly but help to strengthen our communities as a whole.

Being a social worker is also very rewarding work but maintaining positivity is an arduous task when personally confronting some of the more difficult issues in society. Social workers labor to address issues such as child abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and addiction on a daily basis and for many, the cost of the work we do does not outweigh the benefits. This repayment program would further serve to incentivize state workers to persevere through these exertions and to encourage the next generation to pursue careers in social work. By providing the relief of student loan repayment, DCYF social workers can feel that they are supported by the state they serve and benefited by the necessary and difficult work they do.

Voting to approve this student debt repayment program would substantially better the lives of countless social workers and pave the way for a stronger and more stable workforce, able to endure the rigors and better equipped to improve the lives of children and families throughout the state.  Thank you.

INTERVIEW OF SANDY HILZENDEGER, WFSE Local 1221

Bill would help relieve WA Social Workers of student debt (Public News Service WA)

1/18/18