Social Work Students Demand Compensation for Unpaid Work Hours
Washington Square News • By Carmo Moniz • April 19, 2023
“Mia Halsey, a second-year student at NYU’s Silver School for Social Work, spends over 20 hours each week providing counseling and social services to people accused of crimes in the public defense system. Her work, which requires her to manage a 10-client caseload, is part of a 1,200-hour field requirement that all students in the graduate social work program are required to complete. Even though Halsey and other Master of Social Work students do much of the same work as paid professionals, their jobs are unpaid.
Halsey balances her field work, which takes up three full work days each week, with six hours of classes every weekday and a weekend job at a bar. She said that the structure of NYU’s social work program exhausts students, deteriorates the quality of their work, impacts their academic performances and negatively affects their health and relationships.
‘I have a pretty exhausting schedule, where I basically am obligated to [always] be doing something, whether it’s paid work or unpaid work or being in class,’ Halsey said. ‘I don’t ever really feel like I have a break or a chance to recover.’”
