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Money is not the be all & end all. Find a career you can be happy in, doing social work for money only is not a good idea.
Agreed in that respect. There are some ways to make fairly good money... for example, targeted case managers for Medicaid services can make not so bad money, but most are self employed or working for really small businesses. Of course, they usually have to be available at all times for their clients and be present for court hearings, etc. if anything happens to them just like they’d have to do with any other social work. A LCSW is often not needed, but it’s still quite stressful. At my last job, we had TCMs and literally had one call in one day from a hospital saying she was resigning immediately due to doctor’s orders as a result of a stress-related cardiac condition. Most people who do targeted case management have some sort of background working with specific populations, even if they don’t have a LCSW/MSW.
I was a social worker with an MSW. I was also licensed.
It was a stressful profession, & I was in it when there were many more job options available. Social services & mental health services are no longer a priority in this country, and probably never will be again. Therefore, there are a lot fewer positions available in the public & private sector than when I began in my profession.
Private practice is highly competitive, & expensive. Think malpractice insurance, dealing with health insurance companies, office rent, working as LLC...just a few, in addition to constantly marketing yourself & building a client base.
My hard-earned LCSW was absolutely useless when I moved to another state.
I saw & experienced things that I will never forget. Yes, it’s important to leave your work behind at the end of your work day...sometimes, you just can’t forget it, being human doesn’t happen that way.
If you go into the profession with the attitude that you will be able to make profound change, you will be chewed up & spit out within the first year.
I left my once-loved profession & did something completely different, I was so fed up.
My advice is to become a dental hygienist...this is a different profession than dental assistant. The two that I am acquainted with, in 2 different states, appear to make bank, & are happy with their work.
That is all I have to say.
Last edited by MarciaMarshaMarcia; 11-23-2017 at 12:38 AM..
That's fine but shouldn't you shadow some social workers for 50-100 hours before spending time/money on a masters for a field you have no experience in?
5 different people for 5 different office settings and different fields
See the morning/day roles, see the evening/take home work, see the weekend work, etc
Don't be like those college grads who come out of school knowing nothing about the industry on how to get a job yet spending years supposedly learning about the subject matter
Social workers in the United States are bound by the rules of HIPAA, like all mental health professionals. The OP isn't going to be able to shadow social workers because it's a violation of the clients' privacy rights. It also changes the therapeutic process and can affect treatment. The only time I've been shadowed is by an intern employed by the agency who has signed the proper paperwork -- and permission from every client the social worker sees would have to be obtained.
What the OP can do is find social workers who are willing to let him interview them for information about what their jobs are like.
I can see myself being miserable in any job that pays what I want. My goal is to save enough momey so I can retire early and not have to work anymore, OR do a job with a good retirement built in. Whether or not I continue to work after I can retire will depend on if I father any children or not.
You're getting the cart before the horse. You want to make a lot of money so you can retire early, focusing on the end game before you even get into the game. Further, you want a job with minimal stress and risk, and said the following in your original post:
Quote:
I'm looking to make more money because I want to retire one day, and government work looks appealing to me. My plan is to get an MSW at Grambling State University, and try to get into the VA as a GS-9. I'm not sure how hard that will be, but if it will make me financially better off, I'm willing to go for it. Is an MSW the most Stable/Lucrative graduate program I could do? I don't want to do a job that has a cyclical market or that will be automated in a few years, and I'd like to make 75k after taxes by mid-career.
I don't particularly like being a pharmacy tech very well. I took the Holland Code Assessment (HCA) and it says I'm a Social>Artistic>Investigative type with a particular dislike of Conventional and Realistic type work, but besides that, I'm not sure what I want to do exactly.
People go into mental health professions because they're primarily motivated to help others, not because they're focused primarily on how much money they're going to make and how early they can retire. You need to determine what sort of career is a good enough fit that you'll stick with it, and quit focusing on how early you can retire. You've said you don't like being a pharmacy tech, you don't want social worker to be the next thing you don't like doing.
You have some preconceived notions that may or may not be accurate - like that government work pays twice what private sector work pays. It's not as simple as you seem to think it is:
Most numbers you'll see will be means or medians which means around half the people in the career make less than that number and the other half make more. In most fields, the people in the top half (or the past 10%) are those with more experience or specialized skills that warrants their being above the average.
By HCA I'm assuming you took one of the free online career assessments. My suggestion is that you take the Self Directed Search for $9.95 because you'll get much more detailed data and (base on the free assessments I've seen) more of a list of careers to look at. See the links I've already provided here:
Social workers in the United States are bound by the rules of HIPAA, like all mental health professionals. The OP isn't going to be able to shadow social workers because it's a violation of the clients' privacy rights. It also changes the therapeutic process and can affect treatment. The only time I've been shadowed is by an intern employed by the agency who has signed the proper paperwork -- and permission from every client the social worker sees would have to be obtained.
What the OP can do is find social workers who are willing to let him interview them for information about what their jobs are like.
i have shadowed doctors, pharmacists, dentists, surgeons, nurses,techs, i did not violate any hippa... i saw how the office was ran and how the work was performed. the patient was informed that i was there to shadow, if they were okay with me beig present, if so i would stay or i would go somewhere until they were done.
hippa is not some law that says no one can be there except the provider/patient...
hell part of medical/dental school application, they want people to shadow beforehand so they at least have and idea of what they are getting themselves into
maybe social work is different about shadowing, but if so, it is not because of hippa
i have shadowed doctors, pharmacists, dentists, surgeons, nurses,techs, i did not violate any hippa... i saw how the office was ran and how the work was performed. the patient was informed that i was there to shadow, if they were okay with me beig present, if so i would stay or i would go somewhere until they were done.
hippa is not some law that says no one can be there except the provider/patient...
hell part of medical/dental school application, they want people to shadow beforehand so they at least have and idea of what they are getting themselves into
maybe social work is different about shadowing, but if so, it is not because of hippa
If medical schools want you to shadow professionals for extended periods of time (or sit in on meetings with patients), they'll need to have you sign a HIPAA nondisclosure agreement as well as getting the agreement of the patient, and as I said, with counseling having someone there affects the treatment outcome in a way that having an observer wouldn't affect the result of a physical examination. If the practitioners you shadowed did not have you sign HIPAA paperwork, they were in violation of the requirements of the HIPAA Privacy Act. I was a mid-sized agency's HIPAA Officer, and that was my understanding of the requirements.
The agency where I interned had a large intern program - and that involved sitting in on licensed therapists doing therapy (with the agreement of the client). They did not have a program where people considering graduate school could shadow a therapist for weeks as you suggest to see what the work was like - we had neither the time nor resources for that. It might be different in the medical professions because they have more resources to spend on this sort of thing, but it wasn't the case in clinical counseling work.
Most social workers (and all the ones I know personally) starve. There is rarely money to be made in social services. I tried to tell this to my cousin who used to work as a Social Worker before she earned her Master's Degree, but she didn't listen and she was broke (do I eat cat food or pay the light bill?)working in a thankless profession.
Most social workers (and all the ones I know personally) starve. There is rarely money to be made in social services. I tried to tell this to my cousin who used to work as a Social Worker before she earned her Master's Degree, but she didn't listen and she was broke (do I eat cat food or pay the light bill?)working in a thankless profession.
I have an MS in computer science as well as an MA in clinical psychology. I left a career as a senior consultant for software quality assurance projects in 2000 to get my MA in clinical psychology -- my salary on graduation was around $28,000, and after six years it was up around $35,000 (the highest paid employees, the clinical director and the CEO, were making about $60,000) and I had just gotten enough hours to take the tests and apply to be fully licensed for private practice. I ended up leaving the field temporarily after six years because I couldn't make it financially on that salary, and had spent my resources on the MA as well as taking out student loans. I got my license but didn't have the resources to set up a private practice (it costs money to do so), so I went back into high tech work, where I stayed until I retired last month -- I'm also a board certified coach, I've been seeing a few coaching clients since I left clinical work. For the past year or two, I've been working at setting up a limited private practice to supplement social security and a small pension. In other words, I can now afford to do some counseling and coaching work on a part time basis.
As I've said, I advise the OP to take the salary numbers he's seeing with a HUGE grain of salt. Anyone who looks at the mental health professions needs (as I've said) to get cheap training, lower their expectations, and think multiple streams of income once they go into private practice. My mentor in grad school suggested I view the first few years out of grad school as an extended "paid internship" since I wouldn't be making that much money. For someone who has a lot of financial resources or a spouse who is making good money, I say go for it. but for everyone else, think long and hard about what you're doing -- especially since large numbers of people have come into the field since I graduated in 2002, all of them competing for the same pool of clients.
75k by mid career as a social worker? Good luck with that.
Also...expect to do lots and lots and LOTS of paper pushing as a social worker.
It's a great profession if you care about others and if you want to help change the world, but most social workers are generally underpaid and overworked.
I am almost finished with my MSW, and I certainly know that social work will never make me rich. And that is absolutely fine.
Now, the whole "you will starve" is a ridiculous exageration.
You will not starve, but social work is not the kind of high-paying field that will allow you to live in the lap of luxury. If you are the kind of person that just HAS to have the most expensive phone, the latest, most fashionable clothes, and haircut, and the coolest car, and also has to travel to exotic places twice a year, forget it.
I can live comfortably as a social worker because I already live a minimalist life , I always cook my meals, have a 30-bucks-a-month phone plan, never travel, don't own a car, and could not care less about owning a home, let alone a huge one.
Those are not "sacrifices"; that's just the life I like and enjoy, and I don't feel like I am "missing out" on anything.
But most people are not willing to live like that, which means that social work is not for most people.
Last edited by Oramasfella; 11-25-2017 at 12:18 AM..
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