Carson City, Nev. -- The number of Nevadans demanding help from social workers is increasing. However, the state does not have enough of them to go around.
“We see more and more people coming through our doors looking for services, looking for help, people who wouldn’t come through our doors before are coming through,” said Mary Liveratti the deputy director at the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.
Liveratti said the demand for socials workers is so high, certain divisions can’t keep up.
“It’s not that they [people] won’t be seen, but that they won’t be seen as quickly and we wouldn’t be able to spend as much time as we would like too,” she said.
The department currently has 262 state licensed social workers helping with mental health, aging and disability, child and family services and more. Liveratti said they are having a hard time finding more social workers with their high turnover rate.
“It’s hard for workers sometimes. We work really hard to keep their moral up, but they do burn out,” she said.
Mark Nichols the executive director at the Nevada Chapter of National Association of Social Workers said the national average is about 200 state licensed social workers for every 100,000 people. In Nevada, there are fewer than 90.
“We are your communities safety net, we are your pillars of support and quite frankly in Nevada, we don’t have pillars, we have twigs,” said Nichols.
He said more effort is needed to find more social workers in the Silver State.
“Do we care more about our casino executives, do we care more about businesses than we care about the people who are struggling?” notes Nichols.
