#9 LCSW with Spanish Language Skills
By David Lasuertmer
Average Salary: $60,148
Job Outlook: Very good (15% growth rate within the next decade)
The Licensed Clinical Social Worker or LCSW, is a sub-sector within the field of Social Work. LCSW’s work with clients in order to help deal with issues involving mental and emotional health. There are a wide variety of specializations the Licensed Clinical Social Worker can focus on. These include specialties such as: working with mental health issues, substance abuse, public health, school social work, medical social work, marriage counseling or children and family therapy. Some may choose to work purely in a research, policy making or administrative capacity. The possible career paths as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker are many and varied. Those LCSW-licensed therapists who are fluent in Spanish enjoy an advantage in both pay and work opportunities relative to therapists without that ability. Because Latinos have a relatively high percentage of those experiencing poverty, Spanish language skills enable assistance within a population that needs the help.
The LCSW requires a minimum of a Master’s degree in Social Work. In most cases, it refers only to those licensed by a state board to provide Social Work based mental therapy. LCSW therapists must adhere to high standards regarding ethics and confidentiality as provided by the state board and jobs usually involves signing an ethics pledge or oath. Therapists can be involved in direct therapy with patients in private practice or they might be a leader or part of a team conducting research for a university or private enterprise. They use researched-based and strengths-based approaches to treating clients. LCSW therapists can assess and make clinical evaluations of client’s mental health and diagnose mental illness as well as make judgments on the best course of treatments based upon current clinical research in the social work field.
This article originally appeared on https://www.bestmswprograms.com/