School social work is a specialized field in the broad category of social work. It brings the knowledge, experienced and expertise of general social work to the school setting to enhance the life of students. Sadly, due to the violence in schools and colleges today, many are involved in grief counseling after a crisis. School social workers are hired by school districts , colleges and work at alternative educational facilities.
Social workers are generally trained to make use of strength based ecological approaches that view clients and organizations as part of a unitary system. They enhance the relationships between the two to improve lives. The result of a good school social worker should include increased individual satisfaction, academic achievement, competency, improved attendance and improve social behavior that may be problematical.
Some of the major roles of a social worker are;
Assessment and screening. This involves building consultative teams, Kindergarten screening, depression and suicide screening, abuse and neglect screening and AOD.
Establishing support groups and counseling. These act as avenues to develop social skills, anger management, individual counseling, and problem solving and helping pregnant and parenting teens. Many kids are shy in groups and it’s important for a school to have a place where students can go for individual counseling to deal with life challenges.
Classroom instruction and intervention. This involves training in areas of safety, prevention, health and asset building. Interventions focus managing traumatic events, family crisis, suicidal ideation and child abuse.
Another role of the school social worker is partnering with community based organizations in the transition of children from foster care, corrections and residential treatment. This also involves coordinating of community resources with school services to create linkages.
A school social worker also gets involved in staff development, team facilitation and problem solving. They also give a hand in curriculum development, consult on discipline, suspension and expulsion, dealing with discrimination and building district crisis response capacity.
School social workers act as catalysts in promoting students mental and physical well being of students for successful completion of school and helping one to process difficult emotions by learning effective tools. Often social workers are needed to help kids grieve when their is a school tragedy such as a violent situation involving a student due to weapons.
If school social workers gave talks at assembly maybe this will help the violence in our schools. I am stunned to hear about what kids bring to school these days that can be used to hurt others. Of course, they don’t remember to bring their homework.
Comment by John — October 18, 2009 @ 1:34 pm