I am about to share something that many social workers probably would not say out loud. I have never been a person to not voice out injustices. I have decided to share my honest thoughts about my experience as someone who attended post graduate studies in social work. I wish that someone had told me what I know now, as opposed to the narrative that without an MSW, I would not be able to progress in the field of social services.
Since being a teen, I knew I wanted to become a psychotherapist in my future. I based all of my work and school decisions on this goal. I focused on social studies in high school and I applied for the Social Development Studies degree at the University of Waterloo. I followed this with a Bachelors of Social Work degree. I did hours upon hours of unpaid placement work and once I graduated, I was hired at a non for profit and worked with at-risk youth for two years. I then got hired as a child protection worker for the following year and a half. Everyone and their next door neighbour echoed, “When are you getting your MSW?”, “You need your MSW”, “If you want to do therapy, you’ll need your MSW”, “To make more money you’ll need an MSW”.
So, eventually, I did the damn thing. I went back to school to get a graduate degree in social work. While in the program, I was astonished that students who had no background in social work were also in the program. I mostly felt that the classes were repeats of what my undergrad had been. I was very aware, that this was about getting three more letters after my name. Near the end of the program, the university then began to promote additional trainings and certifications we could do for half price if we did them within the following year of graduation. I was flabbergasted that I had just paid upwards of $25,000 and I was being told that my chances would be, even better, if I paid more money to do extra trainings. I didn’t. I went back to CAS so I could make money to start paying off my student loans which had accumulated over my degrees to about $50,000. I was not paid more for having an MSW. The social work field is so oversaturated, that even with my MSW, I rarely received call backs from job applications.
After a short-term contract at CAS, I began working at a clinic as a private psychotherapist. The agreement was to pay the clinic a fee of 30% of my monthly income. I was hired as an independent contractor, also known as a “gig worker”. I had no health benefits, no vacation time, no taxes taken off. This meant that when I did not work due to illness or if a client canceled or appointment bookings slowed over the summer and vacation months, I did not get paid. As a gig worker in Ontario, I was taxed both the employer and employee percentage of CPP (11%) and an overall approximate 15% in provincial and federal tax while being in the lowest tax bracket. My second year at the clinic, I renegotiated to a set amount in rent. I was paying about $1800/m to the clinic. Covid happened shortly after I began my second year at the clinic. Despite working from home virtually, the full amount of rent was still needing to be paid. At the end of my second year in psychotherapy, I made about $56,000. When I filed my taxes, I owed the CRA over $10,000. I left the clinic after 2.5 years and went out on my own, offering virtual services only. This eliminated the high cost of office space rent.
I was told that the benefit of having an MSW, was that I would be able to register with the College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers. This would mean that people who sought my services could claim the appointment fees to their insurance companies. Registering with the college, is about $400 a year. There is a vast amount of politics associated with being registered with the college, that no-one really talks honestly about. An example, is that alongside the OCSWSSW, there is a non-mandatory college, the Ontario Association of Social Workers (OASW) that social workers are essentially forced to join in order to receive discounted business insurance. Being a member of the mandatory OCSWSSW does not provide you with this service. The fee for this non-mandatory college is about $300 a year. Insurance is another approximately $400 a year. If you do not sign up with OASW, insurance costs about 2.5 times the price of being a member of OASW. Let me clarify, that the insurance is simply business insurance. It is not health insurance. To date, I pay for all of my medical expenses and medications out of pocket and apply for support programs when possible and applicable to my situation. When I have applied for the health insurance which OASW members received a discount for, I was denied due to being on anti-depressants. Programs that would insure me, would cost about $300 a month for minimum health insurance coverage.
In addition to my student debt which still looms over my head in thousands of dollars, the CRA has drowned me in tax debt for being self-employed, within the lowest taxable income bracket. I have a graduate level degree, am working in my field, I write part-time and most months, I am living pay check to pay check. If an emergency were to happen, I would not have the funds to cover it. Acorn Canada published a report that 52% of Canadians fall into this financial category.
As I have been in the world of private psychotherapy, I have seen prices for services rise and rise. Many therapists have a long list of specializations and have spent thousands of dollars on the newest and most recent therapeutic model trainings. We are made to believe by social work institutions and educational institutions that without these trainings, people will not seek our services. Currently, therapy in the private sector ranges from $160-$220 a session. The public sector is inaccessible. Social workers are taught that those who offer services similar to psychotherapy without a license, are unethical. Thus, we follow suit with these promises of a finically secure future and enrolment with the colleges in hopes that the time and money sunk into our career choice will pay off because we’ve done it, “The right way”.
If I had only known, that I would learn most of what I know about trauma from my own self education (reading books on the topics I work with, podcasts, art and blogs), life experiences and learning directly from other survivors. If only I had known, that I could have saved myself 25+ thousand dollars and called myself an “trauma educator” or “trauma coach”and charged people half of the fee I do now, making it more accessible to more people in marginalized communities. The people I actually work with. No, I would not have been covered by health insurance plans, but most people in today’s collapsing society do not have access to health benefits anyways. Or, if they do, they are limited to a dollar amount that often only cover three to four sessions of therapy. In outwardly disagreeing with certain practices of both colleges, I put myself at risk of disciplinary action if someone disagrees with how I practice or live in my personal life. When I have sought support from the college, I am often re-directed to spending more of my own funds on additional supervision, training or other solutions which are often beyond the capacity of many social workers. When I have taken trainings through the colleges, they are often taught by cis, white men. These are not the people I want to learn about trauma from. I do not want to learn from people who talk in a stereotypical therapist voices who are surrounded by and live by the work of academics and financial privilege. I do not want to give my money to institutions which continue to contribute to the systems of privilege. One of those systems, being the system of private continued education which drowns its students in debt. Education needs to be available to all without contributing to long term financial barriers. It is not that I did not receive any benefit from the knowledge provided in my MSW classes, it is that within the system of privatized education, the knowledge has not outweighed the weight of financial burden.
If I had known what I know now, living in as much debt as I am, I never would have gone to school for my MSW. I would have been able to create a business similar to what I run now, most likely without the need to get a second job. A reality which I, and several other psychotherapists are currently living. A reality that contradicts the narrative that psychotherapists, like the ones you see on TV, make a good deal of income. No-one talks about the falseness of this. So, I will.
Thank you for voicing these concerns.
I am in a similar situation where I often contemplate whether getting a MSW will be helpful in my career/worth the debt, etc. I also want to learn from folks who actually understand trauma and are not cis, white males.
I would rather pursue training like SE or IFS but have been advised against it unless I'm liscensed and even then it can be very hard to access these trainings. So frustrating.
I feel for you and hope the systems do change.
How ironic that the regulatory bodies act as policing systems, in opposition to the values of social work.