September 2025
Over the last several months there have been a number of articles in the New York Times regarding teenagers using Chatbots for mental health support, sometimes with tragic outcomes. Although there are some controls built into Chatbots to recognize and better handle suicidal clients, some of the teenagers mentioned in the article were able to cleverly get around these protections and even get information on suicide techniques. While some parents have decried these Chatbots, some clinical social workers have used them as supplements for their therapy, and some clients have stated they have helped them process their feelings.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is here now with huge implications for our profession. In a book published in March 2025, entitled “Artificial Intelligence in the Behavioral Health Professions”, Dr. Frederick G. Reamer discuss ethics and risk management issues with AI. Among the many topics covered in this book are chatbots, robots, text recognition, clinical services, and documentation.
Artificial intelligence in the social work profession is the focus of the Town Hall Meeting at our 2025 annual conference. Leading off this Town Hall Meeting will be Dr. Amanda Barsh Baranski from Colorado, a national expert on AI in social work. Following Dr. Baranski’s presentation, a three-member panel of Wisconsin practitioners will respond. Roberta Bronecki,Chair of the NASW-WI Clinical Network, will provide a response from a clinical social work perspective, Marc Seidl, Supervisor Brown County Human Services will provide a county human services perspective and UW Green Bay Professor Joan Groessl with provide an ethics perspective on AI. In addition to this Town Hall Meeting, the conference includes three other sessions on AI including 1) Embracing AI as a Social Worker, Leader, and Parent with James Tabatt, CSW MS LPC-I 2) The Use of Generative AI in Mental Health Diagnosis: Ethical and Practice Implications with Joan Groessl, MSW, PhD, LCSW, (she/her), Brittany Maas, MSW, LCSW, (she/her) and 3) How AI Touches Social Work with Nicholas Smiar, PhD, ACSW, CISW, (he/him).
I also want to direct NASW-WI members to the excellent article on Artificial Intelligence written by Andrew Bailey, LCSW, found elsewhere in this Fall 2025 newsletter.
States around the country are just now beginning to consider legislation restricting the use of AI with therapy. Illinois and Nevada passed laws banning AI mental health chatbots from impersonating licensed professionals. Nevada’s law included a provision to ban AI mental health bots from performing the duties of school social workers.
Clearly AI usage presents major challenges and some opportunities for the social work profession. It can save time in our work, but we should always review and as necessary edit AI’s work for us.As we consider the use of AI, we need to always keep in mind our Code of Ethics including such areas as informed consent, client autonomy, competent practice, privacy and confidentiality, client misdiagnosis, and algorithmic bias and unfairness.
By Marc Herstand, MSW, CISW