Rising demand for rural and Latino social workers. WSU Tri-Cities has a plan
Washington State University Tri-Cities will begin offering degrees in social work starting in 2024 to fill high-demand jobs that will help bolster the region’s mental health workforce.
In particular, the program aims to fill the escalating need for rural and Latino social workers.
The new degree paths are made possible by a $1.6 million allocation from the Washington Legislature and a salary sharing provision from the Kadlec Foundation.
“Social work is really versatile,” said WSU Tri-Cities Chancellor Sandra Haynes. “I call it the Swiss Army Knife of behavioral health degrees because you can do so much with it.”
Graduates with a bachelor’s degree in social work will be able to fill unlicensed jobs such as caseworkers, family service workers, rehabilitation specialists and mental health assistants. They’ll work in schools, police departments and for locally for state agencies.
Students can also choose to continue their education and earn a one-year master’s degree to be qualified to be a licensed social worker.
About 303 jobs in the social work field open up every year in the South-Central Washington region, Haynes said. The median salary for family social workers is $58,200, while those in the health care field earn about $61,300.
“I think mental health is such a big need, especially after COVID and especially in our rural communities where we definitely see people with mental health needs under served,” Haynes said.
WSU Tri-Cities already offers a general social sciences degree where students develop writing and research skills applicable to any variety of career fields. But these new offerings will allow students to narrow their studies and skills in quicker fashion and graduate into jobs with higher paying salaries.
“Health care providers across the state have difficulty finding social workers because there are not enough training programs in the region,” Kate McAteer, vice chancellor of academic and student affairs at WSU Tri-Cities, said in a statement.
Half of students who attend WSU Tri-Cities also identify as a person of color, most of them identifying as Hispanic, Haynes said.
“When you’re choosing your behavioral health provider, you often want to go to someone who has had similar life experiences. So, we’ll be putting out a highly diverse set of social workers that will meet the need of this community — not only the ethnic match, but the rural match,” Haynes said.
Support from Kadlec
An endowment from the Kadlec Foundation to WSU College of Nursing was amended to include a 1-for-1 salary-sharing provision to start the social work program.
Kadlec Regional Medical Center routinely places social workers in their clinics as part of each primary care team.
WSU Tri-Cities’ new social workers program will be housed in an existing facility, and is expected to annually graduate 50 undergraduates and 25 postgraduates.
About six to eight new professors will be hired between the baccalaureate and master’s programs.
The curricula are still being built and the university plans to hire a director soon.
2023 legislative session
WSU Tri-Cities received nearly $10 million during this last legislative session, including $7.7 to launch the university’s Institute for Northwest Energy Futures.
That new institute will serve as an applied research center to help address the increasing demand for low-carbon electricity and transportation fuels, and educate the next generation of clean energy experts in the Tri-Cities.
Staff also will benefit from a 2.2% raise for all for the upcoming academic school year, and then an additional 1.6% raise for the following academic year.
University-wide, WSU also received $27 million for compensation enhancements for faculty, professional staff and graduate students. Funding was also provided for compensation enhancement for classified staff over the next two fiscal years.
