r/LCSW

I am freshly licensed as of one month ago. I thought this milestone of finally having those magical 4 letters after my name would change job prospects and income drastically. When I was an ASW, I was making $100k a year for a community mental health organization (high cost of living county) and had amazing benefits including 10k towards fertility, generous parental leave and 5 weeks PTO. I am now a parent and have taken almost a year off with my child. I do not want to return to community mental health- it was not sustainable for me. I am struggling to find jobs aligned with salary and benefits even close to what I had before as an ASSOCIATE. I will say, for context my previous job was in northern CA and I am now in southern CA. I’m not sure if this is a major factor? I have been applying to both medical SW and therapy jobs at major health organizations in my area such as CHOC, UCI, UCLA, Providence and Kaiser. I keep getting those generic emails saying they are moving forward with other candidates. Mind you, I’m humbling myself and even applying to per diem positions as I’ve heard this is a strategy to get your foot in the door.

I guess I’m coming here to ask if anyone else is having a similar experience with the job market in southern CA for LCSW’s or am I doing something wrong. I don’t believe my resume and experience are the issue. I have 4 years of clinical experience doing therapy, not even including internships during grad school which were also doing therapy.

Of course, there are always the VC companies and I am considering starting up with one of them at least as a way to start having income while I wait for something more aligned with what I’m looking for. It’s important to me to have benefits and stability at this point in my life. I would ultimately like to have a private practice but the timing is not right with having a young child.

One possible plan is to start doing contract work and start the process of getting myself credentialed while I wait it out for a job to come through. Any feedback is welcome. Thank you for reading! Feeling so dang defeated and rejected 😭

As the economy changes and we are seeing lots of changes across the board. We are looking at talking with other group practices to get a concept of all the various ways Group Practices set up reimbursement plans for their providers.

This is not to be a judgmental or gotcha moment but a serious look into many ways different groups reimburse getting new ideas together to see about how we at our practice can improve the quality of life for all of our providers.

Happy to see public posts or even private posts to keep everyone's systems private. If interested lets talk.

I’m testing in the next month or so in IL for my LCSW and currently work full-time as an outpatient medical social worker and part-time at a group practice. Therapy is the side of social work I’ve been in since grad school (I graduated about 3 years ago) and I am wanting to start my solo practice after getting my LCSW.

I’ve heard mixed reviews: “Don’t do it it’s naive—starting a practice right after getting your LCSW is a lot.”

Or

“I wish I went solo sooner!”

My main motivators are that I have a niche population I’d like to work with, I would get 100% of my income (especially if I went the private pay route and didn’t bother with insurance), and I can start getting my services out there as a solo practitioner.

Would love to hear from people who ran with it and started their solo practice right after receiving their LCSW!

Moving to Houston in about six months from Denver. I’m an LCSW of 9 year, been working in several crisis and medical social work positions. What would be considered a reasonable pay for a social worker in the Houston area?

I currently work at the VA and can see what their pay is but it’s usually very different from the community. I’m not sure a position will be open at the VA when I move so I want to be realistic about what the community hospitals pay for someone with my experience.