Getting Social Work Continuing Education Credits
Summary: Getting credit for your social work continuing education will be important if you want to continue working in your field. It is likely that you are required a certain number of credits to keep your license or certification.
As a professional in social work,
continuing education is important. You probably have to consider your credits every year so that you will be able to continue to practice. Once you find a place that offers opportunities for individuals to earn credits, you will want to choose the courses that will help you in your job.
If you are a worker in a nursing home then you likely deal a great deal with the children of people with dementia and other life-altering problems. It will be important for you to be informed about dementia so that you will be able to communicate well with the people involved. You will want to know how to deal with grief and depression as well.
It might be different for a worker in a hospital. Social work continuing education for a worker in a hospital should include issues such as post-partum depression, grief from the loss of a child, and depression. In this situation you might be required to determine if someone is fit to go home or not. This is a big decision, and you will probably have questionnaires to help with this, but the courses you take could also help you.
You might also have a job that deals mainly with the custody of children. For this it will be important to know how to deal with kids who have gone through difficult circumstances such as the loss of parents in death or from abuse. The training and courses for this will probably be different from the latter two jobs.
So as you choose an institution to get your social work continuing education, make sure to take your particular job into account. Do not waste your time taking courses just to get the credits that are not even helpful for your particular situation.
Finding an institution that is accepted by the American Psychological Association is very important as you are considering the institution for your social work continuing education. They might need to be accepted according to the standards of other associations connected with your job as well, so you will want to also check into this.
Whether or not you are required to take courses in social work continuing education, you will still likely find taking courses to be very profitable for your professional experience. This extra training will also look good if you try to switch jobs. These courses that you could take could apply to many areas when dealing with people in various jobs.
Hopefully you will be able to find an institution that offers courses that are accepted by important associations and that are also helpful for you as you deal with a variety of clients. You might want to research a few different ones before making your final decision.