I’m pleased to introduce the first nominee for the 2025 MHF Defender Award!
Representative Felicia Brabec drops a forbidden truth bomb about healthcare licensing. In doing so, she makes the case for common sense reform in social work licensing.
I’ve written before about Michigan’s licensing burdens like Implicit Bias Training and even worse solutions like interstate compacts. Today’s issue has a different source: licensing law and exams.
Hidden behind Michigan’s mental health crisis is a social worker shortage, compounded by poorly-designed licensing law.
Normally, health professionals finish school and clinicals and take final exams, then sit for the licensing exam, and are fully licensed while they finish on-the-job training. The whole sequence typically happens within a year.
Nominee leadership, supportive testimony
Unlike this traditional pattern, Michigan’s social work licensing is very different. According to testimony, our law sets applicants up for failure with:
- a minimum 2-year wait after final exams before taking the licensing exam;
- extended, costly oversight;
- dismal national exam failure rates, in some cases despite 20+ attempts to pass;
- a temporary license workaround, limited to 6 years of renewal.
Watch frustrated social workers testify in the full hearing before the House Subcommittee on Behavioral Health.
Opposition included a former state licensing board member, who argued that the bills would disqualify Michigan from joining a national social work licensing compact.
One legislator proposed grant subsidies to pay applicants to retake the exam.
The proposed bill package included HB 5184 and HB 5185. The bills did not pass.
In the future, potential bill sponsors and advocates may take up these bills again. They should note that bill language needs work to make wording concise and clear. However, the concept presents no barrier to license reciprocity with other states.
