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Definition of schoolwork

Examples of schoolwork in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'schoolwork.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

1846, in the meaning defined above

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“Schoolwork.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schoolwork. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.

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Meaning of schoolwork in English

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  • academic year
  • access course
  • Advanced Placement
  • asynchronous
  • immersion course
  • interdisciplinarity
  • open admissions
  • open classroom
  • the national curriculum
  • work placement
  • Does competing with others make work or schoolwork more interesting to you?  

schoolwork | American Dictionary

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the material studied in or for school , comprising homework and work done in class.

Origin of schoolwork

Words nearby schoolwork.

  • schoolteaching
  • school voucher
  • school welfare officer
  • school without walls
  • school year
  • schooner rig
  • schooner-rigged

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use schoolwork in a sentence

Teenagers spend an average of 7 hours and 22 minutes online—and that amount doesn’t include time spent using a device for schoolwork .

That leaves them with about $200 a month for groceries, utilities and a $50 internet bill — a necessity for her daughter’s schoolwork .

A 15-year-old from suburban Detroit, Grace was sent to detention for violating her probation on earlier charges of theft and assault by failing to do her online schoolwork .

I don’t have the stress of getting her online while at work anymore, but I still have to do schoolwork with her when she gets home.

It’s becoming apparent that every student needs this to complete schoolwork now.

In general, students are extremely careful when it comes to schoolwork because we know the consequences.

She made her father sit down in a chair and look at her schoolwork .

But as serious as he was about his schoolwork , Bryant remained an unfailingly fun guy.

The two gals are similar, however, when it comes to balancing acting and schoolwork .

Johnson says she used her pain to dig deeper into her schoolwork and into her dual majors of chemistry and psychology.

schoolwork was as interesting, class rivalry as absorbing, as of yore.

Japanese students spend more time on schoolwork (the same 2-to-1 ratio), but much less on entertainment.

At first sight there does not seem to be much schoolwork going on.

He himself had made no practical progress in schoolwork —he knew that.

school work definition

Meaning of "schoolwork" in the English dictionary

Pronunciation of schoolwork, grammatical category of schoolwork, what does schoolwork mean in english, definition of schoolwork in the english dictionary.

The definition of schoolwork in the dictionary is the work that a child does at school or is given at school to do at home.

WORDS THAT RHYME WITH SCHOOLWORK

Words that begin like schoolwork, words that end like schoolwork, synonyms and antonyms of schoolwork in the english dictionary of synonyms, words relating to «schoolwork», translation of «schoolwork» into 25 languages.

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TRANSLATION OF SCHOOLWORK

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FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «SCHOOLWORK» OVER TIME

Examples of use in the english literature, quotes and news about schoolwork, 10 quotes with «schoolwork», 10 english books relating to «schoolwork», 10 news items which include the term «schoolwork».

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Definition of 'schoolwork'

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schoolwork in British English

Schoolwork in american english, examples of 'schoolwork' in a sentence schoolwork, trends of schoolwork.

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Definition of schoolwork noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

  • She is struggling to keep up with her schoolwork.

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Grammarhow

Schoolwork or School work – Which Is Correct?

Some compound nouns can be grouped from two words into one. It would help to know why this occurs and which words are affected. This article will look into using “schoolwork” or “school work” as one or two words.

Schoolwork or School work?

“Schoolwork” is the correct spelling variation. You should write it as one word, as in “I did the schoolwork early,” to show that you understand the rules surrounding it. “School work” is grammatically correct as a phrase, but it is not commonly written as two words.

Schoolwork or School work

Here are some examples showing you how to use “schoolwork” in a sentence:

  • I am going to need you to complete this schoolwork as soon as possible . Can you do that?
  • This schoolwork isn’t going to complete itself. When are you going to finish it?

You should group the two words because they are commonly written together.

AP Style rules dictate that you may group common words like “school” and “work” when they often appear in the same sentences. If the difference between the two sounds is clear enough, there is no reason you can’t keep them grouped.

Technically, there is nothing wrong with using “school work” as two words. It is grammatically correct, but it is not commonplace. If you use it, you’re still using proper English.

  • I like doing my school work at the same time as my chores.

The only issue is that it’s not expected in writing.

Is “Schoolwork” One Word?

“Schoolwork” is spelt as one word. You can refer to common English dictionaries like The Cambridge Dictionary (representing UK English) and The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (representing US English) to see “schoolwork” as one word.

Official dictionaries recognize “schoolwork” as one word, thus, allowing you to spell it as one word. It’s very common for the words to appear together.

  • I need this schoolwork handed in by the end of the week.

From this example, “schoolwork” makes the most sense as one word. You should use it in this way because “school” modifies “work” to show that it’s something you’re completing for “school.”

Is “School work” Two Words?

“School work” is grammatically correct, but you should not use it when referring to work for a school project.

“Schoolwork” is written as one word, meaning that “school work” has a redundant space between the two words. You should avoid using it in this context to show you are familiar with common English rules.

With that said, there is one specific situation when “school work” is two words. If you use “work” as a verb, you will find that “school work” is correct.

  • I think the school works by a different system. I’ll look into it.
  • This school works better than the one I went to before.

In this circumstance, “school work” has to be two words. “School” is a noun, and “work” is a verb. You combine the two to show how a school works as an action. Grouping the words here would be incorrect:

  • Incorrect: The schoolworks in mysterious ways.

What to Remember

“Schoolwork” is the most appropriate spelling variation. You should stick to it while following British or American English rules. “School” and “work” frequently appear together to make this acceptable.

“School work” should only be split when used as a noun and verb combo. In any other case, write it as one word.

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Martin holds a Master’s degree in Finance and International Business. He has six years of experience in professional communication with clients, executives, and colleagues. Furthermore, he has teaching experience from Aarhus University. Martin has been featured as an expert in communication and teaching on Forbes and Shopify. Read more about Martin here .

  • “At School” Or “In School” – Easy Preposition Guide
  • Schoolwide, School wide, or School-wide? (Helpful Examples)
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ROLE OF SCHOOL SOCIAL WORKER

School social work is a specialized area of practice within the broad field of the social work profession. School social workers bring unique knowledge and skills to the school system and the student services team. School Social Workers are trained mental health professionals who can assist with mental health concerns, behavioral concerns, positive behavioral support, academic, and classroom support, consultation with teachers, parents, and administrators as well as provide individual and group counseling/therapy.  School social workers are instrumental in furthering the mission of the schools which is to provide a setting for teaching, learning, and for the attainment of competence and confidence. School social workers are hired by school districts to enhance the district's ability to meet its academic mission, especially where home, school and community collaboration is the key to achieving student success. ​

Audience

WHO are School Social Workers?

School Social Workers are trained  mental health professionals with a degree in

social work who provide services related to a person's social, emotional and life

adjustment to school and/or society.  School Social Workers  are the link between

the home, school and community in providing direct as well as indirect services to

students, families and school personnel to promote and support students' academic

and social success. 

School Social Work Services

RELATED SERVICES:

Participating in special education assessment meetings as well as individual Educational Planning Meetings

Working with those problems in a child's living situation that affect the child’s adjustment in school. (home, school, and community)

Preparing a social or developmental history on a child with a disability.

Counseling (group, individual and/or family)

Mobilizing family, school, and community resources to enable the child to learn as effectively as possible in his or her educational program

Assisting in developing positive behavioral intervention strategies.

SERVICES TO STUDENTS:

Providing crisis intervention.

Developing intervention strategies to increase academic success.

Assisting with conflict resolution and anger management.

Helping the child develop appropriate social interaction skills.

Assisting the child in understanding and accepting self and others.

SERVICES TO PARENT/FAMILIES:

Working with parents to facilitate their support in their children's school adjustment.

Alleviating family stress to enable the child to function more effectively in school &community.

Assisting parents to access programs available to students with special needs.

Assisting parents in accessing and utilizing school and community resources.

SERVICES TO SCHOOL PERSONNEL:

Providing staff with essential information to  better understand factors (cultural, societal, economic, familial, health, etc.) affecting a student’s performance and behavior.

Assessing students with mental health concerns.

Developing staff in-service training programs.

Assisting teachers with behavior management.

Providing direct support to staff.

SCHOOL-COMMUNITY LIAISON:

Obtaining and coordinating community resources to meet students' needs.

Helping school districts receive adequate support from social and mental health agencies.

Advocating for new and improved community/school service to meet the needs of students and families.

Helping the system respond effectively to each child's needs.

SERVICES TO DISTRICTS: 

Assist in developing and implementing educational programs for children for exceptional children.

Developing alternative programs for students with attendance concerns or involvement with the law.

Identifying and reporting child abuse and neglect.

Providing consultation regarding school law and school policy including IDEA and Section 504.

Providing case management for students and families requiring multiple resources.

Additional resources regarding the role of school social workers

Please feel free to download and use the following documents to assist with understanding the many services that school social workers are uniquely trained to provide. , school social workers' role in addressing students' mental health needs and increasing academic achievement.

Schools often are one of the first places where mental health issues are recognized and addressed.

Overlapping and Unique Roles of OH Specialized Pupil Services Personnel

Venn Diagram of SSW, School Psych and School Counseling Roles 

National Standards for School Social Work Services

(2012) Developed by the National Association of Social Workers.

A Framework for Safe and Successful Schools

In April, 2013 SSWAA joined the National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of School Psychologists, American School Counselor's Association, National Association of School Resource Officers to develop  A Framework for Safe and Successful Schools  This document outlines the various roles that we each play in schools.

SSWAA Resolution Statements

Over the years, SSWAA has developed numerous Resolution Statements to address issues of importance to School Social Workers at the local, state and national levels.  

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Characteristics and Outcomes of School Social Work Services: A Scoping Review of Published Evidence 2000–June 2022

1 Steve Hicks School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin, 1925 San Jacinto Blvd 3.112, Austin, TX 78712 USA

Estilla Lightfoot

2 School of Social Work, Western New Mexico University, Silver City, NM USA

Ruth Berkowitz

3 School of Social Work, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

Samantha Guz

4 Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL USA

Cynthia Franklin

Diana m. dinitto.

School social workers are integral to the school mental health workforce and the leading social service providers in educational settings. In recent decades, school social work practice has been largely influenced by the multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) approach, ecological systems views, and the promotion of evidence-based practice. However, none of the existing school social work reviews have examined the latest characteristics and outcomes of school social work services. This scoping review analyzed and synthesized the focuses and functions of school social workers and the state-of-the-art social and mental/behavioral health services they provide. Findings showed that in the past two decades, school social workers in different parts of the world shared a common understanding of practice models and interests. Most school social work interventions and services targeted high-needs students to improve their social, mental/behavioral health, and academic outcomes, followed by primary and secondary prevention activities to promote school climate, school culture, teacher, student, and parent interactions, and parents’ wellbeing. The synthesis also supports the multiple roles of school social workers and their collaborative, cross-systems approach to serving students, families, and staff in education settings. Implications and directions for future school social work research are discussed.

Introduction

This scoping review examines the literature on school social work services provided to address children, youth, and families’ mental/behavioral health and social service-related needs to help students thrive in educational contexts. School social work is a specialty of the social work profession that is growing rapidly worldwide (Huxtable, 2022 ). They are prominent mental/behavioral health professionals that play a crucial role in supporting students’ well-being and meeting their learning needs. Although the operational modes of school social work services vary, for instance, operating within an interdisciplinary team as part of the school service system, or through non-governmental agencies or collaboration between welfare agencies and the school system (Andersson et al., 2002 ; Chiu & Wong, 2002 ; Beck, 2017 ), the roles and activities of school social work are alike across different parts of the world (Allen-Meares et al., 2013 ; International Network for School Social Work, 2016, as cited in Huxtable, 2022 ). School social workers are known for their functions to evaluate students’ needs and provide interventions across the ecological systems to remove students’ learning barriers and promote healthy sociopsychological outcomes in the USA and internationally (Huxtable, 2022 ). In the past two decades, school social work literature placed great emphasis on evidence-based practice (Huxtable, 2013; 2016, as cited in Huxtable, 2022 ); however, more research is still needed in the continuous development of the school social work practice model and areas such as interventions, training, licensure, and interprofessional collaboration (Huxtable, 2022 ).

The school social work practice in the USA has great influence both domestically and overseas. Several core journals in the field (e.g., the International Journal of School Social Work, Children & Schools ) and numerous textbooks have been translated into different languages originated in the USA (Huxtable, 2022 ). In the USA, school social workers have been providing mental health-oriented services under the nationwide endorsement of multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) (Avant & Lindsey, 2015 ; Barrett et al., 2020 ). In the past two decades, efforts at developing a school social work practice model recommended that school social workers have a master’s degree, embrace MTSS and use evidence-based practices (EBP) (Frey et al., 2012 ). Similar licensure requirements have been reported in other parts of the world (International Network for School Social Work, 2016, as cited in Huxtable, 2022 ), but the current state of research on MTSS and EBP applications in other countries is limited (Huxtable, 2022 ). Furthermore, although previous literature indicated more school social workers applied EBP to primary prevention, including trauma-informed care, social–emotional learning, and restorative justice programs in school mental health services (Crutchfield et al., 2020 ; Elswick et al., 2019 ; Gherardi, 2017 ), little research has been done to review and analyzed the legitimacy of the existing school social work practice model and its influence in the changing context of school social work services. The changing conditions and demands of social work services in schools require an update on the functions of school social workers and the efficacy of their state-of-the-art practices.

Previous Reviews on School Social Work Practice and Outcomes

Over the past twenty years, a few reviews of school social work services have been conducted. They include outcome reviews, systematic reviews, and one meta-analysis on interventions, but none have examined studies from a perspective that looks inclusively and comprehensively at evaluations of school social work services. Early and Vonk ( 2001 ), for example, reviewed and critiqued 21 controlled (e.g., randomized controlled trial [RCT] and quasi-experimental) outcome studies of school social work practice from a risk and resilience perspective and found that the interventions are overall effective in helping children and youth gain problem-solving skills and improve peer relations and intrapersonal functioning. However, the quality of the included studies was mixed, demographic information on students who received the intervention, such as race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and special education enrollment were missing, and the practices were less relevant to the guidelines in the school social work practice model (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2012 ). Later, Franklin et al. ( 2009 ) updated previous reviews by using meta-analytic techniques to synthesize the results of interventions delivered by social workers within schools. They found that these interventions had small to medium treatment effects for internalizing and externalizing problems but showed mixed results in academic or school-related outcomes. Franklin et al. ( 2009 ) approached the empirical evidence from an intervention lens and did not focus on the traits and characteristics of school social workers and their broad roles in implementing interventions; additionally, demographic information, symptoms, and conditions of those who received school social work services were lacking. Allen-Meares et al. ( 2013 ) built on Franklin and colleagues’ ( 2009 ) meta-analysis on school social work practice outcomes across nations by conducting a systematic review with a particular interest in identifying tier 1 and tier 2 (i.e., universal prevention and targeted early intervention) practices. School social workers reported services in a variety of areas (e.g., sexual health, aggression, school attendance, self-esteem, depression), and half of the included interventions were tier 1 (Allen-Meares et al., 2013 ). Although effect sizes were calculated (ranging from 0.01–2.75), the outcomes of the interventions were not articulated nor comparable across the 18 included studies due to the heterogeneity of metrics.

Therefore, previous reviews of school social work practice and its effectiveness addressed some aspects of these interventions and their outcomes but did not examine school social workers’ characteristics (e.g., school social workers’ credentials) or related functions (e.g., interdisciplinary collaboration with teachers and other support personnel, such as school counselors and psychologists). Further, various details of the psychosocial interventions (e.g., service type, program fidelity, target population, practice modality), and demographics, conditions, or symptoms of those who received the interventions provided by school social workers were under-researched from previous reviews. An updated review of the literature that includes these missing features and examines the influence of current school social work practice is needed.

Guiding Framework for the Scoping Review

The multi-tiered systems of support model allows school social workers to maximize their time and resources to support students’ needs accordingly by following a consecutive order of prevention. MTSS generally consists of three tiers of increasing levels of preventive and responsive behavioral and academic support that operate under the overarching principles of capacity-building, evidence-based practices, and data-driven decision-making (Kelly et al., 2010a ). Tier 1 interventions consist of whole-school/classroom initiatives (NASW, 2012 ), including universal positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) (Clonan et al., 2007 ) and restorative justice practices (Lustick et al., 2020 ). Tier 2 consists of targeted small-group interventions meant to support students at risk of academic or behavioral difficulties who do not respond to Tier 1 interventions (National Association of Social Workers, 2012 ). Finally, tier 3 interventions are intensive individual interventions, including special education services, meant to support students who do not benefit sufficiently from Tier 1 or Tier 2 interventions.

The current school social work practice model in the USA (NASW, 2012 ) consists of three main aspects: (1) delivering evidence-based practices to address behavioral and mental health concerns; (2) fostering a positive school culture and climate that promotes excellence in learning and teaching; (3) enhancing the availability of resources to students within both the school and the local community. Similar expectations from job descriptions have been reported in other countries around the world (Huxtable, 2022 ).

Moreover, school social workers are specifically trained to practice using the ecological systems framework, which aims to connect different tiers of services from a person-in-environment perspective and to activate supports and bridge gaps between systems (Huxtable, 2022 ; Keller & Grumbach, 2022 ; SSWAA, n.d.). This means that school social workers approach problem-solving through systemic interactions, which allows them to provide timely interventions and activate resources at the individual, classroom, schoolwide, home, and community levels as needs demand.

Hence, the present scoping review explores and analyzes essential characteristics of school social workers and their practices that have been missed in previous reviews under a guiding framework that consists of the school social work practice model, MTSS, and an ecological systems perspective.

This scoping review built upon previous reviews and analyzed the current school social work practices while taking into account the characteristics of school social workers, different types of services they deliver, as well as the target populations they serve in schools. Seven overarching questions guided this review: (1) What are the study characteristics of the school social work outcome studies (e.g., countries of origin, journal information, quality, research design, fidelity control) in the past two decades? (2) What are the characteristics (e.g., demographics, conditions, symptoms) of those who received school social work interventions or services? (3) What are the overall measurements (e.g., reduction in depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], improvement in parent–child relationships, or school climate) reported in these studies? (4) What types of interventions and services were provided? (5) Who are the social work practitioners (i.e., collaborators/credential/licensure) delivering social work services in schools? (6) Does the use of school social work services support the promotion of preventive care within the MTSS? (7) What are the main outcomes of the diverse school social work interventions and services?

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first scoping review to examine these aspects of school social work practices under the guidance of the existing school social work practice model, MTSS, and an ecological systems perspective.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) extension guidelines for completing a scoping review (Tricco et al., 2018 ) were followed for planning, conducting, and reporting the results of this review. The PRISMA scoping review checklist includes 20 essential items and two optional items. Together with the 20 essential items, the optional two items related to critical appraisal of included sources of evidence were also followed to assure transparency, replication, and comprehensive reporting for scoping reviews.

Search Strategy

The studies included in this review were published between 2000 and June 2022. These studies describe the content, design, target population, target concerns, delivery methods, and outcomes of services, practices, and interventions conducted or co-led by school social workers. This time frame was selected since it coincides with the completion of the early review of characteristics of school social work outcomes studies (Early & Vonk, 2001 ); furthermore, scientific approaches and evidence-based practice were written in the education law for school-based services since the early 2000s in the USA, which greatly impacted school social work practice (Wilde, 2004 ), and was reflected in the trend of peer-reviewed research in school practice journals (Huxtable, 2022 ).

Following consultation with an academic librarian, the authors systematically searched relevant articles in seven academic databases (APA PsycINFO, Education Source, ERIC, Academic Search Complete, SocINDEX, CINAHL Plus, and MEDLINE) between January 2000 and June 2022. These databases were selected due to the relevance of the outcomes and the broad range of relevant disciplines they cover. When built-in search filters were available, the search included only peer-reviewed journal articles or dissertations written in English and published between 2000 and 2022. The search terms were adapted from previous review studies with a similar purpose (Franklin et al., 2009 ). The rationale for adapting the search terms from a previous meta-analysis (Franklin et al., 2009 ) was to collect outcomes studies and if feasible (pending on the quality of the outcome data and enough effect sizes available) to do a meta-analysis of outcomes. Each database was searched using the search terms: (“school social work*”) AND (“effective*” OR “outcome*” OR “evaluat*” OR “measure*”). The first author did the initial search and also manually searched reference lists of relevant articles to identify additional publications. All references of included studies were combined and deduplicated for screening after completion of the manual search.

Eligibility Criteria

The same inclusion and exclusion criteria were used at all stages of the review process. Studies were included if they: (1) were original research studies, (2) were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals or were dissertations, (3) were published between 2000 and 2022, (4) described school social work services or identified school social workers as the practitioners, and (5) reported at least one outcome measure of the efficacy or effectiveness of social work services. Studies could be conducted in any country and were included for full-text review if they were published in English. The authors excluded: (1) qualitative studies, (2) method or conceptual papers, (3) interventions/services not led by school social workers, and (4) research papers that focused only on sample demographics (not on outcomes). Qualitative studies were excluded because though they often capture themes or ideas, experiences, and opinions, they rely on non-numeric data and do not quantify the outcomes of interventions, which is the focus of the present review. If some conditions of qualification were uncertain based on the review of the full text, verification emails were sent to the first author of the paper to confirm. Studies of school social workers as the sample population and those with non-accessible content were also excluded. If two or more articles (e.g., dissertation and journal articles) were identified with the same population and research aim, only the most recent journal publication was selected to avoid duplication. The protocol of the present scoping review can be retrieved from the Open Science Framework at  https://osf.io/4y6xp/?view_only=9a6b6b4ff0b84af09da1125e7de875fb .

A total of 1,619 records were initially identified. After removing duplicates, 834 remained. The first and the fourth author conducted title and abstract screening independently on Rayyan, an online platform for systematic reviews (Ouzzani et al., 2016 ). Another 760 records were removed from the title and abstract screening because they did not focus on school social work practice, were theory papers, or did not include any measures or outcomes, leaving 68 full-text articles to be screened for eligibility. Of these, 16 articles were selected for data analysis. An updated search conducted in June 2022 identified two additional studies. The combined searches resulted in a total of 18 articles that met the inclusion criteria. The first and the fourth author convened bi-weekly meetings to resolve disagreements on decisions. Reasons and number for exclusion at full-text review were reported in the reasons for exclusion in the PRISMA chart. The PRISMA literature search results are presented in Fig.  1 .

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PRISMA Literature Search Record

Data Extraction

A data extraction template was created to aid in the review process. The information collected from each reference consists of three parts: publication information, program features, and practice characteristics and outcomes. Five references were randomly selected to pilot-test the template, and revisions were made accordingly. To assess the quality of the publication and determine the audiences these studies reached, information on the publications was gathered. The publication information included author names, publication year, country/region, publication type, journal name, impact factor, and the number of articles included. The journal information and impact factors came from the Journal Citation Reports generated by Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (n.d.). An impact factor rating is a proxy for the relative influence of a journal in academia and is computed by dividing the number of citations for all articles by the total number of articles published in the two previous years (Garfield, 2006 ). Publication information is presented in Table ​ Table1. 1 . Program name, targeted population, sample size, demographics, targeted issues, treatment characteristics, MTSS level, and main findings (i.e., outcomes) are included in Table ​ Table2. 2 . Finally, intervention features consisting of study aim and design, manualization, practitioners’ credential, fidelity control, type of intervention, quality assessment, and outcome measurement are presented in Table ​ Table3. 3 . Tables ​ Tables2 2 and ​ and3 3 are published as open access for review and downloaded in the Texas Data Repository (Ding, 2023 ).

Journals Reviewed, Impact Factor, and Number of Articles Selected for Review

* The definition of impact factor (IF) is from Journal Citation Reports produced by Clarivate Analytics. IF is calculated based on a two-year period by dividing the number of citations in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the two previous years

General Information on the Included School Social Work Practices

Note. Bx behavior, ed education, yo years old, yr = year. tx treatment, w  with, T treatment group, C control group, INT intervention, CON control, FRPL Free/Reduced prices lunch, IEP Individualized education program, CBT cognitive behavior therapy, BST Behavior skill training, HADS-A Hospital anxiety and depression scale

Characteristics of the Included Research Studies

Note. NR Not reported, NA Not applicable, h hours, tx treatment, wk week, SSW School social work, IOA Interobserver agreement, SS single subject, AB baseline and intervention, SBC Student behavior checklist, GPA Grade point average, SRAS-C-R School refusal assessment scale-children-revised, SRAS-P-R School refusal assessment scale-parent-revised, CD-RISC Connor-davidson resilience scale, FAD-GFS McMaster family assessment device general functioning scale, PSS Perceived stress scale, PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder, PC-PTSD Primary care post-traumatic stress disorder screen, RYDM Resilience youth development module, CHKS The California healthy kids survey, CPSS Child PTSD symptom scale, CDI Children depression inventory, TRF Teacher report form, BRIC Behavior rating index for children, HPC  Problem checklist, BERS The behavioral and emotional rating scale, SSRS The social skills rating system. SSP The school success profile, BDI Beck depression inventory. DAS Dysfunctional attitudes scale, PGIS-II Personal growth initiative scale II, GHQ-12 Chinese general health questionnaire-12, Q-LES-Q-18 Abbreviated quality of life enjoyment and satisfaction questionnaire, PSI Parenting stress index- parent domain, PSOC Parenting sense of competence scale- efficacy subscale

The 18 extracted records were coded based on the data extraction sheet. The first and the fourth authors acted as the first and the second coder for the review. An inter-rater reliability of 98.29% was reached after the two coders independently completed the coding process.

Quality Assessment

The quality of the eligible studies (e.g., methodological rigor, intervention consistency) was assessed using the Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies (Evans et al., 2015 ). Specifically, each included study was assessed for selection bias, study design, confounders, blinding, data collection method, dropouts or withdrawals, intervention integrity, and analyses. The first and fourth authors rated each category independently, aggregated ratings, and came to a consensus to assign an overall quality rating of strong, moderate, or weak for each of the 18 studies.

Data Analysis

Due to the heterogeneity of the interventions, study purposes, methods, and measurements of the selected studies, and the lack of outcome data to calculate effect sizes, a meta-analysis was not feasible. Hence, the authors emphasized the scoping nature of this review, data were narratively synthesized, and descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentage, mode, minimum, maximum, and range) were reported. Characteristics of included studies include topics, settings, participants, practice information (e.g., type of services, practitioner credential, MTSS modality, and other characteristics), and program efficacy. Within each reported category of interest, consistency and differences regarding the selected studies were synthesized. Unique features and reasons for some particular results were explained using analysis evidence according to the characteristics of the study.

Overall Description of Included Studies

Of the 18 included studies, 16 were reported in articles that appeared in 11 different peer-reviewed journals, and two were dissertations (Magnano, 2009 ; Phillips, 2004 ). Information on each of the 11 journals was hand-searched to insure thoroughness. Of the 11 journals, seven were in the field of social work, with one journal covering social work as it relates to public health; one was a school psychology journal; one a medical journal covering pediatric psychiatry; and one journal focused on child, adolescent, and family psychology. The most frequently appearing journal was Children & Schools , a quarterly journal covering direct social work services for children (Oxford University Press, 2022 ). An impact factor (IF) was identified for six of the 11 journals. Of the six journals with an IF rating, four were social work journals. The IF of journals in which the included studies were published ranged from 1.128 to 12.113 (Clarivate Analytics, n.d.). Of the 18 studies, 5 studies (28%) were rated as methodologically strong, 8 studies were rated as moderate (44%), and 5 studies were rated as weak (28%).

The studies were conducted in five different geographical areas of the world. One study was conducted in the Middle East (5.56%), one in north Africa (5.56%), one in Eastern Europe (5.56%), two in East Asia (11.11%), and the rest (13 studies) in the USA (72.22%).

Research Design and Fidelity Control

Concerning research design, most included studies used a pre-posttest design without a comparison group ( n  = 10, 61.11%), one used a single case baseline intervention design (5.56%), six (33.33%) used a quasi-experimental design, and one (5.56%) used an experimental design. For the control or comparison group, the experimental design study and four of the six quasi-experimental design studies used a waitlist or no treatment control/comparison group; one quasi-experimental design study offered delayed treatment, and one quasi-experimental design study offered treatment as usual. Nine studies (50%) reported that training was provided to the practitioners prior to the study to preserve fidelity of the intervention, four studies (22.22%) reported offering both training and ongoing supervision to the practitioners, and one study (5.56%) reported providing supervision only.

Study Sample Characteristics

Across the 18 included studies, the total number of participants was 1,194. In three studies, the participant group (sample) was no more than ten, while in nine studies, the intervention group was more than 40. Overall, there was a balance in terms of students’ sex, with boys comprising an average of 55.51% of the total participants in all studies. There were slightly more studies of middle school or high school students ( n  = 8) than pre-K or elementary school students ( n  = 5). Across the eight studies that reported students’ race or ethnicity, 13.33% of the students were Black, 18.41% were White, 54.60% were Latinx, 12.38% were Asian, and 1.27% were categorized as “other.” Although the studies reviewed were not restricted to the USA, the large number of Latinx participants from two studies (Acuna et al., 2018 ; Kataoka et al., 2003 ) might have skewed the overall proportions of the race/ethnicity composition of the study samples. As an indicator of socioeconomic status, eight studies reported information on free/reduced-price lunches (FRPL). The percentage of students who received interventions that qualified for FRPL varied from 53.3 to 87.9%. Five studies reported the percentage of students enrolled in an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or special education, ranging from 15.4% to 100%.

Variation in School Social Work Services

The services carried out or co-led by school social workers varied greatly. They included services focused on students’ mental health/behavioral health; academic performance; school environment; student development and functioning in school, classroom, and home settings; and parenting. More specifically, these interventions targeted students’ depression and anxiety (Kataoka et al., 2003 ; Phillips, 2004 ; Wong et al., 2018a ), social, emotional, and behavioral skills development (Acuna et al., 2018 ;Chupp & Boes, 2012 ; Ervin et al., 2018 ; Magnano, 2009 ; Newsome, 2005 ; Thompson & Webber, 2010 ), school refusal and truancy (Elsherbiny et al., 2017 ; Newsome et al., 2008 ; Young et al., 2020 ), trauma/PTSD prevention, community violence, and students’ resilience (Al-Rasheed et al., 2021 ;Ijadi-Maghsoodi et al., 2017 ; Kataoka et al., 2003 ; Wong et al., 2018a ), homework completion and grade-point average improvement (Chupp & Boes, 2012 ; Magnano, 2009 ; Newsomoe, 2005 ), parental stress (Fein et al., 2021 ; Wong et al., 2018b ), family functioning (Fein et al., 2021 ), and parenting competence and resilience (Wong et al., 2018b ). All of the studies were school-based (100%), and the most common setting for providing school social work services was public schools.

Diverse Interventions to Promote Psychosocial Outcomes

Services can be grouped into six categories: evidence-based programs or curriculums (EBP), general school social work services, case management, short-term psychosocial interventions, long-term psychosocial intervention, and pilot program. Seven studies (38.89%) were EBPs, and four (57.14%) of the seven EPBs were fully manualized (Acuna et al., 2018 ; Al-Rasheed et al., 2021 ; Fein et al., 2021 ; Thompson & Webber, 2010 ). Two EBPs (28.57%) were partially manualized (Ijadi-Maghsoodi et al., 2017 ; Kelly & Bluestone-Miller, 2009 ), one did not report on manualization (Chupp & Boes, 2012 ), and one is a pilot study trying to build the program’s evidence base (Young et al., 2020 ). The second-largest category was short-term psychosocial interventions reported in six (33.33%) of the studies; they included cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), and social/emotional skills training. One study reported on a long-term psychosocial intervention (Elsherbiny et al., 2017 ), and one was a case management program (Magnano, 2009 ). Two studies included general school social work services (e.g., one-on-one interventions with children and youth, group counseling, phone calls, official and informal conversations with teachers and parents, check-ins with students at school, and collaboration with outside agencies) (Newsome et al., 2008 ; Sadzaglishvili et al., 2020 ).

Program Population

Of the 18 interventions, seven (38.89%) involved students only (Al-Rasheed et al., 2021 ;Chupp & Boes, 2012 ; Ervin et al., 2018 ; Newsome, 2005 ; Phillips, 2004 ; Wong et al., 2018a ; Young et al., 2020 ). One program (5.56%) worked with parent–child dyads (Acuna et al., 2018 ), and two (11.11%) worked directly with students’ parents (Fein et al., 2021 ; Wong et al., 2018b ). Four interventions (22.22%) involved students, parents, and teachers (Elsherbiny et al., 2017 ; Kataoka et al., 2003 ; Magnano, 2009 ), two (11.11%) were with students and their teachers (Kelly & Bluestone-Miller, 2009 ; Thompson & Webber, 2010 ), and two (11.11%) were more wholistically targeted at students, parents, and their families as service units (Newsome et al., 2008 ; Sadzaglishvili et al., 2020 ).

Practitioners and Credentials

School social workers often collaborate with school counselors, psychologists, and schoolteachers in their daily practice. As for the titles and credentials of those providing the interventions, twelve interventions were conducted solely by school social workers (Acuna et al., 2018 ; Fein et al., 2021 ; Ijadi-Maghsoodi et al., 2017 ; Kataoka et al., 2003 ; Kelly & Bluestone-Miller, 2009 ; Magnano, 2009 ; Newsome, 2005 ; Newsome et al., 2008 ; Phillips et al., 2004 ; Sadzaglishvili et al., 2020 ; Wong et al., 2018a , 2018b ). Four social service programs were co-led by school social workers, school counselors and school psychologists (Al-Rasheed et al., 2021 ; Chupp & Boes, 2012 ; Elsherbiny et al., 2017 ; Young et al., 2020 ). School social workers and schoolteachers collaborated in two interventions (Ervin et al., 2018 ; Thompson & Webber, 2010 ).

The most common credential of school social workers in the included studies was master’s-level licensed school social worker/trainee, which accounted for 62.50% of the studies (Acuna et al., 2018 ; Fein et al., 2021 ; Kataoka et al., 2003 ; Newsome, 2005 ; Phillips, 2004 ). Two studies did not specify level of education but noted that the practitioners’ credential was licensed school social worker (Ijadi-Maghsoodi et al., 2017 ; Wong et al., 2018a ). One intervention was conducted by both master’s and bachelor’s level social work trainees; however, the first author confirmed that they were all registered school social workers with the Hong Kong Social Work Registration Board (Wong et al., 2018b ).

Services by Tier

The predominant level of school social work services was tier 2 interventions (55.56%), with 10 interventions or services offered by school social workers falling into this category (Acuna et al., 2018 ; Elsherbiny et al., 2017 ; Ervin et al., 2018 ; Fein et al., 2021 ; Kataoka et al., 2003 ; Newsome, 2005 ; Phillips, 2004 ; Thompson & Webber, 2010 ; Wong et al., 2018a , 2018b ). The second largest category was tier 1 interventions, with five studies (27.78%) falling into this category (Al-Rasheed et al., 2021 ;Chupp & Boes, 2012 ; Ijadi-Maghsoodi et al., 2017 ; Kelly & Bluestone-Miller, 2009 ; Sadzaglishvili et al., 2020 ). Only three (16.67%) were tier 3 services (Magnano, 2009 ; Newsome et al., 2008 ; Young et al., 2020 ).

Intervention Modality and Duration under MTSS

Most services ( n  = 15, 83.33%) were small-group based or classroom-wide interventions (Al-Rasheed et al., 2021 ; Chupp & Boes, 2012 ; Elsherbiny et al., 2017 ; Ervin et al., 2018 ; Fein et al., 2021 ; Ijadi-Maghsoodi et al., 2017 ; Kataoka et al., 2003 ; Kelly & Bluestone-Miller, 2009 ; Newsome, 2005 ; Phillips, 2004 ; Sadzaglishvili et al., 2020 ; Thompson & Webber, 2010 ; Wong et al., 2018a , 2018b ). One tier 2 intervention was carried out in both individual and group format (Acuna et al., 2018 ). Of the three tier 3 intervention studies, one reported using case management to serve individual students (Magnano, 2009 ), and two included both individual intervention, group counseling, and case management (Newsom et al., 2008 ; Young et al., 2020 ).

Intervention length and frequency varied substantially across studies. Services were designed to last from 6 weeks to more than 13 months. There were as short as a 5- to 10-min student–school social worker conferences (Thompson & Webber, 2010 ), or as long as a three-hour cognitive behavioral group therapy session (Wong et al., 2018b ).

Social Behavioral and Academic Outcomes

Most of the interventions focused on improving students’ social, behavioral, and academic outcomes, including child behavior correction/reinforcement, social–emotional learning (SEL), school attendance, grades, and learning attitudes. Ervin and colleagues ( 2018 ) implemented a short-term psychosocial intervention to reduce students’ disruptive behaviors, and Magnano ( 2009 ) used intensive case management to manage students’ antisocial and aggressive behaviors. Both interventions were found to be effective, i.e., there were statistically significant improvements at the end of treatment, with Ervin et al. ( 2018 ) reporting a large effect size using Cohen’s d. The SEL programs were designed to foster students’ resilience, promote self-esteem, respect, empathy, and social support, and teach negotiation, conflict resolution, anger management, and goal setting at a whole-school or whole-class level (Al-Rasheed et al., 2021 ; Chupp & Boes, 2012 ; Ijadi-Maghsooodi et al., 2017 ; Newsome, 2005 ). Students in all SEL interventions showed significant improvement at the end of treatment, and one study reported medium to small effect sizes (Cohen’s d) for problem-solving and overall internal assets, such as empathy, self-efficacy, problem-solving, and self-awareness (Ijadi-Maghsooodi et al., 2017 ).

Four studies measured the intervention’s impact on students’ academic performance. Magnano and colleagues ( 2009 ) reported that at the completion of the school social work case management intervention, academic skills were improved among both the intervention group students and the cross-over (control) group students who received the intervention at a later time. One study specifically addressed students’ school refusal behaviors and attitudes and found improvement in the treatment group at posttest and six-month follow-up (Elsherbiny et al., 2017 ). Two studies that addressed students’ absenteeism and truancy exhibited efficacy. School social work services significantly reduced risk factors related to truant behaviors (Newsome et al., 2008 ), and attendance increased post-program participation and was maintained after one, two, and three months (Young et al., 2020 ).

Students’ Psychological Distress

The studies that addressed students’ mental health focused on psychological distress, especially adolescents’ depression and anxiety. In three studies, school social workers conducted short-term psychosocial interventions, all using group-based CBT (Kataoka et al., 2003 ; Phillips, 2004 ; Wong et al., 2018a ). Kataoka and colleagues ( 2003 ) reported that bilingual, bicultural school social workers delivered group CBT in Spanish to help immigrant students cope with depressive symptoms due to violence exposure. Similarly, Wong and colleagues ( 2018a ) delivered group CBT in Chinese schools using their native language to address teenagers’ anxiety disorders. In the Kataoka et al. ( 2003 ) study, all student participants were reported to have made improvements at the end of the intervention, although there was no statistically significant difference between the intervention group and waitlisted comparison group. Phillips ( 2004 ) reported an eta-squared of 0.148 for cognitive-behavioral social skills training, indicating a small treatment effect. One study used a resilience classroom curriculum to relieve trauma exposure and observed lower odds of positive PTSD scores at posttest, but the change was not statistically significant (Ijadi-Maghsoodi et al., 2017 ).

School Climate and School Culture

Regarding school social workers’ interest in school climate and school culture, Kelly and Bluestone-Miller ( 2009 ) and Sadzaglishvili and colleagues ( 2020 ) specifically focused on creating a positive learning environment and promoting healthy school culture and class climate. Kelly and Bluestone-Miller ( 2009 ) used Working on What Works (WOWW), a program grounded in the SFBT approach to intervene in a natural classroom setting to build respectful learning. Students were allowed to choose how to respond to expectations regarding their classroom performance (e.g., students list the concrete small goals to work upon in order to create a better learning environment), and teachers were coached to facilitate, ask the right questions, and provide encouragement and appropriate timely feedback. Sadzaglishvili and colleagues ( 2020 ) used intensive school social work services (e.g., case management, task-centered practice, advocacy, etc.) to support students’ learning, whole-person development, and improve school culture. At the end of the services, both studies reported a more positive school and class climate that benefited students’ behaviors and performance at school.

Teacher, Parent, and Student Interaction

Four studies addressed interactions among teachers, parents, and students to achieve desired outcomes. For instance, two studies provided a mesosystem intervention (e.g., a parent’s meeting with the teacher at the public school the child attended, which encompasses both the home and school settings). Acuna and colleagues ( 2018 ) provided a school-based parent–child interaction intervention to improve children’s behaviors at school and home, boost attendance, and improve academic outcomes. Similarly, Thompson and Webber ( 2010 ) intervened in the teacher–student relationship to realign students’ and teachers’ perceptions of school and classroom norms and improve students’ behaviors. Additionally, two interventions targeted the exosystem (e.g., positive environmental change to improve students’ stability, in order to promote school behaviors and academic performance). Kelly and Bluestone-Miller ( 2009 ) modeled solution-focused approaches as a philosophy undergirding classroom interactions between teachers and students. The positive learning environment further improved students’ class performance. Magnano and colleagues ( 2009 ) used a case management model by linking parents, teachers, and outside school resources to increase students’ support and achieve improvements in academic skills and children’s externalizing behaviors.

Parents’ Wellbeing

Most school counselors or school psychologists focus solely on serving students, while school social workers may also serve students’ parents. Two studies reported working directly and only with parents to improve parents’ psychological outcomes (Fein et al., 2021 ; Wong et al., 2018b ). Fein and colleagues ( 2021 ) reported a school-based trauma-informed resilience curriculum specifically adapted for school social workers to deliver to racial/ethnic minority urban parents of children attending public schools. At curriculum completion, parents’ overall resilience improved, but significance was attained in only one resilience item (“I am able to adapt when changes occur”) with a small effect size using Cohen’s d. Wong et al. ( 2018b ) studied school-based culturally attuned group-based CBT for parents of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); significantly greater improvements in the CBT parent group were found in distress symptoms, quality of life, parenting stress, competence, and dysfunctional beliefs post-intervention and at three-month follow-up .

This scoping review examined school social work practice by systematically analyzing the services school social workers delivered based on 18 outcome studies published between 2000 and 2022. The programs, interventions, or services studied were conducted by school social workers in five different countries/regions. These studies captured the essence of school social workers’ roles in mental health/behavioral health and social services in education settings provided to children, youth, families, and schoolteachers, and the evidence on practice outcomes/efficacy was presented.

Although using EBP, promoting a healthy school climate and culture, and maximizing community resources are important aspects of the existing school social work practice model in the USA (NASW, 2012 ), this review revealed and validated that school social workers in other countries used similar practices and shared a common understanding of what benefits the students, families, and the schools they serve (Huxtable, 2022 ). The findings also support the broad roles of school social workers and the collaborative ways they provide social and mental health services in schools. The review discussed school social workers’ functions in (1) helping children, youth, families, and teachers address mental health and behavioral health problems, (2) improving social–emotional learning, (3) promoting a positive learning environment, and (4) maximizing students’ and families’ access to school and community resources. Furthermore, although previous researchers argued that the lack of clarity about school social worker’s roles contributed to confusion and underutilization of school social work services (Altshuler & Webb, 2009 ; Kelly et al., 2010a ), this study revealed that in the past two decades, school social workers are fulfilling their roles as mental/behavioral health providers and case managers, guided by a multi-tiered, ecological systems approach. For example, in more than 80% of the studies, the services provided were preventive group work at tier 1 or 2 levels and operated from a systems perspective. Additionally, the findings suggest that while school social workers often provide services at the individual level, they frequently work across systems and intervene at meso- and exo-systems levels to attain positive improvements for individual students and families.

Evidence-based School Social Work Practice and MTSS

The present review supported school social workers’ use of evidence-based programs and valid psychosocial interventions such as CBT, SFBT, and social–emotional learning to foster a positive learning environment and meet students’ needs. Most of the included EBPs (85.71%) were either fully or partially manualized, and findings from the current review added evidence to sustain the common elements of general school social work practice, such as doing case management, one-on-one individual and group counseling, collaborations with teachers, parents, and community agencies. One pilot study examined the effectiveness of a school social worker-developed program (Young et al., 2020 ), which provided a helpful example for future research practice collaboration to build evidence base for school social work practice. However, although school social workers often work with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) student populations facing multiple risk factors, demographic information on race/ethnicity, special education enrollment, and socioeconomic status were missing in many included studies, which obstructed examination of the degree of match between the target population’s needs and evidence-based services or interventions provided.

Previous school social work national surveys conducted in the USA (Kelly et al., 2010a , 2015 ) found a discrepancy between the actual and ideal time expense on tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 school social work activities. Even though school social workers would like to spend most of their time on primary prevention, they actually spent twice their time on secondary and tertiary prevention than on primary prevention (Kelly et al., 2010a ). However, the present review found that most interventions or evidence-based programs conducted by school social workers were tier 1 and tier 2, especially tier 2 targeted interventions delivered in a group modality. This discrepancy could be due to the focus of this review’s limited services to those provided by professionals with a school social worker title/credential both in the USA and internationally, and tier 2 and 3 activities were grouped together as one category called secondary and tertiary prevention in the school social work survey (Kelly et al., 2010a ). Our review highlights that tier 2 preventive interventions are a significant offering in school social worker-led, school-based mental health practice. Unlike tier 1 interventions that are designed to promote protective factors and prevent potential threats for all students, or intensive tier 3 interventions that demand tremendous amounts of time and energy from practitioners and often involve community agencies (Eber et al., 2002 ), tier 2 interventions are targeted to groups of students exhibiting certain risk factors and are more feasible and flexible in addressing their academic and behavioral needs. Moreover, considering the discrepancy between the high demand for services on campuses and the limited number of school social workers, using group-based tier 2 interventions that have been rigorously examined can potentially relieve practitioners’ caseload burdens while targeting students’ needs more effectively and efficiently.

School Social Work Credential

Recent research on school social workers’ practice choices showed that school social workers who endorsed primary prevention in MTSS and ecologically informed practice are more likely to have a graduate degree, be regulated by certification standards, and have less than ten years of work experience (Thompson et al., 2019 ). Globally, although data are limited, having a bachelor's or master’s degree to practice school social work has been reported in countries in North America, Europe, and the Middle East (Huxtable, 2022 ). Even though all practitioners in the present review held the title of “school social worker,” and the majority had a master’s degree, we suggest future research to evaluate school social work practitioners’ credentials by reporting their education, certificate/licensure status, and years of work experience in the education system, as these factors may be essential in understanding school social workers’ functioning.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration

School social workers are an integral part of the school mental health workforce in education settings and often work in interdisciplinary teams that include schoolteachers, administrators, school counselors, and school psychologists (Huxtable, 2022 ). This scoping review found that one-third of interventions school social workers conducted were either co-led or delivered in collaboration with school counselors, school psychologists, or schoolteachers. Future research examining characteristics and outcomes of school social work practice should consider school social workers’ efforts in grounding themselves in ecological systems by working on interdisciplinary teams to address parent–child interactions, realign teacher–student classroom perceptions, or student–teacher–classroom culture to improve students’ mental health and promote better school performance.

Study Limitations and Directions for Future Research

A scoping review is a valuable method for exploring a field that has not yet been extensively reviewed or is heterogeneous. Thus, a scoping review was chosen as the research method to examine school social work practice outcomes for this study. Although scoping reviews are generally considered rigorous, transparent, and replicable, the present study has several limitations. First, only published dissertations and journal articles published between 2000 and 2022 that were included in the seven aforementioned databases were reviewed. Government reports and other gray literature excluded from the present review might generate more results requiring critical evaluation and discussion. Second, although school social work practice is ecological system-centered, all studies analyzed in the present scoping review were school-based programs. The search terms did not include possible alternative settings. More extensive searches might identify additional results by specifying home or community settings. Third, this paper focused on the outcomes and efficacy of the most current school social work practices so that qualitative studies or studies that focus on practitioners’ demographics were excluded even though they might provide additional information on the characteristics of social workers. Last, evidence to support school social work interventions was based primarily on pre-posttest designs without the use of a control group, and some of the identified evidence-based programs or brief psychosocial interventions lacked sufficient information on participants’ characteristics (e.g., demographics, changes in means in outcomes), which are important in calculating practice effect sizes and potential moderators for meta-analysis to examine school social workers’ roles and effectiveness in carrying out these interventions.

The present scoping review found significant variation in school social work services in the US and other countries where school social work services have been studied. Social workers are a significant part of the mental health and social services workforce. Using schools as a natural hub, school social workers offer primary preventive groups or early interventions to students, parents, and staff. Their interests include but are not restricted to social behavioral and academic outcomes; psychological distress; school climate and culture; teacher, parent, and student interactions; and parental wellbeing. Future school mental health researchers who are interested in the role of school social work services in helping children, youth, and families should consider the changing education landscape and the response to intervention after the COVID-19 pandemic/endemic (Capp et al., 2021 ; Kelly et al., 2021 ; Watson et al., 2022 ). Researchers are also encouraged to collaborate with school social work practitioners to identify early mental health risk factors, recognize appropriate tier 2 EBPs, or pilot-test well-designed programs to increase students’ success.

Declarations

We have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the scoping review.

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Latest Stories

Five huge differences between work and school, wednesday, may 31, 2017.

school work definition

Jeffrey A. Tucker

13 Reasons Why is a grueling emotional drama of how high school student Hannah Baker ends up taking her own life. The social scene at her school inflicts worsening wounds and ever-deepening pain. The school itself becomes associated with the torment of her heart and soul, as her peers drive her ever further into the pit of despair.

The commercial scenes are few but they are universally safe, affirming, and happy.

Life is not all grim. Her home is a respite. There are also three commercial settings that play an ameliorating role. Her father’s drug store is a happy place. A coffee shop is where she tries to form genuine friendships. But I’m particularly intrigued by the few scenes that show her working at a commercial movie theater. Dressed in a crisp uniform, she serves up popcorn to patrons. These scenes are few but they are universally safe, affirming, and happy.

The contrast raises the question: what are the differences between work and school? It matters because many young Americans put off remunerative work until after they finish school. They enter real life outside of school unprepared for what they are going to face, and carry with them many of the bad habits and even pathologies they picked up during 16 years of schooling.

Here are five key differences between work and school.

1. Obedience vs. Production

In school there are enforced rules that are supposed to be obeyed by everyone, and there is very little room for adjusting them in light of differences between individuals. Compliance is an end in itself. So long as you adhere to the rules, and especially if you are getting good grades – which you can do if you say on tests precisely what you are supposed to say, and learn what you are supposed to learn – you are a success. There is nothing going on beyond this. You are not paid to attend, and, after 12th grade, you are expected to pay to attend.

You are paid because someone thinks you can be a valuable contributor to the goal of making wealth. In the workplace, by contrast, the ideal is productivity, which ultimately means creating value for others. There are rules but they are subject to a non-arbitrary test: are we achieving the goal of production itself? You are paid because someone thinks you can be a valuable contributor to that goal. A portion of the company revenue accrues to you, which also implies some return obligation. The rules are adaptive, constantly changing according to circumstances. They seek to reward good outcomes according to the individual, the team, or the purpose.

2. Force vs. Choice

In school, no matter how bad the social environment gets, how grim the hurt feelings, however much suffering you face, you have to keep coming back day after day, year after year. The same people, the same problems. This is just taken for granted. It is your fate. You surrender to the idea that there is no escape. And why do they believe this? Because it is true: there is no escape. Compulsory attendance laws – passed some 100 years ago – created within the American schooling model an underlying structure rooted in legal violence, because these laws are ultimately enforced by the violence of the state. If you think about it, that was the original sin of American schooling.

Making it compulsory was the original sin of American education.  On the other hand, in the workplace, for all the problems and interventions and even bad bosses and lame coworkers, you are always free to quit and find another job. You enjoy the right of exit. You are a paid volunteer. That right alone takes the sting out and incentivizes cooperative behavior. There are no truancy laws. You can shop around. You can even choose not to work at all. It means that everyone there is there by choice and has that job because someone wants to pay them to do it. There is no substructure of violence. There is choice at the heart of the workplace. That alone changes the dynamic and the social environment.

3. Age-Based Tribe vs. the Individual

From preschool through final graduation, you are generally told to stay with your age-based tribe. This is your peer group. You have no responsibilities to anyone younger. You are not directly and consistently influenced by people who are more mature. It’s just you and your age-based friends ruled by external authority structures. You move together. You age together. You will always be in that exact situation, with little to no prospects for mobility. You are in an artificial environment that doesn’t exist in any other setting in life, and certainly not in the workplace. Then you graduate and your social networks turn to dust .

You can be lame or ambitious, lazy or aspirational, unproductive or super valuable. The workplace includes people of varying ages, and it is completely normal for excellence to be rewarded with growing salaries and responsibilities. Your peers are far more diverse than they ever were in school and that leads to different expectations and opportunities. You can be lame or ambitious, lazy or aspirational, unproductive or super valuable. Your future depends on the choices you make, and you are constantly interacting with a wider demographic of people from whom you can learn and who you can influence. It is a much more fluid and natural social situation. What you do makes a difference in the quality of your life and your place in the hierarchy.  

4. Known Information vs. Discovery

In school, most everything you are tasked to learn is already known. There are textbooks, manuals, experts, committees. You are part of a system that changes only slowly and according to the priorities of politics and bureaucracies. It’s fine to be curious but only about what other people want you to know. There is only one reward for learning: a higher grade. And what you learn has already been mastered better by others who are assigned to be your authorities. Your job is to become the best-possible parrot. This is what it means to be an excellent student. Deviating from that course makes you a problem student.

People who look only for rules to follow only rise so far. At work – again, under the ideal – creativity and discovery are valued and rewarded. People who look only for rules to follow only rise so far. To disrupt the routine, to think of and try the unknown, is what every profit-seeking industry demands. It is not always easy and the tendency toward inertia is always present. But every business must learn to adapt to change and to reward those who are willing to step up and take risks to discover something new.

5. Cruelty vs. Civility

So long as you are getting the grades and adhering to the rules, there is no downside to misbehaving toward others in a school setting. Despite the appearance of order, structures of authority, and endless rules, students end up constructing their own underworlds, and those worlds have radically misaligned incentives that the adults cannot manage, resulting in unchecked pathology: the kind of pathologies that always develop among groups of incarcerated human beings.

It’s not about what teachers do to the students; it’s what students do to each other. This follows the tendency in any incarceration: fellow inmates are generally more threatening than guards and wardens. Cruelty becomes habitual, though often hidden and quiet, something whispered about between good friends.

In prison, it’s never safe to be without a gang. You choose your tribe. In prison, it’s never safe to be without a gang. You denounce former friends and choose new ones. You join others in making fun of the person in the out-group or rewarding those in the in-group. You have no obligations to be courteous, decent, or kind, and you are neither punished nor rewarded for your treatment of your peers except by peers themselves. You have no concern for the larger consequences of your actions. This cultivates a certain pettiness and leads students to believe that savvy social navigation, even at the expense of others, is their main task. This is what they get good at, and dehumanizing others is not only not punished, it is often rewarded.  

In a professional workplace, in contrast, all employees learn to separate workflow conflicts from personal conflicts. People who personalize gripes (through gossip, backstabbing, or passive-aggressive performances) do not earn the trust and respect of others, and thus do not succeed, do not rise, do not last. The shortest-term employees are those who play politics as if it were middle school. Those who rise above personality to focus on productivity earn the respect of others and rise in the company. And there are certain conventions: for instance, you never, under any circumstances, use your position or title to wage personal battles that have nothing to do with work. You can get away with this for a while, but it doesn’t last.

Her work provided her solace, but it was not enough to overcome the impossible odds against her in school. At the end of 13 Reasons Why , there is a highly symbolic moment in which Hannah walks into the movie theater, turns in her uniform, and walks out the door. This scene shows what it means to give up on something at which you are succeeding because you cannot handle the failures that exist outside that space. She was brutally victimized by the other half of life, the part that exists outside the civilized, courteous, and adult environment of the workplace. Her work provided her solace, but it was not enough to overcome the impossible odds against her in school.

The story of Hannah is an extreme case with a terrible ending. But the case is neither purely fictional nor entirely isolated, and it serves as a stand-in for the emotional sufferings of millions. All the anti-bullying campaigns in the world will not fix the problem. Behavioral controls and counselling will not either. The core problem has to be addressed: schooling as we know it is an institution built by force, funded by force, and populated through force, thus insulating students from regular incentives toward civilized life and leaving them unprotected from unchecked exploitation and abuse.

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is a former Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education .

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Understanding Charter Schools vs. Public Schools

Charter schools present choices, but there is much for parents to evaluate.

Charter Schools vs. Public Schools

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Individual charter schools can tailor their curriculum, academic focus, discipline policy and other matters generally decided at the school district or state board level.

Parents using the public school system in the U.S. had little choice where to send their children to school as recently as a few decades ago.

The rise of charter schools changed the education marketplace and provided new options, even for parents without the means or desire to send their students to private schools.

"Charters add more options and different models of schools to the system, which usually gives parents more choice," James Bacon, former staffing director at Boston Public Schools and current director of outreach and operations at education technology firm Edficiency, wrote in an email. "In many ways, the biggest pros and cons of charter schools stem from the same fact: That in most cases, charter schools are given more freedom than traditional public schools."

The District of Columbia and 45 states have laws that allow public charter schools. But in many places, there are no local charter school options – just traditional public and private schools. For families able to consider charter schools, here are some things to know.

The Difference Between Charter and Public Schools

Charter schools are publicly funded, tuition-free schools, but they differ from traditional public schools in key ways. Comparing charter schools to public schools requires weighing a few considerations.

First, charters have more flexibility. Rather than being part of a public school district , which dictates curriculum and standards in all schools, charters operate autonomously through individual agreements, or charters, with state or local governments that set rules and student performance standards.

Given the ability to operate through these agreements, individual charter schools can tailor their curriculum, academic focus, staffing ratios, discipline policies and other matters generally decided at the school district or state board level. In exchange for that flexibility, charter schools are supposed to be accountable to parents and the state or local governments that authorize them.

"The flexibility that charter schools are afforded in our system means that they try different things, with varying results," says Frank Adamson, an associate professor of education policy and leadership studies at California State University—Sacramento who has studied charter school performance.

Some schools may focus on arts or theater. Others may emphasize science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.

While charter schools generally operate independently, some work closely with or are overseen by the local public school district, which could determine some of the curriculum and structure, says Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

Charter Schools Are Growing

The charter school movement gained prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s and has been gaining ground since. Charter schools operated in 35 states in the 2000-2001 school year, and that number has risen to 45, according to the Education Commission of the States. West Virginia adopted a charter school law most recently, in 2019.

Charter school school enrollment has grown nationally in recent years, particularly over the past decade. Nearly 3.7 million students were enrolled in charter schools during the 2021-2022 school year, or about 7% of all public school students, according to NCES. That's up from about 2 million students enrolled in charters in the 2011-2012 school year, or about 4% of public school students.

In the early 2000s, "there were a lot of investments made by the federal government through startup funds and by foundations in really high-quality charter school models and expansion replication of those models," says Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, an education research organization inside Arizona State University ’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. "There was a lot of enthusiasm about making those opportunities more accessible to more kids, and there was demand as well. I think those two dynamics came together and we saw that pretty explosive growth."

Charter Schools and Equity

Many charter schools were created as a way to close the achievement gap between white students and most students of color, experts say. Some still view that as a core mission.

Lake says the ones that have made that a priority are making good on that initiative.

“The studies that have been done about charter schools in urban areas show pretty unequivocally that they have been doing their job in terms of narrowing the achievement gap,” she says. “I would not say closing it, because that’s a tall order, but we should still aim high.”

Many of the same problems that plague traditional public schools, however, are found in charters. New Orleans, where nearly all public schools became charters after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, still deals with a racial achievement gap despite the increased funding and promises of improvement, says Adamson, who has studied the impact of charter schools in New Orleans.

In a recent landmark study , researchers at Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, which studies charter schools, found that Black and Hispanic charter school students advanced more than their counterparts in traditional public schools "by large margins" in math and reading. The study also found stronger "academic growth" among charter school students living in poverty and English-language learners, compared with similar students at traditional public schools.

A 2013 study , also by CREDO, had found that traditional public school students performed either slightly better or the same as charter school students. However, the center's 2023 study that examined student performance in 6,200 charter schools from 2014 to 2019 found that those trends are changing. Using a traditional 180-day academic year as a measuring stick, the study found that on average, charter school students gained the equivalent of 16 days of learning in reading and six days in math on their traditional school counterparts.

Getting Into a Charter School

Charter schools generally don't require entrance exams, interviews or auditions, which often come with private school admission. But that doesn’t mean they’re easy to get into.

Many high-performing charters draw large numbers of applications, and some use a lottery to determine which students can enroll. Even getting a place in such a lottery can require planning. Families should be aware that schools have application deadlines, sometimes as early as November of the school year before kids would start.

Consider these

Parents should determine if their child is eligible to attend the school and ask what they need to do to apply for the specific school they hope to attend, Valant says. Also, how these lotteries work can differ by locale, with some areas giving advantage to families who meet certain criteria.

"Most also have clauses in their charters to give preference for siblings and/or members of the charter board," Valant says, noting that such admissions practices may also present inequitable scenarios for families. "So they do not and cannot always take any child that wants to attend, whereas traditional public schools do have to take all students."

Charters and Test Scores

Both charter schools and public schools depend on test scores to show their value. Federal law has pushed traditional public schools to focus on testing, but the competitive model of charters means "they live or die on their test scores," Adamson says.

"I think the argument could be made that their accountability metrics are often tied heavily to these scores and required for them to have their charter renewed, with the threat of the school being shut down if they don’t perform," Bacon says. "So it’s certainly something to be mindful about when exploring a charter school option."

Choosing Between a Charter and Public School

Education experts recommend that parents do research into charters, visit the schools and compare them carefully to the public-school alternative. Look beyond test scores and talk to educators who work at the schools and parents who send their children there.

"In my experience, parents should know what matters most to them, and then ask for quantitative and qualitative data around those points if they cannot find it online," says Bacon, who serves on the school board near his home in Wisconsin.

Quantitative data includes test scores, graduation rates, college attendance rates and similar metrics, he says. Qualitative information could include surveys that measure student and family satisfaction, the type of curriculum they use, their beliefs and their policy on discipline .

"The charter school issue has really gotten politicized over the years, and I think it’s unfortunate because it’s a different kind of public school, but it is a public school," Lake says. "For that reason, a parent should not close down the option of looking at a charter school and seeing if it might be a good fit for the child. The labels don’t really mean anything here. I usually advise people not to worry about the label, worry about the results. Worry about whether it’s a good fit."

Searching for a school? Explore our K-12 directory .

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Advancing social justice, promoting decent work

Ilo is a specialized agency of the united nations, school-to-work transition survey (swts).

The SWTS is a unique survey instrument that generates relevant labour market information on young people aged 15 to 29 years, including longitudinal information on transitions within the labour market. The SWTS thus serves as a unique tool for demonstrating the increasingly tentative and indirect paths to decent and productive employment that today’s young men and women are facing.

Definition of a youth labour market transition

Why the need to collect labour market information on young people through surveys, blog: the mastercard foundation addresses the role of swts in confronting data set deficit, how is the swts implemented, the methodological guide, history of the swts, previous swts reports.

  • M. Matsumoto and S. Elder: “Characterizing the school-to-work transition of young men and women: Evidence from the ILO school-to-work transition surveys”, ILO Employment Working Paper No. 51, Geneva, 2010. ( Characterizing the school-to-work transitions of young men and women: Evidence from the ILO School-to-work transition surveys )
  • El Zanaty and Associates: “School-to-work transition: Evidence from Egypt”, Employment Policy Papers No. 2007/12 (ILO, Geneva). ( School-to-work transition: Evidence from Egypt )
  • V. Corbanese and G. Rosas: “Young people’s transition to decent work: Evidence from Kosovo”, Employment Policy Paper 2007/4 (ILO, Geneva). ( Young people’s transition to decent work : evidence from Kosovo )
  • F. Pastore: “School-to-work transitions in Mongolia”, Employment Working Paper 2008/14 (ILO, Geneva). ( School-to-work-transitions in Mongolia )
  • New Era: “School-to-work transition: Evidence from Nepal”, Employment Sector Paper 2008/10 (ILO, Geneva). ( School-to-work transition: evidence from Nepal )
  • S. Alissa: “The school-to-work transition of young people in Syria”, Employment Policy Paper 2007/3 (ILO, Geneva). ( The school-to-work transition of young people in Syria )
  • Previous SWTS datasets

NBC New York

What is Ash Wednesday and why do Christians give things up for Lent?

This year, ash wednesday will be observed on feb. 14, 2024, by staff • published february 14, 2024 • updated on february 14, 2024 at 8:17 am.

On Wednesday, many Christians will show up to work with ashes smudged on their foreheads. Many more will head to church on their lunch break or after work to receive a cross of ashes on their face.

This year, Ash Wednesday — a solemn day of fasting and reflection to mark the start of Christianity's most penitent season — falls on Valentine's Day , the fixed annual celebration of love and friendship, marked by couples, flowers and candy — and critics who deride its commercialization.

But what exactly is the purpose of the centuries-old Christian tradition?

What is Ash Wednesday?

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In the Christian tradition, Ash Wednesday marks the start of the holy season of Lent, a time for reflection and repentance in preparation for the celebration of Easter.

Christians from many denominations recognize the holy season for 40 days leading up to Easter. For centuries, Christians have received a sign of the cross with ashes on their forehead at the beginning of that season as a reminder of mortal failings and an invitation to receive God’s forgiveness. The tradition has its origins in the Old Testament where sinners performed acts of public penance.

The use of ashes is to remind parishioners of their mortality. During Ash Wednesday service, the phrase, "Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” from the Book of Genesis is traditionally employed.

Rev. Gregory Wilson, pastor at St. Mary’s Help of Christians Catholic church in Aiken, South Carolina, offers believers two things to consider when observing Ash Wednesday: prayer and sacrifice.

“Prayer,” Wilson said, “purifies intentions and relates everything back to God. Fasting detaches people from comfort and themselves, in turn, making them ‘hungry for God’ and his righteousness and holiness."

Wilson urges Christians to make time for prayer, nothing that "people always have time for what they want to do."

“We make time for these things because they are a priority and they are necessary in life and guess what? So is prayer. Prayer is like the air for the lungs of the Christian. So do not try to find time – make it.”

school work definition

Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday: Is it a dilemma to go on a date with a cross sign on your forehead?

school work definition

Valentine's Day 2024: Gift ideas for lovers, family & friends

When is ash wednesday 2024.

Ash Wednesday is not a fixed date. Its timing is tied to Easter Sunday, and for most Christians, Easter will fall on March 31 this year.

Easter also moves annually, swinging between March 22 and April 25 based on a calendar calculation involving the moon.

This year, Ash Wednesday will fall on Feb. 14 2024.

Where do the ashes come from?

Typically, the ashes are from the palms used on Palm Sunday, which falls a week before Easter, according to the  Evangelical Lutheran Church in America .

Ashes can be purchased, but some churches make their own by burning the palms from prior years. For example, several parishes and schools in the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese plan to hold palm burning ceremonies this year.

Can Catholics celebrate Valentine's Day on Ash Wednesday?

In addition to the candy heart and chocolate-fueled secular celebrations, Feb. 14 is also the Feast of St. Valentine. But Ash Wednesday with its fasting and abstinence requirements is far more significant and should be prioritized, said Catholic Bishop Richard Henning of Providence, Rhode Island, in the diocese’s official newspaper.

“Ash Wednesday is the much higher value and deserves the full measure of our devotion,” he said. “I ask with all respect that we maintain the unique importance of Ash Wednesday. If you would like to wine and dine your Valentine, please do so on the Tuesday before. February 13 is Mardi Gras, ‘Fat Tuesday,’ a perfect day to feast and celebrate!”

What is Lent?

Lent is the annual period of Christian observance that precedes Easter. The dates of Lent are defined by the date of Easter, which is a moveable feast, meaning that it falls on a different date each year. Lent starts on Ash Wednesday, and its observance lasts for 40 days, excluding Sundays. Lent ends this year on Thursday, April 6.

Catholics started the tradition of Lent around the year 325, during the Council of Nicea, but it has spread through other Christian denominations, including Western Orthodox churches, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Anglicans, among others.

During lent, Christians give up things like habits or food and drink items. The tradition’s origins go back to Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the desert.

Lent comes from the Middle English word “lente,” which means springtime, and signals the coming of spring.

What is Fat Tuesday?

On the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, people tend to eat rich foods in large quantities in advance of the fasting, which is a key component of Lent. Hence, the name “Fat Tuesday.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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  • May 1, 2023
  • 25 min read

School Social Work

Definition, current situation, standards, roles, practice methods, legal obligations, ethical obligations, school social work practice approach

Three sections follow:

1. Background Material that provides the context for the topic

2. A suggested Practice Approach

3. A list of Supporting Material / References

Feedback welcome!

Background Material

school work definition

There is no single, internationally accepted definition of school social work (SSW). Because schools are small communities, each with unique psychosocial needs, SSW as a discipline differs from generic social work, even though practitioners use the generic social work methods of individual, group and community work.

School social work is the application of social work principles and methods within the education system to render holistic social work services to support learners, parents, educators and the school as community, with the main goal of establishing an environment where the learner can reach his or her full potential by addressing social, emotional, socioeconomic and behavioral barriers to learning (Reyneke, 2020; Vergottini & Weyers, 2020).

The Current Situation

school work definition

School social work (SSW) is a growing specialty around the world with its practice embedded in 50 countries and many other countries exploring how to introduce SSW. SSW has evolved for over a century, changing to meet changing needs to serve school children from many cultural traditions. While teachers develop the potential of learners through transmitting knowledge, skills and values, social workers can provide support for learners’ wellbeing, so they are ready to learn. Using ecological systems theory, SSWers often work in multi-disciplinary teams to provide support to those who are marginalized by problems such as poverty, oppression, disabilities, physical and mental health issues, drug use, adolescent pregnancy, learning problems, family problems including domestic violence, divorce, child abuse, homelessness, and family illnesses, and problems within the school system such as discrimination, bullying, and inappropriate discipline by staff. SSWers partner with schools in guiding children and youth to reach their potential intellectually, emotionally, and socially. In particular SSWers can address many of the out-of-school needs that limit students’ learning through helping families resolve difficult life situations and working on community-wide problems that negatively impact school performance such as violence, crime, decaying neighbourhoods, lack of community services, racism, and poverty (Huxtable, 2022; also AASW, 2020; Finigan-Carr & Shaia, 2018; Vergottini & Weyers, 2020).

School Social Work Roles

While narrowly focused roles may be handed to SSWers, the ideal role is broad and flexible, allowing the social worker to tackle any problem that interferes with school success. An ecological systems approach is often used with school, family, and community to resolve problems. In general the SSW role involves consultation with school staff, individual and group counselling, referral to agencies, advocacy and outreach to parents. Importantly, SSWers will often need to interpret their role to school leaders, so their services are made available to the whole school population in ways consistent with social work values and standards (Huxtable, 2022).

In the second decade of this century two organisations published material analysing the role of the SSWer. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW, 2012) published a Standards document, and the School Social Work Association of America published a SSW Practice Model (Frey et al., 2013) and Framework for SSW Practice (SSWAA, 2013). The Framework lists four major areas of professional practice for SSWers with multiple components listed in each. For example, in the planning and preparation area, components include “identifies school and community resources to meet school needs” and “assesses family engagement”. In the school environment area, one component is “challenges structural barriers, social inequalities and educational disparities impacting learning outcomes”. Summaries of these three documents are included with their reference in the Supporting Material / References section below.

Various authors touch on different roles for SSW (Finigan-Carr & Shaia, 2018; Frey et al., 2013; Huxtable, 2022; Kelly et al., 2016; Kemp, 2014; Vergottini, 2018; and Vergottini & Weyers, 2020). Special demands can be placed on SSWers because they practise in areas that are defined and dominated by people who are not social workers and they deal predominantly with children who are viewed as a ‘vulnerable group’.

SSWers will not necessarily be expected cover every area in the list that follows. The expectations schools have of social workers will vary and have a direct influence on the specific roles, tasks and functions that SSWers have to perform (Vergottini & Weyers, 2020). The following summary outlining six focus areas for SSW comes from Vergottini (2018).

1. Roles and responsibilities towards learners and parents/guardians:

To develop and implement an individual support plan (ISP) for each learner.

To assess learners individually and/or their parents/guardians by means of a variety of social work methods and skills.

To provide individual counselling to the learners and/or their parents/guardians.

To address social problems experienced by individuals and groups of learners (e.g. bullying, teenage pregnancy).

To work with parents and staff to address school refusal. [School Refusal is a separate topic on this website.]

To run therapeutic and educational groups for learners and/or their parents/ guardians.

To provide crisis intervention services or programmes.

To participate in multi-disciplinary meetings.

To provide assistance and support in learner disciplinary hearings.

To facilitate informative events for parents.

To arrange referrals to external service providers when necessary.

2. Roles and responsibilities towards educators/teachers:

To assist educators with the early identification of learners’ needs/problems.

To assist educators with the reporting and supporting of learners.

To empower educators with regard to the management of learners in the classroom.

To liaise between learners and staff with regard to social work issues.

To assist in teacher support meetings.

To support educators during parent consultations.

To participate in the professional development of educators in order to identify and manage social barriers to learning and development in terms of the screening, identification, assessment and support policy.

To empower educators with knowledge of policies, legislation, statutory matters, and community change regarding social barriers to education and learning.

3. Roles and responsibilities with regard to screening, and the development and implementation of programmes and projects:

To develop a strategic plan for service delivery.

To develop an annual plan to guide the functions and operations of social work.

To network and liaise with external resources.

To assist with the management of programmes and projects.

To continually evaluate and monitor programmes and projects.

To evaluate tools to evaluate the success of programmes and projects on an ongoing basis.

4. Roles and responsibilities regarding social work and educational policy changes and new trends:

To master and disseminate knowledge of relevant policies and new trends that impact on learners.

To attend, participate and provide feedback on conferences and workshops.

To communicate changes and trends to district management teams.

To participate in school social work sub-committees.

To participate in continuous professional development activities.

5. Roles and responsibilities as a member of multi-disciplinary teams:

To attend relevant provincial and regional meetings with other professions.

To liaise with external social workers and other professionals where relevant.

6. Other important roles and responsibilities of school social workers:

To keep the required records.

To assist with the management of trauma and disaster situations within the school and the surrounding community.

To present workshops on social issues to learners, staff, parents and/or other groups

To have extensive knowledge of alcohol and drug abuse and provide related services.

To have extensive knowledge of mental health issues and provide consultation services on related matters.

To have extensive knowledge of violence prevention and provide related services.

To conduct home visits (when needed).

More recently Huxtable (2022) suggests the SSW role also includes:

Reaching out to families to enrol children, especially in countries where widespread poverty and child labour exists. This role should involve providing for basic needs such as school meals and maintaining school attendance.

Reducing absenteeism, whether caused by truancy, school phobia, dropping out, or poor health.

Developing preventative programs to address various social and health problems of the school population, e.g. child abuse, bullying and cyber bullying, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and discrimination.

Joining with Indigenous advocacy groups to foster education among Indigenous peoples in the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, and Africa who are still suffering from the after-effects of European imperialism.

Supporting Indigenous groups in their quest to prevent loss of native cultures and languages.

School Social Work Practice Interventions

In carrying out their role SSWers use a broad range of interventions and methods. AASW (2020) suggests these involve:

Casework : counselling, psychosocial assessments, student and family counselling, coordination of supports, liaising with external organisations (mentioned by Vergottini &Weyers (2020) also).

Advocacy with school staff to develop an inclusive culture and with students for resources and procedures.

Research and policy development : projects on student wellbeing, evaluation of practice, school policy analysis and development (mentioned by Vergottini &Weyers (2020) too).

Community and professional development for teachers and school staff and the wider school community.

Critical incident management : emergency management, interventions to reduce impact of traumatic incidents, psychological first aid, counselling, monitoring recovery.

Kemp (2014) suggests the following:

Consultation with school staff, parents and other professionals.

Collaboration and co-ordination of services/programs to ensure a holistic service to the learner.

Community work where necessary.

Group work , dependent on the needs of learners, educators, other personnel and parents (in Vergottini &Weyers (2020) too).

Crisis Intervention and Case Work , where the SSWer acts as a referral agent to other professionals or welfare agencies (also in Vergottini &Weyers, 2020).

Training of social work-students .

On a clinical level, the SSWer functions as part of a multidisciplinary team , applying the principles, knowledge and skills from a social work perspective within the team.

Legal Obligations

It is clear that the SSWer has specific roles to play within the school environment. In the fulfilment of these roles, the social worker might ‘step on the toes’ of other role-players, leading to conflict and even mistrust. Educators and parents might not always grasp the reasons for a specific intervention or decision by the social worker. Often misunderstandings and conflict arise because of the SSWers' legal obligations (Crutchfield et al., 2020; Reyneke, 2020).

The legal obligations of SSWers vary from country to country. They include providing child protection services, upholding children’s rights, and protecting that the best interests of children. The social worker must ensure that children in the school environment are protected against any form of harm, making it their obligation to do everything possible to protect all the learners in the school. This obligation grants them the legal power to report cases of abuse and neglect within the school environment. It also includes providing psychosocial services to learners who have been victims of abuse and neglect as well as ensuring all learners are not subjected or exposed to any maltreatment, abuse, neglect, exploitation, degradation, ill-treatment, violence or harmful behaviour. In practice, this could mean intervening when a learner is suspected of being abused or neglected at home (Reyneke, 2020).

Ethical Obligations

All social workers have ethical obligations. These are outlined in general terms by the International Federation of Social Workers (ISFW, 2018). These principles recognise and promote the inherent dignity of humanity, human rights, social justice, the right to self-determination, the right to participation; they respect confidentiality and privacy; they advocate treating people holistically; they promote the ethical use of technology and social media; and they strive towards maintaining professional integrity. Reyneke (2020) discusses the main ethical areas in SSW.

Social justice : SSWers must ensure the best interests of the child are adhered to, including the right to basic education and to fair treatment in the classroom.

Respect for people’s worth, human rights and dignity : All students should receive the necessary social services, regardless of income; messages of unworthiness should be challenged.

Competence : In spite of adverse conditions at times (e.g. case overload), SSWers should strive to maintain personal competence through ongoing training, professional reading and linking with other social workers.

Integrity : SSWers should be honest, fair and respectful to others in practice, even when identifying educators who infringe on the rights of learners.

Professional responsibility : SSWers have to take responsibility for their actions and adapt their methods to the environment they encounter.

Show care and concern for the wellbeing of others : SSWers may need to challenge situations that have a negative impact on physical and emotional wellbeing, even if this requires confrontation between adults.

Service delivery : SSWers should assist learners, their families and the wider community to address their social needs and problems, practising in a spirit of self-determination.

Confidentiality : Lack of confidentiality in schools is one of the main concerns of SSWers. It is essential social workers maintain confidentiality with regard to client information unless it is not in the best interest of clients (e.g. for victims of rape, neglect or abuse). Some teachers will pressure SSWers to divulge confidential information; this should be resisted unless awareness such information can benefit the child. Even here SSWers should ask the child for permission before sharing details with teachers.

Interdisciplinary collaboration : SSWers need to collaborate with teachers, with the guiding principle being ensuring care and concern for the child’s wellbeing. SSWers may need to confront teachers around misconduct in this area and, if necessary, take the misconduct to a higher authority in the school. Collaboration involves treating colleagues with respect, being loyal and not criticising them when this is not warranted.

Criticism and disputes involving colleagues : Teachers who mistreat students should be challenged by the SSWer and/or reported to the school management. The ethical issue created by such a dispute is the need for the protection of the child, on the one hand, and the protection of a colleague, on the other.

Supervision : SSWers face challenges in finding competent supervisors. Part of the problem is that supervisors must have experience in the field where the social worker they are supervising is practising. As a result SSWers often use inexperienced professionals or a senior member of the school who does not have social work experience.

Referral for services outside the school : SSWers should insist schools refer learners to outside services, when necessary, even though schools may resist this.

Permission from parents : In general permission should be obtained from parents to work with their children, but there are some areas where this may not or should not happen. If children do not want parents to know they are seeking counselling, SSWers need to respect this, but work with the child to help them see it may be in the best interests of parents to know. Social workers may also need to go against the child’s wishes, with a thorough explanation provided to the child as to why the SSWer feels parents need to be informed.

The Future of Social Work in Education

Schools in the 21st century are tasked with developing skills and values and transmitting knowledge, while preparing learners for a rapidly changing world. Today’s school children will live through more social, technological, and global changes than any previous generation, and schools must prepare them for unknown challenges. Schools around the world are increasingly recognizing that they cannot handle alone the issues that prevent the success of their students, and that they must tackle these problems with help from multidisciplinary teams using the expert knowledge and skills of various support personnel, including SSWers.

Schools will need to be ready not only for pandemics but also for the ongoing crises of resource depletion and climate change. As these become harder to ignore, school systems must include the causes, consequences, and management of these realities in educational offerings. SSWers need to play a part by focusing not just on the harsh reality that it is youth who are most affected by the rapid destruction of ecosystems, but on advocating for serious change in managing these global issues and thereby providing hope for the current cohort of children and all future generations. Schools must help ready them for life-long engagement in protecting the planet (Huxtable, 2022).

Practice Approach

The material presented above highlights that SSW can occur on a continuum. SSW can have a narrow focus, e.g. a concentration on attaining full school attendance, through to a broad focus, e.g. a broad and flexible role allowing the social worker to use an ecological systems approach with school (learners, teachers and administrators), family and community.

Depending on how their role is defined, SSWers can find themselves supporting learners and families/communities marginalised by poverty, oppression, disability, physical and mental health issues, drug use, adolescent pregnancy, and learning problems; family problems including domestic violence, divorce, child abuse, homelessness, and family illnesses; and problems within the school system such as discrimination, bullying, and inappropriate discipline by staff.

The potential roles of SSWers have been listed in some detail above under six headings:

Roles and responsibilities towards learners and parents/guardians

Roles and responsibilities towards educators/teachers

Roles and responsibilities with regard to screening, and the development and implementation of programmes and projects

Roles and responsibilities regarding social work and educational policy changes and new trends

Roles and responsibilities as a member of multi-disciplinary teams

Other important roles and responsibilities of school social workers

The dot points under each of these headings provide a guide, and a potential expansion, to the SSW role.

In fulfilling their role SSWers may need to use a generic/generalist approach, i.e. use a full ‘basket’ of practice methods. A glance at the contents page of this website will alert potential SSW to the task they may face (depending on how their role is defined) and areas to explore. It will be important for the SSWer to reflect on successes and failures, seek supervision and advice, and, over time, develop a resources ‘toolbox’.

Legal and ethical obligations have been outlined in the above material. Most of these are standard practice the social work profession but may present problems in the education setting where social workers mix with and/or form friendships with staff on a day-to-day basis. Adopting an open, supportive communication approach with the educators and the school community will go a long way to overcoming any conflict that may arise when legal and ethical issues must be addressed.

A role for school counsellors as first responders

While the school social worker has a role in coordinating outside services for crisis intervention when necessary, Bailey (2023) makes a case for social workers becoming involved directly in school as first responders. Bailey suggests there is a significant role related to mental health — which falls under the heading of social and emotional growth — that is often disregarded in the school counsellor role. School counsellors are first responders to mental health concerns, but are not naturally linked to this role, even though it is imperative to their work (and the same holds true for teachers). In fact, school counsellors may naturally take on the role of mental health first responder without even realizing it.

The school counsellor’s role in responding to mental health crises extends beyond simply making the proper referrals to the right people. School counsellors must maintain control and defuse situations before making these referrals, which might happen right away or may take days. School counsellors engage with students who are having suicidal thoughts or emotional breakdowns caused by loss or personal trauma. Other common scenarios include students struggling with anxiety or depression after receiving a poor grade, a failure to live up to parental expectations causing issues at home, and inferiority complexes that feed into low self-esteem and a desire to quit school. The school counsellor must be prepared to handle these mental health crises as a first responder even though the crises may occur at any time throughout any given day in the school building.

A 3-step approach to helping students

The path to resolving many of the mental health issues that today’s students face can be broken down into three components:

Commonality

Communication

Awareness High school students do not generally understand common problems such as anxiety and depression. Educating students about anxiety and depression should mean students might be able to describe what they are feeling much more clearly, as opposed to not knowing how to articulate what they are experiencing. This pre-planning would enable the school counsellor to offer the student the best assistance and recommendations.

Commonality Teenagers are often unaware of how prevalent some of their internal conflicts are; they often think they are handling problems alone. Teenagers can be offered statistics — exactly how many of their friends are experiencing some type of mental or emotional struggle — followed by a discussion about why these numbers are rising.

Communication Once teens are aware of what constitutes mental health, understand how common issues are and can recognize struggles within themselves, a safe environment has to be established for them to feel comfortable talking to an adult or counsellor about something so personal. The people best equipped for these situations are school counsellors, but many high school students aren’t aware of the role of their school counsellors or where they are located, nor is their role clearly defined as a person ready to listen and support people with concerns.

Making schools more inclusive to LGBTQ+ students

It is a well-supported fact in mental health research that LGBTQ+ individuals are at greater risk for mental health challenges than those from other groups. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, those who identify as LGBTQ+ are nearly three times more likely to develop a mental health disorder such as depression or anxiety and are significantly more likely to attempt suicide and abuse substances. The risks are especially high for adolescents and young adults, with LGBTQ+ youth ages 10–24 being four times more likely than their peers to attempt suicide.

Because many students in districts across the nation are part of the LGBTQ+ community and use mental health services, schools can play an important role in creating an inclusive and trauma-informed environment to prioritize mental health prevention and intervention.

Steps to creating an inclusive environment

Providing and promoting an inclusive, welcoming and trauma-informed school environment is more critical than ever for ensuring that all students, including LGBTQ+ students, can experience the sense of safety and belonging that they deserve. How can this be accomplished?

Create a culture shift. School staff must first be willing to take responsibility for all students in the school. This necessitates learning from one another through communication, collaboration and professional development opportunities.

Become trauma informed. Establishing a safe and inclusive school setting requires that staff be trauma informed. Staff must be willing to recognize their own implicit biases and understand that everyone has their own story. All staff — not just teachers and administrators — need to be educated and equipped to recognize basic signs and symptoms of mental health challenges and know who to contact if they have concerns about a student’s well-being.

Provide resources. Students and families need to be aware of the resources available to them on and off campus. All staff should be familiar with key resources, including local mental health authorities, LGBTQ+ organizations, crisis hotlines and bilingual providers. In addition, posters with inclusive language celebrating diversity and addressing the stigmas surrounding mental health challenges need to be visible throughout campuses.

Make time for connection. Staff should make an effort to learn the names of all their students and use their correct names and pronouns. This will allow each student to feel valued. It also models respect and acceptance for all students. To create or strengthen students’ support systems, staff should also establish regular contact with families to develop trust and build a successful partnership.

Eating disorders in schools: Prevention, early identification, response and recovery support

From NEDC:, 2023.

Eating disorder prevention refers to specific programs or interventions that are in place to reduce the modifiable risk factors for eating disorders, enhance the protective factors, and prevent people from developing body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, and eating disorders.

Primary prevention interventions aim to prevent the onset or development of an eating disorder, often by targeting the modifiable risk and protective factors for body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. It can be universal (e.g. targeting a whole year group), selective (targeting those at high risk such as performing arts), or indicated (early identification of those with symptoms and therefore at high risk of developing an eating disorder).

Secondary prevention interventions focus on lowering the severity and duration of an eating disorder in a person who is already experiencing an eating disorder. These interventions occur early in the course of illness and focus on early identification and prompt access to treatment. The aim of secondary prevention interventions is to emphasise that recovery from an eating disorder is possible and to encourage help-seeking behaviour.

Tertiary prevention interventions focus on reducing the impact of an eating disorder in a person who is already experiencing an eating disorder. Tertiary prevention aims to address the nutritional, physical, psychological, functional, and social impacts of an eating disorder through accessing appropriate treatment. It also focuses on recovery and relapse prevention and response.

A whole school approach to eating disorder prevention

All schools should have clear policies and strategies in place regarding mental health and wellbeing of students including prevention, identification, and response to body dissatisfaction, body image concerns, and eating disorders. These policies should aim to protect students from exposure to modifiable risk factors and prevent development through developing positive relationships with food and body image.

Anyone working within a school environment has a role to play in creating a safe and supportive environment that aims to prevent the development of an eating disorder.

Protocols to support early identification and response may include:

Including a statement in the school mission about providing an environment which is inclusive of all bodies and celebrates diversity

Creating an environment that fosters student wellbeing to support building self-esteem, body acceptance, and a healthy relationship with the body, eating, and physical activity

Creating a safe and respectful environment that aims to eliminate teasing, bullying, and cyberbullying, particularly related to weight and/or appearance

Ensuring that there are no anthropometric assessments completed with or by students including weighing and measuring (e.g., calculation of BMI, comparison of weight, food diaries, calorie counting)

Recommending that staff avoid making any comments about their own or other people’s bodies or food intake or choices

Creating a non-diet culture with no comments or discussions about dieting

Creating opportunities for all students to engage in physical activity in a non-competitive, non-weight focused and safe environment

Avoiding unhelpful food labelling (e.g., ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’)

Providing a variety of food options from all food groups in the canteen

Displaying public materials within the school that includes a diversity of body weight, shapes, and appearance

Providing family and supports with resources and information to support students in building a healthy relationship with food and body. This may include information about body image and dissatisfaction, understanding risks for developing an eating disorders, early identification, and response, etc.

A workforce development strategy that focuses on eating disorders may include:

Providing school staff with training and information about eating disorders including risk factors, protective factors, warning signs, impact, and the importance of early intervention.

Training on best practice approaches to body image education and creating a positive school environment.

Providing school staff with training and information regarding the use of body affirming language in their interactions with students.

As part of the Health and Physical Education curriculum all schools are required to provide age-appropriate teachings at every level to support students in building a healthy relationship with food and their bodies and to support their overall mental health and wellbeing. Examples of topics and themes that could be incorporated into HPE teachings include:

Improving body acceptance, self-esteem, and self-worth

Enhancing mental health literacy and mental health promotion

Identifying concerns with mental health, eating, and body image

Coping skills, help-seeking strategies, and support resources

Enhancing media literacy, including use of social media

Promoting a positive relationship with food and exercise

Reducing the importance placed on body weight, shape, and appearance, and instead focusing on improving body acceptance

Supporting students to understand the socio-cultural influences associated with the development of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders

Improving understanding of the detrimental effects of dieting and the risk of developing an eating disorder

Reducing mental health stigma and bullying, particularly appearance-focused

Messages and communications within schools can cause unintended harm. Therefore messages and communications should NOT:

Include anthropometric measures such as weight and body mass index (BMI)

Provide nutrition advice that encourages dieting or labels foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’

Include stigmatising language or promote weight-bias

Include messages that may increase body dissatisfaction, dieting, and promote weight-control behaviours

Communicating about eating disorders

Communication about eating disorders with students within schools should :

Be developmentally appropriate for the intended audience

Support understanding of eating disorders as serious and complex mental illness, and not a lifestyle choice

Support understanding that any person, at any stage of their life, can experience an eating disorder

Provide up-to-date and evidence-based information

Be respectful to people with lived experience of an eating disorder

Provide supportive messaging that promotes help-seeking behaviours

Be monitored and evaluated on an ongoing basis to ensure the continuing safety and appropriateness of content

Communication about eating disorders with students within schools should not :

Describe details of specific eating disorder behaviours

Use or provide information on measurements in relation to people who have experienced an eating disorder (e.g., weight, amount of exercise, number of hospital admissions)

Normalise, glamorise or stigmatise eating disorder behaviours

Use judgemental language

Encourage behaviours motivated by fear or stigma (e.g., social exclusion, bullying)

Use imagery that shows stereotypical presentations of eating disorders including people of low weight

Available eating disorder prevention programs

Butterfly Foundation prevention programs for schools https://butterfly.org.au/school-youth-professionals/for-schools/

Bufferfly Body Bright http://www.butterflybodybright.org.au/

Butterfly Body Kind Schools https://butterfly.org.au/get-involved/campaigns/bodykindschools/

Media Smart https://www.flinders.edu.au/engage/community/clinics/mediasmart

The Embrace Collective https://www.bodyconfidentcollective.org/

Supporting Material / References

(Available on request)

AASW: Australian Association of Social Workers. (2020). Scope of social work practice: School social work . https://www.aasw.asn.au/document/item/8308

Bailey, J. (2023, August 4) . Don’t forget school counselors on the list of first responders. Counseling Today. https://ct.counseling.org/2023/08/dont-forget-school-counselors-on-the-list-of-first-responders/

Crutchfield, J., Phillippo, K. L., & Frey, A. (2020). Structural racism in schools: A view through the lens of the national school social work practice model. Children and Schools, 42 (3), 187-193. doi: 10.1093/cs/cdaa015

Finigan-Carr, N. M., & Shaia, W. E. (2018). School social workers as partners in the school mission. Phi Delta Kappan , 99(7), 26-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721718767856

Frey, A.J., Alvarez, M.E., Dupper, D.R., Sabatino, C.A., Lindsey, B.C., Raines, J.C., Streeck, F., McInerney, A., & Norris, M.A. (2013). School social work practice model overview: Improving academic and behavioural outcomes . https://www.sswaa.org/_files/ugd/486e55_47e9e7e084a84e5cbd7287e681f91961.pdf

The School Social Work Practice Model delineates the types of services a certified SSWer with a caseload of roughly 250 students should be expected to perform. It was developed in 2012 and is designed to provide a common framework for the school social work profession by promoting consistency in the education, credentialing, practice, and evaluation of SSWers. The Practice Model encourages SSWers to:

(1) provide evidence-based education, behavior, and mental health services. This is the primary direct service component of social work in schools. It requires unique expertise in child and family work and assists school staff in implementing appropriate interventions. This practice is accomplished by:

implementing multi-tiered programs and practices

monitoring progress, and

evaluating service effectiveness

(2) promote a school climate and culture conducive to student learning and teaching excellence. This practice is implemented by:

promoting effective school policies and administrative procedures

enhancing the professional capacity of school personnel, and

facilitating engagement and supportive relationships between student, family, school, and community

(3) maximize access to school-based and community-based resources (e.g. health, welfare and justice). This involves coordination of available services through knowledge of the school and community. This practice is accomplished by:

promoting a continuum of services

mobilizing resources and promoting assets, and

providing innovative leadership, interdisciplinary collaboration, systems coordination, and professional consultation

SSWers are expected to possess advanced knowledge and technical skills to guide their practice in these three areas. The proportion of their time that SSWers engage in each practice varies widely depending on contextual factors, including the needs of the community, school, families, and students served. However, allowing for the contextual factors operating the SSW environment, the model suggests SSW should revolve around:

Home-school-community linkages : Academic achievement and behavior are profoundly impacted by the environment, including relationships and interactions across home, school, and community settings. Facilitating communication and promoting linkages across these systems is a central characteristic of school social work practice.

Ethical guidelines and educational policy : Social workers are bound by a Code of Ethics that should be adhered to in decision-making around laws and policies relevant to specific school dilemmas. SSWers should engage in continuous professional development and rely on evidence-based practices to ensure they fit the context and culture of the school setting.

Education rights and advocacy : SSWers should be able to balance their mandate as school employees to advocate for students and families within their mandate as social workers to help change policies and practices that undermine the dignity and worth of students.

Data-based decision-making : SSW services should be informed by the research literature, adapt empirically supported interventions to fit student needs, and routinely evaluate the effectiveness of policies, programs and practices.

Huxtable, M., (2022). A global picture of school social work in 2021. International Journal of Social Work, 7 (1 Special issue Part 3), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.4148/2161-4148.1090

IFSW: International Federation of Social Workers. (2018). Global social work statement of ethical principles . [Online] https://www.ifsw.org/global-social-work-statement-of- ethical-principles/ .

Kelly, M S., Frey, A. Thompson, A., Klemp, H., Alvarez, M., & Berzin, S. C. (2016). Assessing the National School Social Work Practice Model: Findings from the Second National School Social Work Survey. Social Work, 61 (1), 17-28. doi: 10.1093/sw/swv044

Kemp, R., (2014). The development of management guidelines for school social work in the Western Cape . University of the Western Cape. (PhD thesis). https://etd.uwc.ac.za/handle/11394/3187

NASW: National Association of Social Workers. (2012). National standards for school social work services . https://www.socialworkers.org/Practice/School-Social-Work

Educational research has focused on the following five topics and will likely continue to have a direct impact on SSW practice: (1) integrated intervention efforts that emphasize primary prevention; (2) early screening and intervention; (3) approaches to intervention that target multiple risk factors in home, school, and community settings and involve parents, teachers, and administrators; (4) approaches that seek to improve individual and system factors contributing to academic success; and (5) data-informed decision making and intervention fidelity.

Guiding principles

Education/School reform : SSWers actively help school systems meet expectations of federal, state, and local mandates; particularly those designed to promote equal educational opportunity, social justice, and the removal of barriers to learning.

Social justice : It is important for the SSWer to collaborate with and facilitate collaboration among students, parents, community members, administration, teachers, and other school staff to identify ways to intervene early with students who struggle to benefit fully from the educational system. An ecological perspective, the hallmark of social work education, is essential for identifying resources for addressing these disparities.

Multitier interventions : Social workers can be involved at three tiers relating to prevention and intervention. Each tier involves using evidence-informed programs to support children, family, school staff and community agencies.

Tier 1—programs and practices that teach positive behaviors, promote social emotional development, and ensure a school climate conducive to learning.

Tier 2—small group and short-term interventions targeting, for example, conflict resolution, social skills, mental health needs and short-term crisis situation, to improve early academic and social-emotional engagement to replace problem behaviour.

Tier 3—individual and long-term interventions to address serious academic, behavioural or social-emotional problems that have not responded to programs in tiers 1 and 2.

Goals of the standards

The specific goals of the standards are

to establish expectations for SSW practices and services;

to ensure that SSW services are guided by the NASW Code of Ethics ;

to ensure the highest quality of SSW services will be provided to students and families;

to provide a basis for advocating for clients’ rights to be treated with respect and dignity, confidentiality, access to supportive services, and appropriate inclusion in decision making;

to provide a basis for the preparation of SSWers and the development of continuing education materials and programs related to SSW services; and

to encourage SSWers to participate in the development and refinement of public policy, at the local, state, and federal levels, to support school success.

Standard 1 SSWers shall adhere to the ethics and values of the social work profession and shall use the NASW Code of Ethics as a guide to ethical decision making, while understanding the unique aspects of SSW practice and the needs of the students, parents, and communities they serve.

Standard 2 SSWers shall meet the provisions for professional practice set by NASW and their respective state department of education and possess knowledge and understanding basic to the social work profession as well as the local education system ( qualifications ).

Standard 3 SSWers shall conduct assessments of individuals, families and systems/organizations (namely, classroom, school, neighbourhood, district, state) with the goal of improving student social, emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes.

Standard 4 SSWers shall understand and use evidence-informed practices in their interventions .

Standard 5 In all decision making and practice evaluation , SSWers shall use data to guide service delivery and to evaluate their practice regularly to improve and expand services.

Standard 6 SSWers shall engage in record keeping , i.e. maintain accurate data and records that are relevant to planning, implementation, and evaluation of SSW services.

Standard 7 SSWers shall manage workloads to fulfill their responsibilities and clarify their critical roles within the educational mission of the school or district in which they work.

Standard 8 SSWers shall pursue continuous professional development —enhancement of knowledge and skills to provide the most current, beneficial, and culturally appropriate services to students and their families.

Standard 9 SSWers shall ensure that students and their families are provided with services within the context of multicultural understanding and competence ( cultural competence ).

Standard 10 SSWers shall provide interdisciplinary leadership and collaboration to assist with developing a positive school climate by working collaboratively with school administration, school personnel, family members, and community professionals as appropriate.

Standard 11 SSWers shall engage in advocacy that seeks to ensure that all students have equal access to education and services to enhance their academic progress.

National Eating Disorders Collaboration. (2023). Eating disorders in schools: Prevention, early identification, response and recovery support . https://nedc.com.au/assets/NEDC-Resources/NEDC-Resource-Schools.pdf

Opiela, S. (2023, August 15). Making schools more inclusive for LGBTQ+ students . Counseling Today. https://ct.counseling.org/2023/08/making-schools-more-inclusive-for-lgbtq-students/

Reyneke, R. (2020). The legal and ethical obligations of school social workers. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 56 (2), 157-174. http://dx.doi.org/10.15270/52-2-818

SSWAA: School Social Work Association of America. (2013). National evaluation framework for school social work practice . https://www.sswaa.org/_files/ugd/426a18_71a211bc57a94f9e808316b59b73b03a.pdf

The SSWAA National Evaluation Framework for School Social Work Practice is cross-walked with the SSWAA National School Social Work Practice Model (Frey et al., 2013) and the National Association of Social Workers Standards for School Social Work Services (NASW, 2012).

Practice Domains

These domains are the major areas of professional practice. They consist of multiple components.

1. Planning and Preparation

Conducts multi-tiered school needs assessment

Identifies scientifically supported educational behavioural and mental health services to address school needs

Identifies school and community resources to meet school needs

Establishes collaborative professional relationships

Assesses family engagement

Knows current federal, state and local laws as well as district policies and procedures that guide school social work practice

2. The School Environment

Contributes to a safe and healthy school environment

Advocates for policies, programs, and services that respect diversity, address individual needs and support the inherent dignity and worth of all students, families, and school personnel

Identifies historical and current political, social, cultural and economic conditions that impact the context of learning and advocates for change

Challenges structural barriers, social inequalities, and educational disparities impacting learning outcomes.

3. Service Delivery and Resources

Implements and monitors multi-tiered empirically-supported interventions that improve academic and behavioural performance

Provides programs and services that foster social and emotional competencies

Provides specialized services such as crisis intervention and consultation

Provides programs and services in a culturally sensitive manner

Mobilizes school and community resources to maximize academic and behaviour success

4. Professional Responsibilities

Adheres to the standards and practice requirements set by the State Education Agency.

Adheres to the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics and School Social Work Association of America ethical guidelines

Maintains timely and accurate records and documentation in compliance with family rights and privacy and state requirements

Continues professional development

Exhibits self-awareness, self-monitoring, and professional accountability

Vergottini, E. (2018). Towards the establishment of practice standards for South African school social work: A mixed-method study with special reference to the Free State Province. Potchefstroom: North-West University. (PhD thesis). https://repository.nwu.ac.za/handle/10394/33802

Vergottini, M., & Weyers, M. (2020). The foundations and nature of South African school social work: An overview. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 56 (2), 125-138. http://dx.doi.org/10.15270/52-2-816

Recent Posts

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School Refusal

ABC News

Jury finds Jennifer Crumbley guilty of manslaughter in son's school shooting

A jury has found Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting deaths of four students at Oxford High School in November 2021.

Crumbley was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting, one for each victim: Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Justin Shilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14.

The jury deliberated for roughly 11 hours, beginning on Monday morning. Sentencing is scheduled for April 9.

Jennifer and James Crumbley are a rare case of parents being charged in connection with a shooting carried out by their son. James Crumbley, who also faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter, will have a separate trial in March.

The jury foreperson told an ABC News producer as she was walking to her car that the verdict "came down to the fact that Jennifer was the last adult with the gun."

Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 years old at the time of the shooting, has been sentenced to life in prison for killing four students and injuring seven others at Oxford High School. He had pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree premeditated murder and terrorism causing death.

In a dayslong trial, prosecutors presented damning evidence of the Crumbley parents -- who bought their son the gun used in the shooting -- failing to respond to warning signs exhibited by the shooter prior to the attack.

School officials had called the Crumbley parents to the school the morning of the shooting after finding violent drawings he had done on a school assignment. He was also caught searching online for bullets at school, watching shooting videos in class and drawing violent images on several other papers.

School officials testified that the parents chose not to take their son home despite the school telling them to get him immediate help, and offering them facilities that provided same-day mental health care services.

The parents told the school they could not take him home because they both had to return to work and that if he left school he would walk home and be alone. School officials, who were worried about his mental health, did not think it was a good idea for him to be alone since they were concerned he was considering suicide.

The parents chose to send him back to class and told the school that they would get him mental health care.

Jennifer Crumbley and her attorney Shannon Smith argued that the school had been "nonchalant" during the meeting and did not insist he be taken home.

During trial, the CEO of the company where Jennifer Crumbley worked testified that she could have left work if she needed to care for her son or she could have brought him back with her to the office. On the stand, Crumbley admitted that she would have been able to not return to work.

In text messages she sent after the shooting, Jennifer Crumbley told a man she was having an affair with -- long-time friend Brian Meloche -- that the shooting "could have been prevented" and that the school should not have allowed him to return to class.

Ethan Crumbley's parents purchased him the gun he used in the shooting as a gift and had taken him to the shooting range before the attack. Prosecutors argued that the parents did not secure the gun or limit their son's access to it.

Jennifer Crumbley testified that it was her husband's responsibility to ensure the gun was stored securely and that their son could not access it. One of the arguments made by her lawyer was that she did not know guns well.

Smith also argued that in Oxford, where the shooting happened, it is common for students to go hunting with guns. A school official testified that many seniors take prom portraits with their guns and that they often need to be reminded not to come to school with their guns during hunting season.

Families of shooting victims react

The parents of several of the students killed in the Oxford school shooting told "Good Morning America" Tuesday they were pleased with the verdict.

Steve St. Juliana, the father of Hana St. Juliana, said he was initially shocked and then relieved.

"The shock is I guess I didn't truly believe that they would come back with the guilty verdict -- and then obviously just relief that they had," he said. "They just looked at the evidence and used common sense and came back with the right verdict."

Craig Shilling, the father of Justin Shilling, said it came down to "accountability."

"There's this type of culpability out there now, that gross negligence is not acceptable in society," he said. "I hope it resonates in the minds of everybody for a long time. And I just hope that it creates some type of a change as it pertains to school shootings, these mass shootings and shootings in general."

Buck Myre, the father of Tate Myre, said he would like to see accountability for what he called the "whole systemic failure" that led to the shooting.

"It's easy to point the finger at the gun," he said. "That's the only thing that's being addressed, is the gun side of things, instead of the systemic side of things. It all needs to be addressed."

Extramarital affairs

In a turn of events, Jennifer Crumbley came under fire when a witness took the stand -- Meloche -- and it was revealed they were having an affair at the time of the shooting. In a previous ruling, Judge Cheryl Matthews had excluded all evidence pointing to Crumbley's extramarital affair from being used in the trial.

But, during the defense's questioning, Smith suggested that police intimidated and threatened Meloche into providing his testimony, so prosecutors pushed back and sought to allow the judge to include evidence that the two had an affair. Prosecutors argued that Meloche was not pressured, but that he didn't want information about their affair to become public.

The information regarding the affair was admitted into evidence and Crumbley later confirmed the affair when she took the stand in her own defense . She testified that they were having a six-month affair at the time of the shooting, meeting in a Costco parking lot during work hours.

Prosecutors argued that she spent a significant amount of time on her affair and taking care of her horses, often leaving her son alone and ignoring his messages. Crumbley said her affair only took place while her son was at school and that she always offered to take him with her when she went to see her horses, but he was not interested.

Prosecutors then pressed Jennifer Crumbley on her testimony, revealing that she had multiple affairs and together with Meloche had arranged meetups using Adult Friend Finder. Prosecutors revealed she had been using the app just two days before the shooting, but she did not meet up with anyone on that day.

Smith sought to defend Jennifer Crumbley as a mother who was doing the best that she could, at times giving examples from her own life as a mother and saying her house was just as messy as the photos the jury was shown of Crumbley's home.

- ABC News' Meredith Deliso and producer Janel Klein contributed to this report

Jury finds Jennifer Crumbley guilty of manslaughter in son's school shooting

IMAGES

  1. Strategies to Help Kids Focus on Schoolwork

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  2. Schoolwork or School work

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  3. Elementary school kids working at their desks in a classroom

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  4. How to Get Your Kids to Do Their Schoolwork While Getting Your Own Work

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  5. Student Resources

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  6. Five Big Differences between Work and School

    school work definition

COMMENTS

  1. Schoolwork Definition & Meaning

    schoolwork: [noun] lessons done in class or assigned to be done at home.

  2. SCHOOLWORK

    SCHOOLWORK meaning: 1. studying done by a child at school or at home 2. studying done by a child at school or at home…. Learn more.

  3. SCHOOLWORK

    SCHOOLWORK definition: 1. studying done by a child at school or at home 2. studying done by a child at school or at home…. Learn more.

  4. SCHOOLWORK Definition & Usage Examples

    Schoolwork definition: . See examples of SCHOOLWORK used in a sentence.

  5. School work

    School work synonyms, School work pronunciation, School work translation, English dictionary definition of School work. n. Lessons done at school or to be done at home. American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.

  6. SCHOOLWORK

    Schoolwork is work assigned by a teacher, school, or other educational institution. The term generally refers to both work completed at home, as well as work completed during class. Typically, schoolwork is done in class, during the time period allotted by the instructor. However, it may be reassigned as homework, in which case it is done ...

  7. SCHOOLWORK definition and meaning

    The work that a child does at school or is given at school to do at home.... Click for English pronunciations, examples sentences, video.

  8. schoolwork noun

    Definition of schoolwork noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more. Toggle navigation. ... work that students do at school or for school. She is struggling to keep up with her schoolwork.

  9. Schoolwork

    schoolwork: 1 n a school task performed by a student to satisfy the teacher Synonyms: school assignment Types: show 7 types... hide 7 types... classroom project a school task requiring considerable effort classwork the part of a student's work that is done in the classroom homework , prep , preparation preparatory school work done outside ...

  10. Schoolwork Definition & Meaning

    1 ENTRIES FOUND: schoolwork (noun) schoolwork / ˈ skuːlˌwɚk/ noun. Britannica Dictionary definition of SCHOOLWORK. [noncount] : work that is done in classes in a school or given to students to be done at home — compare homework. SCHOOLWORK meaning: work that is done in classes in a school or given to students to be done at home.

  11. Student Work Definition

    Student Work. When used by educators, the term student work refers to all of the assignments, products, and projects that students complete to demonstrate what they have learned. Student work could include research papers, essays, lab results, presentations, tests, videos, and portfolios, among many other potential products.

  12. Schoolwork or School work

    This school works better than the one I went to before. In this circumstance, "school work" has to be two words. "School" is a noun, and "work" is a verb. You combine the two to show how a school works as an action. Grouping the words here would be incorrect: Incorrect: The schoolworks in mysterious ways. What to Remember

  13. School social work

    School social work is a specialized area of social work concerned with the psychosocial functioning of students to promote and maintain their health and well-being while assisting students to access their academic potential. The School Social Work Association of America defines school social workers as "trained mental health professionals who can assist with mental health concerns, behavioral ...

  14. School Social Work

    School Social Work. School social workers are an integral link between school, home, and community in helping students achieve academic success. They work directly with school administrations as well as students and families, providing leadership in forming school discipline policies, mental health intervention, crisis management, and support ...

  15. Role of School Social Worker

    School social work is a specialized area of practice within the broad field of the social work profession. School social workers bring unique knowledge and skills to the school system and the student services team. School Social Workers are trained mental health professionals who can assist with mental health concerns, behavioral concerns ...

  16. Characteristics and Outcomes of School Social Work Services: A Scoping

    School social workers are integral to the school mental health workforce and the leading social service providers in educational settings. In recent decades, school social work practice has been largely influenced by the multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) approach, ecological systems views, and the promotion of evidence-based practice.

  17. Preparing Students for Life: The School-to-Work Reform Movement

    School to work programs, by definition, link students and schools with the workplace. This is accomplished through school partnerships with employers, unions, civic groups, and other public and private sector organizations. Together, these organizations help students develop the skills needed for the competitive job market while making their ...

  18. Five Huge Differences between Work and School

    Here are five key differences between work and school. 1. Obedience vs. Production. In school there are enforced rules that are supposed to be obeyed by everyone, and there is very little room for adjusting them in light of differences between individuals. Compliance is an end in itself.

  19. Understanding Charter Schools vs. Public Schools

    While charter schools generally operate independently, some work closely with or are overseen by the local public school district, which could determine some of the curriculum and structure, says ...

  20. School Work Definition

    School Work. definition. School Work. Days" as used in this Agreement shall mean those days on which employees are scheduled to report for work according to the official District calendar. School Work is defined as any institution of learning, excluding colleges, provided that the facility does not exceed four (4) floors.

  21. School-to-Work Transition Survey (SWTS)

    School-to-Work Transition Survey (SWTS) The SWTS is a unique survey instrument that generates relevant labour market information on young people aged 15 to 29 years, including longitudinal information on transitions within the labour market. The SWTS thus serves as a unique tool for demonstrating the increasingly tentative and indirect paths to ...

  22. What Is an MBA? About the Degree, Programs, Jobs, and More

    Factors that can influence your post-graduate salary include your industry, location, school attended, and total years of work experience. Learn more about MBA degree salaries. Is an MBA worth it? Pursuing an MBA can be a significant financial commitment. It's important to define your goals when deciding whether the investment is right for you.

  23. What is Ash Wednesday?

    What is Lent? Lent is the annual period of Christian observance that precedes Easter. The dates of Lent are defined by the date of Easter, which is a moveable feast, meaning that it falls on a ...

  24. What Is Social Work? Everything You Need To Know

    Social work is a broad field that extends to every facet of community life, including schools, prisons, corporations and government agencies. If you're interested in pursuing a caree.

  25. School Social Work

    School social work is the application of social work principles and methods within the education system to render holistic social work services to support learners, parents, educators and the school as community, with the main goal of establishing an environment where the learner can reach his or her full potential by addressing social, emotional, socioeconomic and behavioral barriers to ...

  26. What records are exempted from FERPA?

    Records which are kept in the sole possession of the maker of the records, are used only as a personal memory aid, and are not accessible or revealed to any other person except a temporary substitute for the maker of the records.

  27. Jury finds Jennifer Crumbley guilty of manslaughter in son's school

    School officials, who were worried about his mental health, did not think it was a good idea for him to be alone since they were concerned he was considering suicide.