ABSTRACT
States classified as rural and frontier has both fewer social workers and fewer baccalaureate and master’s programs in social work, making it more difficult for people to obtain professional social work degrees and credentialing. The emergence of online programs in social work has helped somewhat with the access to education issue. In addition to recruitment issues, rural social work clinicians are more likely to experience burnout and social workers in smaller communities leave agencies after shorter stays, which creates turnover issues. The rural landscape for qualified social work professionals relies on generalist practitioners, and this is true for social workers practicing with rural older adults. Credentialing issues such as licensure, continue to remain as challenges when there are requirements for face-to-face supervision and in-person continuing education. Peer networking opportunities is one method to help mitigate isolation and burn out reported by rural gerontological social workers.
