Statement from the United Social Workers Collaborative (USWC)Regarding the U.S. Department of Education’s Proposed Reclassification of Social Workers as “Non-Professional”

The United Social Workers Collaborative (USWC) unequivocally condemns the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed reclassification of Social Workers as “non-professional.” This decision is not only misinformed—it is dangerous, disrespectful, and dismissive of more than a century of essential, life-saving work performed by our profession.

A community gathering discussing social issues and collective action.

Social workers are highly trained, highly educated, and deeply specialized practitioners. We are professionals, many holding BSW, MSW, DSW, and PhD degrees, advanced clinical certifications and licenses, and state-mandated credentials that rival and often exceed those of comparable professions. We provide direct clinical care, crisis intervention, school-based support, hospital and emergency-department services, community advocacy, trauma treatment, and policy leadership in every corner of the United States.

To label this workforce as “non-professional” is an erasure of the expertise required to:

• Conduct clinical assessments

• Develop treatment plans

• Navigate complex legal and ethical systems

• Support students, families, and educators

• Coordinate interdisciplinary care teams

• Uphold federal and state mandates for safety, education, and wellbeing

• Respond to national moments of crisis, from Ferguson to Uvalde to natural disasters

• Maintain the backbone of America’s mental health, child welfare, disability, and community-care systems

  
  

This proposed change would jeopardize federal funding streams, undermine workforce pipelines, devalue graduate education, weaken public trust, and disrupt the care infrastructure millions of Americans rely on daily. It would disproportionately harm marginalized communities who depend on the very services social workers provide.

The Department of Education’s posture reflects a profound misunderstanding of our field and a failure to recognize the professional rigor, specialized training, and ethical standards that define social work. This is not a clerical reclassification. It is a direct threat to the integrity of our profession and the wellbeing of the people we serve.

The United Social Workers Collaborative stands united, students, practitioners, researchers, educators, and community partners, in rejecting this proposal. We call on policymakers, allied professions, and the public to join us in protecting the professional status of social work and safeguarding the essential services that hold our communities together.

We demand immediate reconsideration. We demand respect. And above all, we demand that the voices of social workers be heard.

United, we rise. United, we resist. United, we protect our profession.

— The United Social Workers Collaborative (USWC)