Update Related to the Corporate Practice of Social Work

As you are aware, in June of 2010 the NYS Legislature passed a law addressing the practice of clinical social work and other scope protected tasks including the provision of mental health counseling and psychotherapy in currently unauthorized corporate settings. The law allowed the Education Department to issue a waiver from corporate practice prohibitions to qualified not-for-profit and education corporations.

The Board of Regents approved permanent regulations to implement the law, and as such, the Department began accepting waiver applications beginning February 2, 2011 through June 16, 2011, however, many organizations felt this was an insufficient timeframe and as such the legislature passed a bill last week (June 17th) to extend the time frame to February 1, 2012.  We expect the Governor will sign the legislation shortly and we will keep you up to date on such progress. 

In the meantime, the Department has updated its FAQ’s related to the subject at the following link http://www.op.nysed.gov/waiver-corporate-faq.htm#filing