Advocacy grounded in data

For more than 18 years, I have served as CEO of Highfields, Inc., a nonprofit agency that serves clients throughout ten Michigan counties. With a staff of more than 200, including almost 50 licensed clinicians, the social work workforce is never far from my mind.

The 2024 Social Work Workforce Study Series, published this summer by ASWB, provides hard data about the social work workforce that employers like me can use to advocate for the resources they need to serve their communities.

In Michigan, I have seen how statewide data can have a direct impact on workforce growth and retention.

Highfields is part of the Michigan Federation for Children and Families. Every two years, the federation conducts a salary and benefits survey of its membership, gathering information about compensation for positions across the state. With that data, we can demonstrate whether the state’s reimbursement rates for services are keeping pace with the cost of employing the qualified professionals we need for these jobs.

Growth in reimbursement and compensation meets the needs of our employees and results in a more stable workforce. That improvement was driven not by a hypothesis, but by advocacy grounded in data.

Using that statewide data, we have advocated with legislators and state policymakers for fair reimbursement for the work we do. This means agencies like Highfields can attract and retain social workers. Today, my agency is as fully staffed as we’ve ever been, with fewer vacancies and lower turnover. I’m hearing across the board about real improvements to human service workforce shortages in Michigan. Growth in reimbursement and compensation meets the needs of our employees and results in a more stable workforce. That improvement was driven not by a hypothesis, but by advocacy grounded in data.

Seeing how helpful the in-state data has been, I am excited about the findings outlined in the Social Work Workforce Study Series reports. This data will allow us to compare where we are in Michigan with the rest of the country. As professional mobility continues to increase, nationwide data about salary, benefits, and practice settings will be critical in our efforts to attract new employees. This is more data that we can use to advocate for our programs, our workforce, and our clients.

The last several years have seen many changes to the nature of our work. The expansion of telehealth, remote work, changing demographics as the baby boom generation continues retiring, and greater implementation of technology for human service agencies are some of the factors that have shifted the allocation of the social work workforce since 2019. These workforce study reports can help us understand the real data behind some of this and help me as a CEO to better understand the modern social work workforce.

Our field has had a notable absence of good data and research around this topic in particular. As an employer of social workers, I find it refreshing and a great asset to the work that we do.

I am in my fifth decade as a social worker and my fourth decade as someone hiring and supervising social workers. I can tell you that in the first 25 years we felt like we were flying by the seat of our pants. To be able to make informed decisions based on good data will ultimately make me and others like me better leaders and will help make the social work profession all that much better.