Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Social workers are mental health problem-solvers—their goal being to improve people’s social functioning by bolstering their ability to cope with the stresses life brings. Licensed clinical social workers, or LCSWs, have a master’s degree in social work (MSW) and have met State requirements to become licensed, such as completing supervised postgraduate clinical experience; passing examinations demonstrating their specialized knowledge and competency to practice; and completing continuing education training each year.

There are more clinically trained social workers in the United States than psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychiatric nurses combined, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)—more than 190,000 in a recent year, the agency reports. Still, the need far outpaces the number of providers in many underserved areas across the Nation. These are places where problems—such as poverty, abuse, addiction, illness, unemployment, and mental illness—are prevalent, and timely intervention can give a client a new lease on life.

John Pasquarelli, LCSW
Sober Reflections of a Rural Maine Family Man

A self-described former "alcohol addict," John Pasquarelli went through major life changes after age 40—sobering up among them, along with getting a divorce and studying to become a social worker. Now 57 and a licensed clinical social worker (as well as a licensed alcohol and drug counselor), Pasquarelli doesn’t have the power to change anybody else, much less save the world, he says. The mental health specialist describes himself instead as a mirror, walking beside people in trouble and helping them find their own inner strength.

At the Community Health and Counseling Services in Aroostook, Maine, Pasquarelli walks alongside children who have been removed from the homes where they were neglected or abused. At his clinic, children up to age 18 can get "therapeutic foster care"—residential or outpatient treatment for youth and their foster families—to prepare them to cope with life’s stresses once they are living independently again. Before the therapeutic foster care program was founded 6 years ago, Pasquarelli says, "if these children had not gone immediately into an institution, they could be bounced among 15 traditional foster homes."

We asked Pasquarelli about the NHSC:

What difference has the NHSC made in your community?
Our clinic is located at the end of Interstate 95—the last town before the East-West border to Canada. The NHSC is one of the only reasons we can attract social workers and other qualified psychotherapists to such an unknown rural border town in a county with a total population of less than 90,000. The social workers and other psychotherapists we can now attract to Aroostook County are greatly improving the quality of life for people who otherwise would have to travel 2 to 3 hours to get mental health care.

What difference has the NHSC made in your professional life?
The NHSC was an incredible godsend—a program without which it would have been much more of a struggle for me and my two children to stay here in rural Aroostook. The NHSC is a good, well thought-out program that gave me the opportunity to become a supervisor and attract more therapists here—a place where the community raises the child and where it is essential for the therapists to be sensitive to such important cultural issues.