by Rebecca Okay. Oliver, LMSW, CSW
College social work is a career with a wealthy historical past. College social staff have been in faculties because the early 1900s. “College social staff have been offering providers to take away boundaries to studying that impede youngsters’s potential to entry and profit from schooling for over a century” (Constable, 2009). Every year, the primary full week of March marks College Social Work Week. This can be a designated week to have a good time the professionals known as college social staff.
The week of March 6-12, 2022, provides people and faculty communities the chance to have a good time the wealthy historical past and deep contributions of faculty social work professionals. The College Social Work Affiliation of America’s theme for College Social Work Week 2022 is Time to Shine.
Who Are College Social Staff?
College social staff are skilled psychological well being professionals with a level in social work who present providers associated to an individual’s social, emotional, and life adjustment to highschool and/or society. College social staff are the hyperlink between the house, college, and group in offering direct and oblique providers to college students, households, and faculty personnel to advertise and help college students’ educational and social/emotional/behavioral success. College social staff are instrumental in furthering the mission of the colleges, which is to supply a setting for instructing, studying, and the attainment of competence and confidence. College social staff are employed by college districts to boost the district’s potential to satisfy its educational mission, particularly the place residence, college, and group collaboration is the important thing to attaining scholar success. (See https://www.sswaa.org/school-social-work.)
College social work is a specialised space of observe inside the broad subject of the social work career. College social staff deliver distinctive data and abilities to the college system and the scholar providers staff.
College Social Staff Are Uniquely Educated
What’s so distinctive about college social work? Highly qualified school social workers have a master’s degree in social work. Social work observe is firmly grounded in moral requirements that information the skilled’s observe and conduct. These moral requirements are infused with the values of social work, which embrace service, social justice, dignity and value of the individual, significance of human relationships, integrity, and competence. Delivering providers in a culturally competent manner can be a trademark of social work observe. (For extra info on social work ethics and values, see: https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English)
College Social Staff Provide a Distinctive Perspective
College social staff full rigorous coursework of their schooling, together with theoretical and philosophical approaches that floor and inform their observe. College social staff imagine that when working with people and households, one ought to use a strengths perspective to establish strengths and capitalize on these strengths to tell the work. Moreover, college social work makes use of an ecological perspective or person-in-environment concept. The Encyclopedia of Social Work defines this as follows:
The person-in-environment perspective in social work is a practice-guiding precept that highlights the significance of understanding a person and particular person habits in mild of the environmental contexts by which that individual lives and acts. (Kondrat, 2013)
Each of those views equip college social staff to contribute to the work of the tutorial system in a singular manner.
College Social Staff View Conditions By way of a Distinctive Lens
When contemplating a scholar’s or household’s scenario, college social staff are particularly attuned to problems with social justice, together with poverty, entry to providers, range, discrimination, and different social justice points. College social staff are brokers of change and search to problem injustices, set up extra equitable practices in faculties, and advocate for individuals who should not have a voice. “Social staff should take motion in opposition to oppression, racism, discrimination, and inequities, and acknowledge private privilege” (NASW, 2021).
College Social Staff Provide a Distinctive Service
A faculty’s mission has been primarily to teach college students in studying, writing, arithmetic, science, historical past, and the humanities. Nevertheless, in recent times, emphasis has additionally been positioned on the entire little one growth and the significance of the social, emotional, and behavioral well-being, in addition to the psychological well being of a kid. College social staff, alongside different specialised educational help personnel (college counselors, college psychologists, and faculty nurses), present providers to advertise wholesome growth of the social, emotional, and behavioral facets of a youth. College social staff work from a perspective that acknowledges familial, environmental, and group elements which will create boundaries to a scholar’s success. College social staff function a hyperlink between the house, college, and group, working to take away boundaries, interact households, and establish wanted assets for college students.
In mild of present social points, together with the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the continuation of social injustices, and the boundaries confronted by many college students and households, The College Social Work Affiliation of America (SSWAA) believes that this second in historical past is the time for varsity social staff to shine. (See https://www.sswaa.org/school-social-work-week.) College social staff shine hope! College social staff shine understanding! College social staff shine respect!
Shine on, college social staff! Shine on! #TimetoShine #SSWWeek2022
References
Constable, R. (2009). The function of the college social employee. In Massat, C.R., Constable, R., McDonald, S., & Flynn, J. P. (Eds.), College social work: Apply, coverage, and analysis (7th ed., pp. 3-29). Lyceum Books.
Kondrat, M. E. (2013). Particular person-in-environment. In Encyclopedia of Social Work. https://oxfordre.com/socialwork/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.001.0001/acrefore-9780199975839-e-285
NASW. (2021). NASW code of ethics. https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English
Rebecca Okay. Oliver, LMSW, CSW, has greater than 20 years expertise as a faculty social employee earlier than taking her present place as Government Director of the College Social Work Affiliation of America (SSWAA). Oliver is dedicated to the career and is an ardent proponent of elevating the visibility of faculty social staff and their optimistic influence on college students, households, and faculty communities.
