Social work licensure compact: Kansas representative outlines commission work, timeline and data-system obstacle

At the Social Work Advisory Committee meeting, Executive Director David Fye, who serves as Kansascommissioner to the Social Work Licensure Compact, provided a status update on the compact commission's work, financing and a key technical hurdle: a multistate data system.

Fye said Kansas's enabling legislation for the social work compact has passed and the compact commission has held meetings to adopt bylaws and form committees. He said he serves on the commission's rules and finance committees. "The rules committee will go through and look at all of the model language for the compact," he said, and the finance committee is evaluating options for a data system that will track where multistate licensees practice.

The compact commission has temporary funding from a federal grant and support organizations, Fye said, but that initial funding is time-limited (about five years) and the commission must determine sustainable long-term funding, likely by charging a fee for multistate licenses. He said the data system choice is the major time driver because the system must track multistate license activity across states; that work will require either adapting an existing compact data system or building a new one via an RFP process.

Fye said the compact's model language permits multistate licenses for bachelor's, master's and clinical levels but that states differ in licensing pathways and the commission must settle details such as which licensing examinations qualify at each level. He estimated about a year before the compact could be operational but cautioned that the timeline depends on decisions about the data system, funding and technical work.

Fye also noted a compact-related compliance issue for Kansas: the compact requires that licensees practicing under the compact have completed a background check. Kansas does not currently require background checks for all social-worker licensure applicants, so the board will need to consider whether to require background checks at least for those seeking multistate licensure or for all licensees.

Committee members asked about whether the compact would mirror other compacts; Fye said it is more similar to the multistate nursing-license model (broad multistate practice) than to compacts focused on telehealth, and clarified that licensees are still responsible for following the jurisprudence and unprofessional-conduct standards of the state where the client is located.

Fye said commission meetings and committee work are open to the public and that he will continue to provide routine updates to the advisory committee as the compact proceeds.