May 6, 2025
I just received the following from someone high up at SED. Note: The NYS Council has been consistently in touch with the Office of the Professions letting them know what’s happening in terms of the impact of newer licensing laws and the end of the exemption that are having such a grave impact on our ability to guarantee timely access to care.
Specifically, we recently spoke with someone high up and let them know that an agency we represent had to let go of 6 social workers (most of which are bilingual) due to an inability for these valued staff to pass the social work licensing exam.
———- Forwarded message ———
From: SWBD <SWBD@nysed.gov>
Date: Tue, May 6, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Subject: Advisory Notices for Recent News and Alerts
Dear Lauri,
(Regents meeting this morning update)
Please see the link below as this will be helpful getting the news out to your members and exam takers. The alert effective today states:
Regulatory Amendments approved and effective May 6, 2025
The New York State Board of Regents approved emergency regulatory amendments in social work that are effective May 6, 2025. These regulatory amendments conform New York State’s social work licensure examination requirements with national standards set by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) by permitting English as a second language (ESL) testing accommodation.
For a detailed view of the regulatory amendments, see the Regents’ website at https://www.regents.nysed.gov/sites/regents/files/525ppca1.pdf.
Below is a summary of the regulatory changes:
ESL testing accommodations are now permitted, and in accordance with ASWB standards such accommodations include:
- Providing ESL candidates with additional time (up to two extra hours); and
- Allowing ESL candidates to use up to two dictionaries, one bilingual word-to-word translation dictionary and/or one general English dictionary.
Here is the link to the alert mentioned above:
https://www.op.nysed.gov/regulatory-amendments-approved-and-effective-may-6-2025