About a Third of Nursing Home Social Services Directors Have Earned a Social Work Degree and License

Abstract

Nursing home (NH) residents have high psychosocial needs related to illness, disability, and changing life circumstances. The staff member with the most expertise in addressing psychosocial needs is the social worker. However, federal regulations indicate that only NHs with 120+ beds need hire a social services staff member and that a "qualified social worker" need not have a social work degree. Therefore, two-thirds of NHs are not required to employ a social services staff member and none are required to hire a degreed social worker. This is in stark contrast to NASW professional standards. Reporting findings from this nationally representative sample of 924 social services directors, we describe the NH social services workforce and document that most NHs do hire social services staff, although 42% of social services directors are not social work educated. 37% of NHs have a degreed and licensed social worker at the helm of social services. The odds of hiring a degreed and licensed social workers are higher for larger NHs, especially if not-for-profit and not part of a chain. NH residents deserve psychosocial care planned by staff with such expertise. Quality of psychosocial care impacts quality of life.

Dementia Tops Training Needs of Nursing Home Social Services Directors; Discharge Responsibilities Are Common Core Functions of the Department

“…As reported in more detail elsewhere (Bern-Klug, Smith et al, 2021) the characteristics of the nursing homes that responded were similar to the national population of nursing homes, although nursing homes from the Midwest region were slightly over-represented.…”

“…We received 924 responses for a response rate of 30%. (For more details, refer to Bern-Klug, Smith et al, 2021. )…”

Structural Characteristics of Nursing Homes and Social Service Directors that Influence Their Engagement in Disaster Preparedness Processes

“…A full description of the sample can be found in Bern-Klug et al(2021). Broadly, the sample demographics are similar to national trends in nursing home social work: mostly female (93.1%, n= 523) and White (87.3%, n= 495).…”

“…We used a subset of the NNHSSD study to describe whether nursing home social service workers help their nursing homes prepare for disasters and the personal-level and nursing homelevel characteristics that influence that involvement. The NNHSSD study provides nationally representative data from nursing home social service directors to characterize the nation's nursing home social services workforce, describe their workload, and determine their training needs and preferences (Bern-Klug et al, 2021). The total survey had 185 items.…”

“…Of the 3,067 nursing home social service directors contacted by the NNHSSD study, 924 completed the study survey, for a response rate of 30%. The distribution of responses in the overall sample is reported in (Bern-Klug et al, 2021). Importantly, the nursing home characteristics of the respondents were representative of nursing homes nationally across multiple factors including the type of nursing home, ownership, bed size, chain status, and quality rating (Bern-Klug et al, 2021).…”