Social work
From your first supervised hour to a licensure application.
Clinical social work licensure asks for the same three things almost everywhere: a qualifying degree, an examination, and a period of supervised practice that a supervisor attests to. The first two have institutions behind them. The third is usually a folder. TripleRoute is for the third.
Supervised practice for social work licensure, in one paragraph
Before granting a clinical social work license, a state board requires a period of post-degree practice under an approved supervisor. The board sets how many hours, in which categories, over how long, and who may supervise. Those rules differ from state to state and are published by each board.
- What we track
- Supervision and practice hours, signed and sealed
- What we show
- A board's published rules, cited, where we have researched them
- What we never do
- State a requirement we have not read in the board's own text
The path, and where TripleRoute sits on it
Five stages. We are useful in four of them.
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During your degree
Field placement hours can be recorded in TripleRoute Practicum, signed by your field instructor and countersigned by your school, and kept in the same account afterwards.
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Choosing a supervisor
Search supervisors by state and pathway. Every license is checked before a profile is listed, and each profile says which states the supervisor can supervise into.
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Accruing supervised hours
Log supervision and practice hours separately, as they happen. Your supervisor reviews and signs each period, and a signed period is sealed.
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Knowing where you stand
Where we have researched your state, your progress is set against that board's published requirements, each with its citation and the date a person last checked it.
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Applying
You apply to your board, on your board's forms. You bring a signed record that can be checked. The decision is the board's.
State rules
Where requirements come from on this site.
What you will find
- Requirements transcribed from a board's own published rules by a named reviewer
- A citation to the rule, and a link to the board's text
- The date a person last checked it, and which version of the rule it is
What you will not find
- A figure for a state we have not researched. That page says so and shows none
- A summary written from another website's summary
- A promise that your board will accept anything
Words that vary
The same idea, under different names.
Boards do not share a vocabulary, which is half the difficulty of reading their rules.
- The license you are working toward
- Often LCSW, and in some states LICSW, LISW or LCSW-C. The name is the board's.
- The license you hold meanwhile
- A master's-level or provisional license, under names such as LMSW or LGSW, in states that issue one.
- Supervision
- Individual, triadic or group. Boards commonly treat these differently, which is why they are recorded separately here.
- Field placement
- The practicum during your degree. It is recorded in Practicum and shown beside your licensure hours, never added to them.
Nothing on this page is a licensing requirement. The names above are examples of how boards label things, not statements of what any board asks. Read your own board's rules, and ask the board when in doubt.
Questions social workers ask
Does TripleRoute tell me how many hours my state requires?
Only where a reviewer has read your board's published rules and entered them with a citation. The coverage page lists those states. For any other state the page says we have not researched it and shows no figures.
Will my board accept a record kept in TripleRoute?
That is your board's decision and we will not say otherwise. What you bring is a record your supervisor signed period by period, sealed so that it cannot have been altered since.
Can I use it if I am still in my MSW program?
Yes. TripleRoute Practicum is for field placement hours during a degree. It is free for students, and the record stays in your account when licensure hours begin.
Is it only for social workers?
No. Counselors, marriage and family therapists and psychologists use the same record. Social work is where our research into state rules began.
Read next
- Requirements by state The states we have researched, and what each board publishes
- Social work field education The placement record, in the words a social work program uses
- Supervision hours tracking How hours are labeled, signed and sealed
- Find a supervisor Search by state and pathway