Position Statements
Professional Regulation & Development
NASW-MN believes social workers are essential to the well-being of communities across Minnesota. We advocate for laws and regulations that enhance and preserve the public and private practice of social work, protect clients assure the highest quality of care, and create equity and transparency under the law for both consumers and practitioners. We support:
- The establishment and maintenance of standards of professional social work practice and active participation in state programs for the licensing of social workers. We advocate and provide input to the state in order to improve the consistency, transparency, and integrity of these laws and regulations and work to ensure policies governing the practice of social work in our state are responsive to emerging needs and practice trends.
- Multiple pathways for social work licensing ensure broader representation in the profession because we recognize the demonstrated bias in licensing exams.
- Maintaining the current Board of Social Work licensing fees for professionals after fee increases in 2023.
- The recruitment, development, and retention of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color social workers through efforts such as paid internships, loan forgiveness programs, support to become supervisors, access to supervision, and culturally relevant licensing practices.
- Affordable and accessible social work education opportunities, including access to paid field practicums (internships).
- Closing loopholes that allow organizations to create new job titles with similar expectations as social workers, working around licensing laws.
- Ensuring congruence in mental health laws so that social workers are recognized as mental health providers consistently in state statutes.
- Fair and equitable compensation for social work professionals to ensure that clients have access to appropriate services.
- Health professional services programs support social workers who are struggling with their own mental/chemical health issues and use practices and policies that align with social work values and current best practices.
Civil Rights
NASW-MN advocates for enacting policies that recognize, support, and protect the civil rights of all people. We support:
- Opposition to public policies that discriminate against people by race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, political belief, religion, immigration status, ability, or other protected status.
- Full access to participate in our democracy, and ensure census participation for historically underrepresented groups.
- Upon release into the community, individuals with a past felony will have access to secure and affordable housing, and secure work that provides a living wage.
- Equitable policy that does not discriminate against status as a citizen, refugee, or documented/undocumented immigrant.
- Phase out 14(c), subminimum wage, segregated employment, and other employment-related policies that discriminate against people with disabilities.
Health & Mental Health
NASW-MN believes our community is best served by a whole-person approach to health that includes physical, mental, and social aspects of health. Substantial local, state, federal, and private investment into the integration of physical and mental health services is needed to address historical disparities and the chronic complex health issues we face in our modern times. We advocate for the integrity of a person’s body as central to civil rights, the ability to access quality health care as a social right, and the ability to access quality mental health care as a social right. We support:
- Health, dental, and vision coverage that is universal, affordable, accessible and comprehensive.
- Expanding public health and preventative services at all levels of government.
- Full parity within the health care system for mental health, behavioral health, and substance use disorder treatment for services delivered in-person or via telehealth.
- Ensuring access, adequate funding, and appropriate reimbursement rates for mental health care.
- Statewide intervention to address treatment options for opioid use disorder and other substance use disorders, including expanding the use of alternative pain management treatment.
- Protecting the right to choose abortion without medically unnecessary restrictions and the right to access reproductive care.
- The ability for transgender individuals to receive puberty blockers, hormones, and access gender-affirming surgery.
- The LGBTQ+ and HIV Long-Term Care Bill of Rights which updates state law to protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV status in long-term care settings.
- Strategies and additional funding to help implement all-inclusive care for the elderly community based programs.
- Legislation allowing adults who have decision-making capacity, are diagnosed with a terminal illness, and are in the final stages of their disease progression to request a prescription medication from their medical provider to bring about a peaceful death. We support including safeguards to prevent abuse of this process.
- Access to affordable, professional peer specialist services (mental health, substance use, veterans, families, forensics) as an effective, evidence-based practice when used in adjunct with more traditional mental health treatment services and support.
- Legislation that supports expansion of early intervention for youth and young adult mental health.
Housing
NASW-MN values safe, affordable, and accessible housing for all people as a basic human right. Housing should be offered within individuals’ communities of choice. We believe that while emergency shelter saves lives, ending homelessness requires long-term housing options grounded in eliminating systemic barriers and increasing equity. We support:
- Sustainable, predictable, and ongoing funding that supports emergency shelter, rental opportunities, home ownership, and community stability.
- Amending the Minnesota Human Rights Act to clarify that housing discrimination based on a person’s source of income is illegal.
- Enacting policies that ensure people of all types and incomes can find homes in any community.
- Ending the racial homeownership gap and racial disparities that exist in housing access.
- Stable funding for supportive housing and shelter services.
Child Welfare & Family Services
NASW-MN advocates for policies which support every child growing up in a nurturing and safe environment. We oppose the system of racialized and ableist surveillance, separation, and punishment and instead, advocate for trauma-responsive policies that foster participation, restoration, safety, and resilience. Transforming current practices is necessary to prevent harm within families and recurrent trauma in foster care. We support:
- Policies and programs that address social and economic root causes of neglect.
- Early childhood investment and affordable childcare options.
- Supporting parents from a relational strengths-based perspective, including structures that support their fair participation in the child welfare system.
- Child welfare policies that prioritize permanency options with parents or other family members.
- Public policy to end racial disparities within the child welfare system.
- Legislation to support and expand positive mental health for students in K-12 schools as well as in higher education institutions.
- Community-based response to educational neglect cases.
- Legislation to expand community-based programs and treatment-focused residential facilities that support youth with complex mental health needs to transition youth boarding in juvenile detention and hospitals, decrease inappropriate child protection referrals due to mental health issues, eliminate racial disparities in access to mental health services and placements, and increase reimbursement rates to attract and retain qualified staff.
Reimagining Community Safety
NASW-MN acknowledges the social work profession’s role in upholding oppressive criminal justice and government systems, and we recognize our individual and collective power to reimagine and transform society to become racially just. We recognize that racism threatens the health and safety of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in both urban and rural communities. Reimagining community safety involves radical creativity, community-specific solutions, and courageous action. We support:
- BIPOC coalitions’ leadership in creating and sustaining policies that impact their communities.
- Creating supportive non-police response services to respond to non-violent crisis situations.
- Increasing police accountability for actions while on duty.
- Monitoring successful implementation of universal background checks for gun purchases and/or transfers and Extreme Risk Protection Orders.
- Policies that address the economic harms created by discriminatory criminalization.
- Policies that decriminalize undocumented immigrants.
- Juvenile justice reform to ensure a holistic, trauma-responsive approach that prioritizes rehabilitation, promotes long-term positive outcomes for youth, eliminates racial disparities, and reduces the risk of future involvement in the criminal justice system
Environmental Justice
NASW-MN advocates for environmental justice. We value sustainable decisions that allow all people to hold confidence that their community and natural environment is safe and productive. We support:
- Clean drinking water for all Minnesota residents.
- Ending inconsistent or unregulated policies that result in higher pollution levels in low income communities.
- Prioritizing clean energy transit routes and clean energy buses, including school buses, especially those serving low-income neighborhoods.
- Protecting sovereign rights and native lands.
Fiscal Policy, Tax, and Economic Security
NASW-MN advocates for fiscal policy that promotes a public budget derived from progressive tax collection and just government spending. A democracy can only function if the benefits and burdens of society are equitably distributed. In a democracy, all people deserve state support to avoid poverty and to obtain living wage work. We support:
- Sufficient revenue to pay for basic human services.
- Solutions to the State of Minnesota budget challenges that do not focus merely on funding cuts and deferring responsibilities to the counties, cities, and other local entities.
- Tax credits and other tax policies that support low-income families are based on a progressive system.
- An adequately resourced safety net that includes ongoing cost of living adjustments to meet needs in a changing economy.
- Programs that support economic security and access to employment.
- Food security.
- Investments in families to move out of poverty and achieve economic self-sufficiency that does not discriminate against status as a citizen, refugee, or documented/undocumented immigrant.