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The comprehensive services school social workers provide can address many barriers to student learning. But schools don’t always take full advantage of these professionals’ skills.

 

The best teachers know that they need to employ numerous strategies to reach their students. The best school social workers are much the same — they draw on a wide range of skills and knowledge to serve students in a myriad of ways.  

Frustratingly, though, school social workers often find themselves to be underutilized, relegated to a narrow set of tasks. It’s a common lament from the professionals we’ve trained over the years. As we heard recently from a former student who graduated several years ago and now works in an urban school: “I could help these kids and families in so many ways, but all my supervisors want me to do is perform mental health assessments and attend IEP meetings. I know those things are important, but the people I work with seem to have no idea how much more I could do to support students.”  

What social workers can do 

School social workers are trained mental health professionals who provide critically important services directly to students (and sometimes teachers and staff) on campus. However, they also are dedicated to providing comprehensive supports that address many of the out-of-school needs that limit students’ learning. Further, many social workers have expertise related to administration, research, and policy making — and they tend to be good candidates to coordinate wraparound services. (While the community schools movement has been at the forefront of this approach, any school can and should provide these kinds of student and family support; Shaia & Finigan-Carr, 2018.) 

Social workers’ skills and knowledge also make them particularly well suited to take the lead in the emerging movement to improve school climate and promote social-emotional learning. This is especially important work because, in recent decades, concerns about school safety led many districts to create harsh educational environments, marked by zero-tolerance policies, tough disciplinary practices, and the like. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that the safest and most effective schools tend to be characterized by trusting, warm, and supportive relationships among staff, students, and parents (Steinberg, Allensworth, & Johnson, 2011). In short, K-12 education has begun to come around to a perspective — recognizing that individuals’ needs are best understood by looking to their social environment — that has been central to the field of social work for decades (School Social Work Association of America, n.d.). 

Further, social workers have a distinct professional commitment to promoting social justice, protecting children’s rights, and helping families resolve difficult life situations (Matulayova & Pesatova, 2013). Social work education also emphasizes culturally sensitive practice, focusing on the design of programs that are appropriate to the clients they serve and that value their diverse perspectives and experiences (National Association of Social Workers, 2002). This enables social workers to serve a variety of populations. 

Services to parents and families 

When students are struggling, social workers provide support to parents in facilitating their child’s adjustment to school. For example, they might provide programs to help new students become acclimated to school or assist students after an extended absence due to illness or family stressors, like a divorce or death. They might also assist parents of children with special needs in accessing programs available specifically for these needs. However, social workers don’t just assist students who are currently experiencing difficulties in school; they can support all students, as well as their parents and families, to address stressful situations before they have an effect on children.  

For example, for families living in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty, whether urban or rural, low socioeconomic status may create significant stressors that affect the families’ ability to maintain healthy relationships, parent their children, and adapt to life circumstances (Wadsworth et al., 2013; Shaia & Crowder, 2017). Social workers work with parents in these situations to access school and community resources that may help families reduce these stressors and improve the family’s outcomes. In providing this kind of assistance, social workers may not change structural issues, such as low socioeconomic status or racial inequity, but they may address how families deal with issues related to these factors.  

Social workers’ skills and knowledge make them particularly well suited to take the lead in the emerging movement to improve school climate and promote social-emotional learning. 

Services to school personnel 

Social workers have the training and expertise to intervene at multiple levels to enhance student learning, but to take full advantage of this expertise, school and district leaders need to rethink their assumptions about whom social workers serve.  

School social workers don’t just serve families and students. They also can provide school staff with essential information to help them better understand factors that may affect student performance and behavior. In short, social workers can play an important role in professional development. For example, they can help teachers and administrators identify evidence-based practices for maintaining a safe and effective learning environment, without overreliance on suspensions, expulsions, and other coercive disciplinary measures, thereby disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline (Corchado, Díaz-Aguado Jalon, & Martinez-Arias, 2017; McCarter, 2017). School social workers can also serve as a bridge between educators and the community in order to help educators obtain resources to meet classroom and student needs. 

Connecting the school and the community 

By maintaining working relationships with local partners and connecting with mental health providers, children and family services, and other organizations, social workers are well positioned to identify and coordinate community resources to meet students and families’ needs. And because their training emphasizes culturally responsive practices, they tend to be very careful to adapt their skills to local contexts.  

In Cleveland, Ohio, for example, school social workers worked together with local churches, mosques, and synagogues to create interfaith collaborations in which faith communities adopted schools to provide strong supportive relationships for the children and families in their communities (Kottha, 2015). This takes the form of extracurricular programs that provide wraparound support not only for the children who attend but for the families of those children. Social workers have established many promising programs like this one across the country. 

School social workers don’t just serve families and students. They also can provide school staff with essential information to help them better understand factors that may affect student performance and behavior. 

Here in Baltimore, our Social Work Community Outreach Service trains future social workers to understand many of the societal issues that impact children and families, often surfacing in school as problematic behavior, disengaged parents, and poor academic performance. Students in the University of Maryland’s School of Social Work are trained to work as school social workers or community school coordinators. In one of our community schools, the community school coordinator, a social worker, partnered with a local dental school to provide services to students and families; in essence, eradicating tooth decay in the student population, improving overall health, and building trusting relationships between school and community.  

Getting the full benefit of social work services 

While school social workers have the capacity to play these various roles and contribute to student success in all of these ways, they are often relegated to doing traditional clinical casework tasks, such as conducting special education or mental health assessments, attending IEP meetings, developing behavioral intervention plans for individual students, and providing direct case management to students with special needs (Kelly et al., 2010; Peckover et al., 2012). And when interviewed about their jobs and asked what they would change, they tend to say that they want to do more “social work, such as groups, individual work, connecting families to resources, partnering with community services, etc.” (Peckover et al., 2012, p. 15). 

Thus, it is imperative for school and district leaders to assess — perhaps every few years — how their social workers are being utilized and whether more can be done to take advantage of their knowledge and expertise. Critical questions include: 

What kinds of work are social workers doing in our school?  

Since social workers possess a wide range of skills, they can do more than monitoring IEPs. They might support the community school strategy, train educators on identifying and responding to trauma, accompany educators on home visits to build positive relationships with families, and help identify gaps in school programming for which additional resources may be sought. 

Are our social workers staying abreast of the most current thinking and applying that knowledge in school? 

The social work field is significantly informed by evidence-based practice, and social workers must attend regular professional development to maintain their licenses. Whatever new knowledge they gain may be valuable as the school rethinks its response to children experiencing trauma, for example, or as the school recognizes a demographic change in its student population, which may require a new approach to education and climate.  

Are our social workers connected to the communities in which our students and families live?  

The social work profession examines issues from both the macro (society, communities, groups, and organizations) and the clinical (individual and family) levels. If social workers’ focus is solely within the school, they will have little context for understanding the students and families present at school. To be equipped to respond appropriately to issues that students bring to school, social workers should establish trusting relationships with families, community members, and partners. Forging these relationships will pay off when, for example, a parent or community member gives the social worker a heads-up about an incident that occurred in the community the night before that may affect children in school that day. In such a case, the community has become a partner in making the school a safe and effective place for students to learn. 

Are our social workers supervising interns?  

Social work is a practice profession, similar to medicine, pharmacy, and nursing. To obtain their degrees, social work students must fulfill a significant number of hours working in the field. Social workers in schools routinely have interns working with them to learn more about school social work and community school practice. This increases the future pool of social workers who understand the complex and specialized nature of schools. Additionally, social work interns increase the reach of the social worker, as interns might perform light case management, do some crisis intervention, support the work of the Parent-Teacher Organization, and help with the planning and implementation of new programs.  

Why social work? 

Social workers in schools provide benefits not just for struggling students, but for the entire school community. By using skills and values that have long been fundamental to social work practice, such as the delivery of services that are culturally sensitive, family focused, and strengths based, school social workers can advocate for, develop, and assume leadership in providing effective quality programming that can ensure that the needs of children and families are met.   

 

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References 

Corchado, A.I., Díaz-Aguado Jalón, M.J., & Martínez-Arias, R. (2017). Is being punished at school an indicator of psychosocial risk? The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 20, e65.  

Kelly, M., Frey, A., Alvarez, M., Berzin, S., Shaffer, G., & O’Brien, K. (2010). School social work practice and response to intervention. Children & Schools, 32 (4), 201-210. 

Kottha, C. (2015). School social workers help students and parents. Heights Observer, 8 (8). http://heightsobserver.org/read/2015/07/31/school-social-workers-help-students-and-parents  

Matulayova, T. & Pesatova, I. (2013). Social workers in schools. Czech & Slovak Social Work / Sociální Práce / Sociálna Práca, 13 (5), 64-71. 

McCarter, S. (2017). The school-to-prison pipeline: A primer for social workers. Social Work, 62 (1), 53-61. 

National Association of Social Workers. (2002). NASW standards for school social work services. Washington, DC: Author. 

Peckover, C.A., Vasquez, M.L., Van Housen, S.L., Saunders, J.A. & Allen, L. (2012). Preparing school social work for the future: An update on school social workers’ tasks in Iowa. Children and Schools, 35 (1), 9-17. 

School Social Work Association of America. (n.d.). School social worker’s role. London, KY: Author. www.sswaa.org/?page=721  

Shaia, W.E. & Crowder, S.C. (2017). Schools as retraumatizing environments. In N.M. Finigan-Carr (Ed.), Linking health and education for African American students’ success (pp. 69-82). New York, NY: Routledge Press.  

Shaia, W.E. & Finigan-Carr, N.M. (2018). Moving from survival to fulfillment: A planning framework for community schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 99 (5), 15-18. 

Steinberg, M.P., Allensworth, E., & Johnson, D.W. (2011). Student and teacher safety in Chicago public schools: The role of community context and school social organization. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519414.pdf  

Wadsworth, M.E., Rindlaub, L., Hurwich-Reiss, E., Rienks, S., Bianco, H., & Markman, H. (2013). A longitudinal examination of the adaptation to poverty-related stress model: Predicting child and adolescent adjustment over time. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 42 (5), 713-725. 

 

Citation: Finigan-Carr, N. & Shaia, W.E. (2018). School social workers as partners in the school mission  Phi Delta Kappan 99 (7), 26-30.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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Nadine Finigan-Carr

NADINE FINIGAN-CARR is a research assistant professor, University of Maryland-Baltimore School of Social Work; she is the author of Linking Health and Education for African-American Students’ Success .

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Wendy E. Shaia

WENDY E. SHAIA is a clinical assistant professor and executive director of the Social Work Community Outreach Service, University of Maryland-Baltimore School of Social Work, Baltimore, Md.