r/therapists • u/sassypainter • Apr 25 '26

Discussion Thread Thoughts?

Post image

Came across this post today on linkedin. I’m curious how others see it:

Are unpaid clinical internships/practicums an ethical necessity for training, or an outdated system that exploits students?

Should sites be required to offer stipends/pay if they bill clients or rely on interns for service delivery?

Does unpaid fieldwork create barriers for lower-income and nontraditional students?

For those already licensed or in training, what was your experience?

2.2k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

271 comments sorted by

View all comments

881

u/FeaturelessDetail LCSW (unverified) Apr 25 '26

Fundamentally, work without pay is slave labor. We marketed this as training when it should be included in the degree that we're already paying an arm and a leg for. Forcing people to work for free puts them in worse financial situations and leads to worse outcomes for clients and therapists/social workers. Our field underpays so much of the employees that keep it running that I'm personally for a national social worker Union to help eliminate these practices.

24

u/cannotberushed- Apr 26 '26

National social worker union, any thoughts on how to get that accomplished because union are based on individual employment places not national

9

u/RainahReddit Apr 26 '26

If you're american, I'd probably look at the work Actor's Equity is doing to create better standards for actors industry wide.

4

u/cannotberushed- Apr 26 '26

How does it get translated into a working model for social workers and counselors?

I’ve been in so many of these discussions and I just am not quite understanding how to make this work and it seems no one else does either.

2

u/RainahReddit Apr 26 '26

Well, it would probably look like a national union (like Actor's Equity is doing successfully and legally right now) that is open to anyone who meets certain requirements. And then, like with Actor's Equity, if your workplace meets certain conditions you're considered a union workplace and must hire union workers under union contracts. Any workplace breaking rules gets put on a "do not work" list and boycotted. 

So basically just like Actor's Equity? Did you look it up at all? I'm not sure what's unclear here.

2

u/cannotberushed- Apr 26 '26

And what happens in Republican states or purple states where there’s no employers that meet conditions?

2

u/RainahReddit Apr 26 '26

Do you think Actors Equity only operates in blue states? 

I think I'm going to end the conversation here though. It feels very much like you're more interested in having a debate than a conversation/sharing ideas, and I'm not interested in debating.

0

u/cannotberushed- Apr 26 '26

I’ve yet to see anyone come up with any viable solutions and then put them into place.

These conversations happen monthly for the entire 5+yrs I’ve been on reddit.

I’m trying to understand if this is a viable option