A school social worker has a large and diverse population that they work with. This can cause a variety of needs that a social worker has to try and meet. One population a school social worker may have to work with is immigrant children. Working with immigrant children can bring many challenges, including higher educational and social needs, due to not fully understanding the English language. Another challenge that may be present is working with a higher probability of these children living in poverty. One way a school social worker can help meet the needs of immigrant children is through after-school programs. Joy Pastan Greenberg (2014) shows this in the journal article Significance of After-School Programming for Immigrant Children …show more content…
After-school programs have proven to have positive effects on social and emotional development. The benefits are protection and opportunities for enrichment, socialization, and acculturation. Also, after-school programs help to increase educational attainment. This is important when only about 20% of learning happens in the classroom. After-school programs provide activities such as art, sports, recreation and educational enrichment. It also allows children to form relationships with peers and adults. Another benefit of after-school programs that it encourages the development of identity and personal exploration (Greenberg, 2014, pp 243-251).
A school social worker has many different roles when working with immigrant children. One role that a social worker has is being an advocate for the need of after-school programs. School social workers also advocate for funding at a local, state, and federal levels. Another role is being an educator. School social workers can educate families of the benefits that after-school programs have. They can also educate the community members about specific immigrant populations. This way the community members can better understand more about the culture of the immigrant population in their community and became more culturally sensitive. School social workers can also educate policy makers on the importance of after-school programs. An additional role a social worker has in this setting is a broker, connecting
On September 21, 2015, I met with Ms. Katie, a student in the MSW program at NCSU, to conduct an interview. We met at Starbucks in Cary, in the crossroads shopping center. Ms. Katie’s responses helped me learn and think about social workers in the child welfare social field. As a prospective social worker, my questions were formed based thoughts that I was concerned about my responsibilities in the social work field..
A child may start school who is already involved with a social worker due to external factors affecting the child’s development. The school may also contact a social worker if they become concerned about a child and their home environment. Social workers can provide advice to the school about the child’s background in order for the school to understand what support should be given.
Social workers play a crucial role in many professional realms. With the focus on social workers in educational settings, I interviewed Erika Bougdanos who is a Dean of Students at Niles North High School, located in north suburban Skokie, Illinois. Bougdanos has been working at Niles North for over ten years as a Dean and holds her MSW degree and Type 75 certification (Illinois Administrative Certificate). Bougdanos mentioned that although the high school is highly ethnically diverse, the majority of the student population is White. While Bougdanos interacts with many students throughout her work week, she mentioned that the students she primarily sees in her office are those from low-income or minority backgrounds.
Social workers must be cognizant of the various risk factors that potentially affect the adolescence developmental stage. Therefore, it is important that social workers are aware of school practices that incite the devastating process of school-to-prison pipeline which push students particularly students of color and students with disabilities out of the classrooms into the juvenile criminal justice system. Moreover, social workers must understand the risk factors that affect quality education and equality. Therefore, Social workers must continue to work towards changing adverse school policies through, advocacy, legislation reform, and societal awareness.
One of the most important skill to have as a social worker is to identify your client’s strengths. All social workers should have knowledge of an effective leader that are identified by their strengths or limitations in order to improve the one’s they identify. There are several evidence-based assessments that help identify the strengths and limitations of any individual. Thus, it is also necessary to obtain other perspective based on your leadership strengths or limitations in order to improve or strengthen those qualities. The self-assessments used through this paper will help me develop a plan that points out my challenges, help expand and improve on my strengths (Human Services Guide, 2015).
A School Social Worker is someone that trained to help students, parents, and sometimes staff with child needs. A school social worker focuses on providing a great outcome for the child, and the family they are working with. A school social worker can help with mental health which is focusing on a child who is functioning at a satisfactory level of emotional and behavioral adjustment, behavioral concerns, making sure the way a child acts or conducts his/ her self especially toward others, positive behavioral support is a behavior management system used to understand what maintains an individual's challenging behavior, academic and classroom support may refer to a wide variety of instructional methods, educational services, or school resources provided to students in the
As a Social Worker, I have had the opportunity to work with children and families from diverse socioeconomic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. My experience and training includes extensive work with prenatal, infant and early childhood education and development. Through this course I have been able to
Over the course of the past few years, I have been very blessed to have professional experiences that reinforced my interest in social work. In 2014, I worked as a guidance counselor and learning support intern at St. Pius Elementary school in Greensboro, North Carolina. In the guidance-counseling department, I assisted with counseling appointments with children in grades K-8. We often discussed topics
The framework of the social work profession is based on providing services to the immigrant population, and this belief system is still prevalent in modern day society. Immigration reform continues to be a debatable issue in the legislative branches of our government. The Dream Act was one small portion of the Immigration Reform Act that if enacted would have provided students with an avenue to obtain legal residency if they met certain criteria. Because we are a nation of immigrants, the passage of this act would be consistent with our beliefs and values. Passage of this bill would encourage legal residency and citizenship besides a means to legalize the status of children who are illegal residents through no decisions of their choosing (Akron
Recent research strongly suggests that well-designed programs are having significant effects on student behaviors (Learning Point Associates). Children who have too much free time after school without parental vision need to be involved in after-school programs. There are many negative influences children could be exposed to in different social environments. Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex, and violence are just a few examples in a large category of negative influences
After school, from 3 to 6 p.m, is a critical period of time in a child’s life. After school programs help keep kids safe and inspire them to learn during that period of time. After school programs are organized programs that youth can participate in outside of a traditional school day. Enrolling children in afterschool programs would provide them with benefits that unenrolled children would not receive, such as reduce risky behavior and promote physical health. After school programs provide a safe environment for children, while positively impacting their academics, safety, and their future.
To begin with, afterschool activities help kids get involved which teaches them long term commitment. After school is done kids will always have something to do if they are involved, rather than going home and have a lot of time and do nothing which leads students to things that they are not supposed to do. According to USA today, research shows that self-care and boredom can increase the likelihood that a young person will experiment with drugs and alcohol by as much as 50 percent. Also, with the growing problem of obesity, children who participate in activities and sports will the exercise
“There are approximately forty nine million children and youth, ages 6-17 living in the U.S.” (“Making the Case” 1). Children need care while they are in the initial stages of growth and development. Whether this care is provided by a mother, father, sibling, or other guardian, a child needs to be loved. When children turn a certain age, the care of the family is added to by caregivers in another institution. While attending school, children are shown care for the duration of the day by teachers, mentors, and other aids. This is a productive time for the children’s development because they are being nurtured in a well rounded, safe environment. This environment provides initial academic
Social work within the school system is an important and necessary asset to have. It helps many students with a severity of problems that children and adolescents face, whether it be at home or at the school itself. The role of the social worker is to establish a working relationship between the school and the family. In addition, they also help make sure that the child’s needs are met, whether it be their academic achievement, social, emotional and behavioural competence. By observing the child in its environment, they establish what needs that child might have and they figure out how they can utilize that perspective on the child to ensure that they perform to the best of their abilities academically or socially. We are looking at the different polices and job duties that a social worker faces while working in a school, whether it is a child with mental health related issues or a child with learning disabilities.
School social workers work within schools to provide a variety of social, emotional, and mental health services to students to support overall success. The intent of this research is to evaluate the significance of having a school social worker available to general education students within the Owatonna High School setting and to examine the gaps in services that may have appeared since removal of this position in 2009. Various related studies were examined to outline a range of ways in which school social workers are used to support student success. During this study, a total of seven employees of the Owatonna School District were interviewed regarding school social work. As a whole the participants identified a large number of gaps