It takes a unique sort of drive and persistence to become a social worker in Florida. It’s a state that has a lot of needs in the world of social services:
- According to a 2019 analysis by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Florida’s ranking in the category of child well-being dropped to 37th overall, and 45th and 40th for economic and health respectively.
- The Florida Policy Institute found that Florida teacher pay has dropped 10 percent from 2013 to 2022, leaving teacher salaries second worst in the country.
- According to the Florida Coalition to End Homelessness, more than 31,000 people have no home to go to on any given night, including almost 5,000 kids. The state is short of more than 435,000 rental units for housing.
- In 2022, CDC number tracking drug overdose deaths put Florida at the top, with more than 7,500 dead. In 2021 alone, there were 1,200 dead in Tampa Bay and another 1,491 in Pasco County.
On top of all of this, the EPA has found that Florida is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, with everything from ocean acidification attacking reefs to sea level rise crowding out families to increased hurricane intensity threatening lives. Climate change is the big boogeyman that makes almost every other social issue in Florida worse in ways that other states don’t face.
Yet it’s also a state that sometimes seems to have a real official disdain for human services assistance. In addition to the cuts in education noted above, the proposed 2025 budget would chop another billion dollars and 1,000 jobs from healthcare services and falls some $4.4 billion short of what state agencies say they need.
For anyone who has seen the devastating personal impacts of poverty, racism, social injustice, substance abuse and mental health conditions, though, the challenges make the need even more clear. And with all those issues on the table, there’s room for a wide variety of social work careers all across Florida.
Why Social Work Careers in Florida Are Both Critical and Unique
It came in off the Gulf like a vicious angel; 150 mile per hour winds that seemed to shred the storm clouds themselves as it crossed the coast just south of Punta Gorda on September 28, 2022.
Despite multiple evacuation orders, school closures in Tampa Bay, and Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando closing their doors for the duration, Hurricane Ian trapped thousands as it tore across the peninsula and stranded thousands. More than 2.4 million people lost power in the wake of the storm. Hundreds of homes were destroyed.
As they always do in the wake of such destruction, Florida social workers stepped up.
On top of those crisis management specialists working for FEMA and those working with the Florida Division of Emergency Management, many members of the Florida chapter of the National Association of Social Workers volunteered to help. Even if it was outside their specialization, helping survivors find food, shelter, counseling, and even clothes is just the kind of thing social workers are compelled to do.
With climate-driven disasters on the rise and other environmental and cultural factors coming at Florida residents from every angle, social work careers in the Sunshine state aren’t always shiny. It’s tough work, and you can easily find yourself outside your comfort zone, dealing with government mandates that sideswipe LGBTQ+ or immigrant communities like StopWOKE, handling the aftermath of national disasters like hurricanes or floods, or coping with crisis after mass shootings like the Pulse nightclub.
But those are exactly the reasons that Florida needs caring, capable, and versatile people to launch social work careers here.
Florida State Credentials for Social Work Careers Reflect the Two Major Tracks of the Profession: Clinical and Generalist
It can seem like social work careers in Florida as anywhere else cluster around the bad that can happen in society. And it’s true that helping people usually means encountering folks and situations where life has taken a left turn.
There’s a kind of grand divide in social work practice over which way you may help in those situations. And it’s baked right into the Florida state licensing laws with two different kinds of credentials that are a perfect fit for both types of social service assistance.
Direct, personal, and often clinical assistance, also known as micro social work, comes through careers as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). This is hands-on work with individual clients and small groups, including families, where counseling and personalized assistance is offered. It puts social workers in intimate contact with clients and requires an extensive education in psychological and behavioral health and therapy.
Focused on bigger picture solutions that take in entire communities or even the entire state is the role of macro social work careers, exemplified by people holding the voluntary Certified Master Social Worker (CMSW) credential. These are careers that immerse social workers into data, analysis, and policy work. They create programs and run agencies that deliver vital human services, or lead non-profits into areas that government assistance fears to tread.
In between those, another level of work exists known as mezzo, or intermediate, social work. These jobs may be unlicensed, or they may tend to go toward folks with CMSW credentials. This is the valuable work of case management, resource referral, and on-the-ground organization that links together the resources established by the macro jobs for the folks doing the heavy lifting in micro roles.
Social Work Specializations Often Revolve Around the Population You Will Serve in Florida
While micro, macro, and mezzo describe the ways in which social work services are delivered, there’s another way to break down social services careers. That’s by the population being served.
The sheer variety of different types of need in Florida can lead to a lot of unexpected joy and fulfilling niches in social work practice here.
Florida, with 23 million residents and a diversity index of 64.1 percent according to the 2020 Census (tied with Georgia as the 9th most diverse state in the nation), has populations that fit into every conceivable category of social assistance need. That opens up jobs in many focus areas, each with their own unique tasks and rewards:
- Social Work Case Manager Jobs
- Gerontology Social Work Jobs
- Youth Social Worker Jobs
- Child Welfare Social Worker Jobs
- Adoption Agency Social Worker Jobs
- Forensic Social Work Jobs
- Crisis Social Work Jobs
- Medical Social Worker Jobs
- Homeless Social Worker Jobs
- Hospice Social Worker Jobs
- Immigration Social Worker Jobs
- Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker Job
- School Social Work Jobs
- Military Social Work Jobs
- Social Justice Social Work Jobs
Each of these specializations comes with their own blend of macro, micro, and mezzo positions. That means they’re all open to social workers with either the CMSW or LCSW credentials.
Social Work Education and Licensing Will Shape Your Career Path in Florida
Careers in Florida social work depend in part on licensing, and licensing depends in part on education, which results in a significant fork in the road that will force you to make some choices along the way.
Clinical jobs in the state are required by law to be performed by LCSWs; an LCSW, in turn, can only be awarded to individuals who have earned at least a Master of Social Work.
Unlike clinical social work jobs, macro and mezzo roles in Florida do not legally require that you earn a CMSW to perform the work. That opens many of them up to social services professionals who have earned associate or bachelor’s degrees in the field, but who have not yet taken the step up to the master’s degree required for state credentials. Yet there are plenty of master’s level positions in those categories as well.
Clinical Social Work Careers in Florida Are the Most-Traveled Path for MSW Graduates
The greatest number of licensed social workers in Florida are LCSWs; according to the Florida Department of Health, there were just over 12,800 as of 2024. They represent almost 40 percent of social workers in the state overall.
Clinical practice is the major field for Florida social workers and the primary destination of most MSW graduates in the state.
These positions are so common that they are often identified simply by the license title, as Licensed Clinical Social Work positions. But there are also roles that require an LCSW that you will find with titles such as:
- Mental Health Counselor
- Mental Health Therapist
- Mental Health Professional
- Therapist - Criminal Justice
- Medical Social Worker - Home Health
The advantage of holding a clinical license is in opening up clinical positions, so most of these jobs involve some level of delivering psychotherapeutic services directly to clients:
- Assessing and evaluating mental and behavioral health conditions
- Developing comprehensive treatment plans
- Making referrals to appropriate resources
- Performing therapy and counseling
LCSWs are also typically more than qualified for mezzo roles, and can easily step up into macro positions with a little experience under their belt. It may be the most versatile kind of social work credential in Florida.
Administration and Management Jobs Keep Social Services Rolling in Florida
Although LCSWs are the most common kind of licensed social worker, they are not the most common kind of social worker overall. According to 2023 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, just over 33,800 social workers are employed in Florida. That means at least 21,000 are not LCSWs, and instead must work in macro or mezzo roles.
Some of the types of intermediate social work jobs you can make a career at in Florida include those with titles like:
- Victim’s Advocate Pompano Beach
- Health Neighborhood Liaison
- Parent Educator at Family Central in Fort Lauderdale
- Community Outreach Coordinator
- Foster Care Treatment Coordinator
An Aging Population Shapes the Career Landscape for Florida Social Workers in Administrative Roles
Florida is a mecca for retirement. It’s often ranked the number one state in the nation for retirees. With no state income tax, relatively affordable housing, warm weather, and plenty of amenities, the state drew in an estimated 78,000 seniors in 2021 alone. Many more choose to dip one foot in, flying down for the winter as snowbirds before flocking back to diverse northern states from whence they came.
Either way, there’s a lot of older folks wandering around in orthotics with their sun hats on. Census Bureau data from 2020 shows more than 20 percent of the permanent population alone was over the age of 65, the second highest in the nation (the biannual snowbird migration surely puts us at number one for at least half the year, however).
That makes for a lot of social work jobs in healthcare and gerontology. And although a lot of those are clinical, even more wind up in the middle ground of mezzo social work practice. Handling discharge planning and follow-up, making resource referrals, coordinating appointments and meetings—these are all things older Americans often need assistance with, and even a BSW graduate can help. So you will find many mezzo social worker positions for bachelor’s and master’s grads in palliative care, healthcare, and retirement homes here.
There are also plenty of jobs for social workers with a big-picture focus. These don’t always require an MSW, but they are more likely to go to social workers with a high-level of education and a wealth of experience in the field.
Macro and policy-level work comes with different job titles. You can find positions here in Florida like:
- Advocacy Manager for the Alzheimer’s Association in West Palm Beach
- Advocate for Hope Villages of America in Clearwater
- Senior Manager for Health Policy & Advocacy
- Victim Service Advocate Seminole County Victims’ Rights Coalition
- Foster Parent Growth and Retention Coordinator National Youth Advocate Program
CMSWs are more than qualified for any of these roles, but are really most suited for the next step up: leadership and advocacy on a large scale. You can find them running major non-profit organizations, managing initiative campaigns to amend the Florida constitution, or advising senior legislators and government officials in public policy development and administration.
They put together the strategies that fight back against racism and injustice at both the legal and the community levels. If you have participated in a major community action like Rally for our Rights in St. Petersburg or Women’s Rights Are Human Rights protests in places like Miami, Sarasota, or Orlando, chances are there is a master’s-level social worker somewhere in the background putting it all together.
Who’s Hiring Social Workers in Florida?
CauseIQ, a directory of nonprofit organizations across the country, lists 4,550 multi service human services organizations and networks in Florida alone. When you broaden the net to human services organizations overall, there are more than 11,000, employing nearly 110,000 people and driven by some $10 billion in revenues each year.
That doesn’t even include all the various government agencies and for-profit organizations, like hospitals and nursing homes, that often employ social workers, too.
These organizations run the gamut from tiny little one or two person non-profits with quirky missions like lining up shoes for the unhoused in Tampa to big outfits like the Safe Children Coalition, serving communities in Sarasota, Manatee, and Desoto counties with adoption and foster care needs.
There are also plenty of independent social workers who run their own businesses all over Florida.
LCSW and clinical positions are particularly well suited to solo practice. Since you are licensed for independent practice and already dealing one-on-one with individual clients or families, there’s no obstacle to setting up shop. In fact, it allows you to specialize even further to really zoom in on an area of practice that interests you.
You don’t need to be a clinical social worker to practice independently in Florida, either, though. Accomplished MSW graduates can build their own businesses in consulting or case management like Heidi Brown Geriatric Care Management in Sarasota, advising seniors and their families in adjusting to new needs for housing, caregiving, and medical care coordination.
And you don’t need to be part of a big organization to make a big impact, in Florida or beyond. Longwood’s small Chair the Love nonprofit delivers wheelchairs and mobility devices for people who need them not just in places like Orange County, but also in places like Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Peru.
Your Compensation in a Florida Social Work Career Comes with More Than Just Money
Florida may need social workers a lot, but it doesn’t pay them a lot. The unfortunate fact is that every category of social work employment that is tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds Florida jobs paying less than the national average.
There are a few factors that can help make up for that deficiency, however.
First, while Florida’s cost-of-living is higher than the national average, there are still pockets of the state with relatively affordable housing costs. You can make a career here while paying less than $2,000 a month for an apartment in Jacksonville, for example.
Wallethub ranks Florida as the 8th happiest state in the country.
Next, the state genuinely is a lifestyle mecca. You’ll find self-care a lot easier in a place with more than 230 sunny days per year.
Finally, there’s a lot of room for job satisfaction in a place with so many social service challenges. You will probably work harder than social workers in almost any other state on the average day. On the other hand, you’ll probably also accomplish far more good for far more people. Ultimately, that’s why you chose a career in social work in the first place.
2023 US Bureau of Labor Statistics salary and employment figures for Social Workers reflect national data, not school-specific information. Conditions in your area may vary. Data accessed October 2024.