Motivated by increases in suicides, overdose deaths, and delays to access mental health treatment, Rep. Lydia Crafts, D-Newcastle, recently proposed legislation to incentivize licensed social workers to provide services to Maine residents.
L.D. 632, “An Act To Amend the Social Work Education Loan Repayment Program,” proposes the modification of the student loan repayment program for social workers. If approved, the legislation would expand the total amount of applicants that can receive forgiveness each year from three to 100. The bill would also expanded the total amount of forgiveness from $5,000 to $20,000, and allow licensed social workers that serve Maine residents to apply for the program without having to be a state resident.
Attracting social workers to the state can help improve Mainers’ access to addiction and mental health treatment, including in schools and in the justice system, Crafts, a licensed social worker, said.
Crafts worked with Maine chapter of the National Association of Social Workers to learn what the state could do to address the declining rates of social workers amid the increasing demand for mental health treatment. Crafts and the Maine Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers learned that student debt was a significant burden on social workers.
“We found that a social worker with a master’s degree has approximately $71,000 of student debt,” Crafts said.
Crafts hopes her proposal allowing nonresidential social workers serving Maine residents to be eligible for loan forgiveness will lead to more social workers providing services to the state.
“Some social workers work with Maine residents from out of state through telemedicine or they are seasonal workers,” Crafts said.
Motivation for the bill comes after various institutions released reports showing increases in suicides, overdose deaths, and months long waiting periods for access to mental health treatment in Maine.
Crafts cited data from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services that showed a steady increase in suicide attempts throughout the state over the last five years. According to the data, which is available at maine.gov, emergency room visit related to suicides increased to 145 per 10,000 visits, an increase of 23 visits per 10,000 since 2017. For every 1 million emergency room visits, 145,000 were related to drug overdoses.
Crafts also mentioned a report released by the attorney general’s office last February that shows overdoses and overdose deaths increasing in the state since last year.
According to the Maine Attorney General’s report, published by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center with the University of Maine in 2022, there were 10,110 overdoses in Maine, 716 of which resulted in a death or suspect death. The data shows in 2022 Maine residents experienced approximately 27 drug overdoses per day with nearly two residents dying per day.
Kennebec Behavioral Health and Health Affiliates of Maine have reported long waiting lists for people seeking access to mental health treatment, according to Crafts.
“Each of them has reported approximately 2,000 people on their waiting lists for treatment,” Crafts said.
According to a statement made by the Maine chapter of National Association Social Workers, waiting periods to access treatment for mental health are seven months long. Crafts and NASW hopes the new legislation can reduce the wait times by increasing social workers serving the state.
Funding the program remains a major hurdle as the bill goes through the legislative process. Despite the forgiveness program being created in 2011, it has never been funded by the state, according to Crafts.
She is hoping to find funding for the program, but the Committee on Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business, where the bill currently is being heard, does not deal with funding state programs. That authority is with the Appropriation and Financial Affairs Committee.
Despite the funding hurdle, the bill has the potential to attract bipartisan support from fellow committee members. Rep. Amanda Collamore, R-Pittsfield, a member of the Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business Committee, hopes the bill will address the shortfall of access to mental health in the state.
“It is hard to see the number of overdose increases in the state,” Collamore said.
Collamore believes the bill is a good step towards improving Maine resident’s access to mental health treatment and has already had constituents reach out to her in support of the legislation.
The Committee on Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business has scheduled a public hearing for L.D. 632 for 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 14 at the Cross Building in Augusta.
Co-sponsors of the bill are Rep. Poppy Arford, D-Brunswick; Rep Janice Dodge, D-Belfast; Rep Lori Gramlich, D-Old Orchard Beach; Rep Anne Perry, D-Calais; Repo Samuel Lewis Zager, D-Portland; and Sen. Cameron Reny, D-Bristol.
A copy of the bill can be found at maine.gov.
