Essay on The Roles of a Social Worker

Position Summary: The school social worker serves as a member of MVHS special education team, writes social history reports, provides students/ families access to social services, direct support and interventions to students, consults with teachers, families, and other school-employed mental health professionals (i.e., school counselors, psychologists) to improve support strategies, work with school administrators to improve school-wide practices and policies, and collaborate with community providers to coordinate needed services to students

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.

I interviewed several service providers in my school, Stephen Knight Center for Early Education, that included the psychologist, special education teacher and a general education teacher. I interviewed Ms. Iris, the school psychologist, Ms. Kathy, the special education teacher, and Ms. Hilary, a general education teacher. Ms. Iris’ responsibilities include working with students who have social emotional needs. This can include behavior challenges, learning new social skills, managing grief, etc. She works directly with parents and teachers to provide resources regarding the child’s well-being, and ensure good attendance by setting up plans. Ms. Iris works with children in general education, counseling groups, and one-on-one situations, including special education minutes. Ms. Hilary is a general education classroom teacher. She is responsible for the well-being of her students academically, socially, physically and developmentally. Ms. Hilary also advocates for families and students to receive the support that they need to feel successful in their first years of school. Finally, Ms. Kathy is the staffing

School social workers can become change agents in their agencies, and assist schools in developing workshops so that school administrators and staff are trained and educated on the needs and educational challenges of undocumented students (Perez, 2010).

School social workers not only provide direct services to children who require basic needs or exhibit challenging behavior, but also lead prevention efforts that support children through building the capacity of family members, other school staff, and community agencies to improve student outcomes (NASW, 2012)

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

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

Social workers are in a key position to helping parents and children in times of crisis. Social workers can be the helping hands for their clients either in therapy sessions, group therapy/support groups, crisis intervention, etc. Social work practitioners need to look for the warning signs in the teenagers, and the give the right techniques and services to help them cope with their diagnosis and/or struggles.

School social workers, as representatives of the educational system and individuals from the instructive "group," have proficient commitments that range past the student and the student's family. To be powerful in serving and meeting both the instructive and social–emotional needs of the student, data should be shared and traded. “First and foremost, the sharing of confidential information should always "be done in a manner that preserves the dignity of the [student] and the integrity of the [school] social worker–student relationship"(B. Reid, 2016 para#).

Reviews in an article of School-based Social Work Interventions, shows that Social Workers have become increasingly involved in administering interventions to reveal promising empirical support with a variety of outcomes and populations (2013, p.252-263). The article discusses the need for employed Social Workers to be actively present within school systems is crucial; to assure children receive proper diagnosis, especially those dealing trauma or environmental issues. The use of school Social Workers could defeat the alternative of possibly misdiagnosing, and/or the chance of over medicating the child. The last report a parent wants to receive about their child is that they are acting out, being unruly, and leaving the only other

school with problems or facing problems due to an illness in the family. Social workers are

To be in this field of work, a proper education is required. The Child Care Career Book says “a masters degree in social work is needed if this person would like to go into the mental health, research, or supervisory positions”. It also states that, “A doctorate id required for teaching and desirable for some research and administrative jobs”. Also a social worker at my school said

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.

Law has come to play a very important part in social work practice. It can be said that the understanding of law underpins and provides duties and power, whilst understanding the statutory legal requirements is essential for effective, fair, anti-discriminatory practice (Brammer 2007). Due to the shear amount of laws and legislation that have been passed or updated over the last decade, the role of the social worker, metaphorically speaking could be said to have become somewhat of a chameleon, forever adapting to their legal environment, whilst trying hard to remain true to the traditional values of the role of a social worker. It is this conflict between law and social work values that will be analyzed in this paper. From looking at the values that underpin the modern day social worker and then looking at some of the main legislation relating to adult services such as the Mental Health Act 2007, the Community Care Act 1996, Mental Capacity Act 2005 the relationship between these Acts’ and how they sit with social work values will then be discussed.