Senate Bill S5011

                                BILL NUMBER:S5011                 Revised 06/02/15

TITLE OF BILL:

An act in relation to authorizing Kathleen DeCola to apply for a
Licensed Clinical Social Worker license

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this legislation is to allow Kathleen De Cola to apply
and receive the necessary licenses she is already entitled but has not
received because she missed a deadline to file.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1. Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary,
Kathleen DeCola who took the Master Social Worker exam prior to 1996
and who was subsequently issued a New York state Clinical Social
Worker license which later was divided into two separate licenses
known as a Licensed Master of Social Work and the Licensed Clinical
Social Worker, who was eligible for both licenses, who received the
Licensed Master of Social Work license, and who was eligible for the
Licensed Clinical Social Worker license but was not issued such
license shall be granted the Licensed Clinical Social Worker license
if she shall file an application therefore on or before December 31,
2015.
              

§ 2. This act shall take effect immediately.

EXISTING LAW:

None exist at this time

JUSTIFICATION:

When Mrs. DeCola first started out in the social work profession with
her Master's degree from Fordham University in 1995, she had taken the
MSW exam and passed. She was given the NY State License called the
CSW. At some point in time however, the license changed from the CSW
to the LMSW (Licensed Master of Social Work) AND the LCSW (Licensed
Clinical Social Work). She was supposed to be grandfathered into the
LCSW, but due to an issue with not receiving the communication from
New York State about the licenses being changed, she was not aware of
the paperwork that needed to be submitted in order to be grandfathered
in. Therefore, she missed the documentation/application until after it
had passed.

Mrs. DeCola asked for an exception, but was told that the deadline to
apply for licensure without examination was 9/1/2005 and she would
need to meet the current educational requirements and experience
requirements to be approved to sit for the clinical examination.
Herein lies the next host of problems. Mrs. DeCola has worked for the
Rye Youth Council for the past 19 years, this is currently her 20th
year. In all of the years that she has worked for the organization,
she has always had a clinical advisor. For the past several years, her
clinical advisor/supervisor has been a clinical psychologist. The Rye
Youth Center applied for a waiver from New York State to provide


support/counseling services through New York State, but when they
applied for the waiver they only checked off Licensed Clinical Social
Work Licensed Master of Social Work (covering her who should be an
LCSW, but is still an LMSW) on the form. Additionally, New York State
said they would not count her clinical supervision/advisement hours
with her advisor because she is in another location and not in our
office. This seems unfair. She oversees Mrs. DeCola's work, provides
consultation on her cases, and keeps documentation of her one on one
face to face supervision hours.

It is her hope that she can be grandfathered into LCSW (since she
should have been anyway) credential/license.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

None

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None

LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None

EFFECTIVE DATE:

This act shall take effect immediately