Social Work in Schools

Social Work
Critical Writing #2

Social Work in the Schools

Have you every known a child that was really hurt by something that happened in school? Well did you know that thee are social workers involved within most school? In 1906, school social work services began in New Your City, Boston, and Hartford. About eight years later in 1913, Rochester, New Your, was the first school system to finance school social work services. During the 1920’s the emphasis on community liaison and change shifted towards the concentration of adjustment of the individual child. During the great depression, many different social workers lost their jobs due to the terrible economy. Many other jobs were also lost. In the 1960’s there were many social protest movements. Along with those protest movements, there was a shift in emphasis of changing the schools environment to help better the needs of diverse students. During the 1970’s the term visiting teacher turned into the term social worker. Through out the 1960-1970’s the need for social workers expanded. The legislation provided a variety of new employment setting. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 created Head Start Programs which employed social workers full or part time. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was started as The Education for All Children Act. In the mid-1970’s, the National Association of Social Workers was formed and they developed standards for school social work. Social work in the schools, can deal with working with the individuals, family work, group work, working with organizations and communities, teamwork and school-linked, integrated services. With working with the individuals, social workers handle things different today then they used to. Now days, they consult with the teacher on the needs of the child, share with teachers the cultural factors in the educational process, inform the staff about important community resources and consult with the teachers about classroom relationships. In a family work situation, the social worker is the only one who can visit the family from the school. The parents of the child are told to find more information that may help their child’s teacher work more effectively on their child. Some students may need to go to special education for evaluation, especially when emotional or behavioral disturbances are suspected. In this situation, the social worker, interview the parent to learn more about the child’s early development and how they behave at home. At my high school we didn’t have a social worker, we had two different counselors, one for the junior high, and one for the high school, since the junior high and high school were connected into one school. The counselors seemed like our social workers, because we could talk to them about anything that we had problems with. I used to have to go talk to the counselors, because I was having problems with my family at home, and there would be times that I would get very angry or start crying in school because I thought about things way to much. Finally, the counselor told me that I needed to talk to both of my parents and tell them how I felt, and everything started to seem better around the house, and I wasn’t visiting the office as much.