By Jenna Fiaretti, Staff Writer
On Feb. 10, 2026, Daemen University’s social work department was given the opportunity to visit New York State’s capitol, Albany, with aid from the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) for an event known as Capitol Action Day.
Assembly member Chantel Jackson, LMSW, representative for district 79, speaks at the Capitol Action Day press conference. Jaymi Stephens, junior social work major at Daemen, can be seen in the background, holding a sign made by freshman social work major Devon Ruddock, which states “No More Free Labor”.
Undergraduate students, along with Amy Trabert, Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) Program Director and Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work and Sociology, met at Curtis Hall at 4:45 a.m. to board the campus-provided van for the 4-hour trip.
“The Capitol building is where legislative policies are passed and where the governor is located. It is the heart of governed law in N.Y. state,” says Kara Gioia, a sophomore social work major.
Every year, NASW hosts a trip for social work students to lobby the New York state congress about relevant proposed policies. All guests involved in the event are concerned with current social work-related dilemmas, such as low pay, low placement and the looming threat of AI (Artificial Intelligence).
In response, the New York Chapter (NASW-NY) and invested individuals within and outside of the New York state congress drafted a series of bills that address these concerns from a social work perspective.
They then created position papers that summarize the bills to readers and include reasoning as to why they are important to NASW. Among these are the “Oversight of Technology in Mental Health Care Act” (S8484/A9106), “Payment for Placements” (S7894/A9379), “Social Work to Student Ratio” (S376/A8390) and “Student Loan Forgiveness” (S1113/A6016).
Daemen’s Bachelors in Social Work (BSW) undergraduate students were provided food by NASW and created signs in support of their legislation. Afterwards, they split up into multiple groups to talk to legislators who would be voting on the bill.
They also spoke with legislative interns, who served as conduits between the students and legislators in the event of an absence. Students were assigned which legislative meetings to attend. These legislative meetings allowed students to speak out in support of the policy papers while ensuring that they were heard directly.
Next, students gathered at the Capitol building’s famous Million Dollar Staircase to observe the annual press conference. The conference contained a slew of speakers, many of which were sponsors of the policy papers, such as New York State Representative Manny De Los Santos, State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez and policy coordinator for the national association of social workers, Amanda Pressly, among many others.
While there are only clips of the press conference online posted to social media platforms, the full press conference was about an hour long. In it, speakers spoke of the importance of social work as a profession, reiterated the importance and reasoning behind the policy papers, and stood as a unified front for change in their profession.
“There are some jobs just not worth automating, and social workers are at the top of that list,” Gonzalez said.
The Oversight of Technology in Mental Health Care Act” (S8484/A9106) is a proposed bill written by Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Assembly member Jo Anne Simon that places restrictions on what AI can do in a social work setting. This legislation would effectively “prevent AI from acting as a therapist” (S8484/A9016).
It would require clear communication to consumers on how AI can be used in this situation, establish penalties for companies that falsely advertise, and make sure AI is not used instead of licensed therapy. This is especially important when considering the AI chatbot phenomenon, which has led to multiple recently reported suicides due to the AI either directly or implicitly encouraging suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors.
Payment for Placements (P4P) (S7894/A9379) is being proposed as a solution for the low wages of social workers in N.Y. In particular, it aims to tackle the issue of 900 hours of unpaid and required internship/placement experience in order to complete education and to begin working in the profession for low base-level pay
“The average MSW (master’s in social work) graduate leaves school with $48,000 to over $60,000 in debt, yet enters a field where wages remain low. Many talented and committed students simply cannot afford to continue in the profession under current conditions,” The policy paper states.
In response to this, these bills propose $4,500 stipends (equivalent to $10 per hour) for the first 450 hours of required placement, require students to stay in N.Y. during placement and for one year after graduation during work and collect annual data on this approach to ensure its effectiveness. They also encourage N.Y. assembly members to ensure equal access to this stipend and be open to potential expansion in the future to ensure the success of a diverse population of social workers and ensure accessible care for more patients.
Bills S376 and A8390 school social workers pertain to the ratio of students to social workers in residential schools.
“The National Association of Social Workers-New York (NASW-NY) and the School Social Work Association of America (SSWAA) call for at least one school social worker for every 250 students in general education,” the proposed legislation states.
Currently, N.Y. as a whole is unable to meet this request. These two bills would require New York State schools to report annually on the number of social workers in schools, calculate student-to-provider ratios, disclose any gaps in the ratio and provide publicly available plans to bridge these gaps. NASW is further urging the legislature to pass the bills, develop a staffing plan to ensure their application, dedicate specific and non-supplemental funding to the bills, and use the existing state school mental health budget to enforce them.
The final bills students lobbied for were (S1113) and (A6016), sponsored by Sen. Rachel May and Assembly member Jo Anne Simon. This paper urges legislators to increase student loan forgiveness for social work students with a similar urgency to nursing and medical students.
“New York State social workers are encumbered with high amounts of student loan debt, and low base salaries, making it nearly impossible for social workers to achieve loan forgiveness and financial stability,” the bill states.
These bills propose expanding the existing student loan forgiveness program to all social workers at all levels, allocating 12 million dollars to the social work loan forgiveness program to meet demand, and connecting it to the Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC) to ensure communication regarding this.
Daemen students departed from the New York State Capitol Building in a Daemen van and returned to campus before 9 p.m. Despite the trip only being for one day, students were kept busy by multiple relevant events. Despite calls from outside sources to decrease political involvement in social work, Capitol Action reinforces the ties between the two.
“Social work is a profession and is politics,” junior social work major Kia Dubose said, after the event’s conclusion.
NASW’s efforts to bring social workers of all levels and backgrounds together in a lobbying effort not only provides Daemen’s students with a reference for life after obtaining their degree but also aims to hopefully ensure a steady path of change and growth for the career sector as a whole.
“We have an obligation to do better…” Assembly member Manny De Los Santos said. “But it only happens when we work together. It only happens when we understand in order to get there and get this bill passed, we must appreciate who we are and the work we do.”