Human services professor helps create field’s first national licensing exam

by Chuck Gordon

When Dr. Daya Patton was just starting out in human services in the late 1990s, she worked as a case manager, primarily interviewing applicants for food stamps and other benefits. She had a political science degree but no real qualifications to do social work.

She didn't really need them. "You just followed a set of directions," she says.

Now an assistant professor of sociology and human services at Wingate, Patton has seen the field change dramatically and the work become more complex and broader reaching, even for entry-level workers.

This year, Patton was a subject-matter expert on a team that created a national exam to provide certification for entry-level human services professionals. Of the nine content areas covered on the exam, Patton contributed questions to four: human systems, information literacy, program planning and evaluation, and client interventions and strategies.

The first Human Services Comprehensive Exam went live in May, and this fall Wingate human services majors will take the exam as part of their curriculum.

They'll answer questions that have been painstakingly vetted. Patton was given three weeks to devise 15 questions, which were then poked and prodded and pulled apart by experts from the National Board of Certified Counselors.

Beforehand, she thought the process would be simple. "I'm like, 'I give tests all the time,'" she says.

After a few requests from NBCC reviewers - "Option B is too obvious"; "Can you reword this one?" - Patton had changed her tune. "It was a little bit more difficult than I thought it would be," she says. "You had to not wear your feelings on your sleeve." The question-creators had to provide empirical evidence for each answer, which meant digging into textbooks and research papers.

The questions were also locked down like Fort Knox. Each participant was given a laptop to use but could only open test information on it.

"Everything had an encrypted level of security," she says. "We couldn't write anything down. We couldn't save anything."

When Patton met with the other question-writers via Zoom, she had to be video-monitored at all times, to show that no one else was in the room with her. "It was an interesting process," she says. "I'm like, 'Am I in the secret service or the CIA?'"

The upshot of all the secrecy is that more-highly qualified human services workers will be in the workforce. And that should be a win-win, especially in areas such as Union County, which has a big need for social workers and mental health counselors.

Patton says that requiring certification - a move that is likely in the coming years - will improve outcomes for all.

"I think having professionals who are more prepared will have a broad impact," she says. "It used to be that as a case manager you only did a few things. Now you're doing everything. Especially after the pandemic, we're facing a different set of challenges in our society. And so you have to have professionals who can rise to the challenges that are also knowledgeable and have the skills to support families and individuals."

Having a standardized credential will also make it easier for people to move to other states and find work in the field. Patton did that early in her career, when she worked as an income maintenance caseworker in North Carolina before becoming a program specialist in Tennessee. She has since worked a variety of human services jobs, including owning a rehabilitation center and serving as a school counselor, all while earning three master's degrees and a doctorate. She became an adjunct professor at Wingate in 2022 and took a full-time position at the University in the fall of 2023.

Patton says Wingate is treating this year as a pilot program for the exam. It won't be a requirement to graduate, but all senior human-services majors will take it. Ultimately, the University will consider using it as an exit exam.

"It's really a benefit to the students, because they're coming out with their diploma and their credential," Patton says.

She says she'd be willing to work on the exam again if asked.

"I didn't really know what I was going into," she says, "but looking at the seriousness of it and how important it is, I felt like it was an honor to be chosen."

Human services and other undergraduate classes begin Aug. 22. Learn more about Wingate's human services major.

Aug. 4, 2024

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