Sponsors (8)
The resolution promotes expanding and strengthening the social work workforce to improve access to mental-health and social services, but it is nonbinding and may require new public spending and could provoke debates over advocacy without guaranteeing concrete implementation.
Social workers will receive increased investment in recruitment and retention, expanding the workforce and improving capacity to deliver mental and behavioral health services.
Residents of underserved communities — especially rural areas, students in schools, low-income individuals, and people with disabilities — will gain improved access to mental-health, addiction treatment, and disaster recovery support as social work capacity grows.
Taxpayers could face higher federal or state spending to support expanded social work programs, increasing public costs.
Communities and service users may not see promised improvements because the resolution is largely declarative and does not include specific funding or policy mechanisms to guarantee implementation.
Social workers and voters could face contentious debates over the role of social justice advocacy encouraged in the bill's findings, raising concerns about political activity and professional neutrality.
Based on analysis of 1 section of legislative text.
Affirms findings about the social work workforce, highlights roles and shortages, and calls for meaningful investment in recruitment and retention of social workers.
Introduced March 30, 2026 by Sylvia Garcia · Last progress March 30, 2026
Affirms that the social work profession includes roughly 728,000 practitioners working in hospitals, behavioral health, schools, child welfare, law enforcement, disaster relief, corrections, VA clinics, nursing homes, private practice, and government settings, and highlights their contributions to mental health, addiction treatment, maternal and child health, disaster recovery, and COVID–19 response. Notes a projected growth to over 800,000 by 2033, finds the current workforce insufficient for rising mental health needs, and calls for meaningful investment in recruiting and retaining social workers. The measure is declarative: it records findings about the social work workforce, emphasizes the profession’s broad roles and shortages, and urges increased investment to grow and retain the workforce but does not itself create funding or program mandates.