The Growing Importance of School Social Workers during a Global Pandemic

How School Social Workers Help Children

Introduction

The problem of interest to the proposed study concerns the various reasons students need assistance from social workers, which typically include a lack of financial or academic resources and/or lack of a family support system in the home. Children that are enrolled in school today are not only faced with the entire panoply of challenges that have long been associated with an early academic career (Dealey, 2017), they are also confronted with a life-threatening global pandemic that has them and their parents validly concerned about their safety (London, 2020). Moreover, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has also significantly disrupted normal school attendance across the country, in some cases for lengthy periods of time, and these young learners will be forced to play catch up with their unaffected peers for the foreseeable future when and if they are able to return to a normal classroom environment. Likewise, the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders is expected to increase in people of all ages, meaning young people are facing a veritable double whammy of challenges to their education.

In addition, it is reasonable to posit that traditional family support systems have also been severely disrupted in recent months, especially for children that are being forced to attend virtual schools. While the advantages of online learning for adults are well documented, young people may not possess the self discipline or attention span needed to endure hours-long virtual classes and still manage to learn anything. This means that school social workers also have an important role to play by ensuring that they fully understand the adverse effects that the ongoing pandemic are having on their school, the readiness of students to engage in virtual learning and what resources are available for this purpose. As the editors of the School Social Work Journal emphasize, “School social workers must possess a deep understanding of an extensive set of current societal conditions, student characteristics, and technology” (Visiting teachers to superheroes, 2018, p. 9). The latter issue is an especially important point because many Americans families are faced with increasingly severe economic problems due to pandemic-caused unemployment and lack the financial resources that are needed to provide their children with Internet-enabled computers.

Against this backdrop, the role of the nation’s 600,000 school social workers has clearly assumed new importance and relevance for young people and their families (Careers in social work, 2020), and these issues are examined further below, guided by a revised research question as follows: “Do school social workers help students overcome obstacles that impede social and academic success when the student participates in services provided or recommended by the school social worker?” The independent variables that guided the research strategy were the services provided by the school social worker and the dependent variable was that student’s willingness to participate in the services provided by the social worker.

Literature Review

With school budgets already stretch razor-thin, it is not surprising that any staff position that may appear superfluous to students’ needs at any given point in time may come under increased scrutiny, and this has been the case with school social workers in the recent past. In some cases, school social workers have actually been forced to justify their contributions to the school in order to continue practicing (Finigan-Carr & Shaia, 2018). For example, according to Altshuler and Webb (2009), “School social workers often face challenges of having to legitimize their presence as a school professional, especially as compared to school psychologists and school counselors” (p. 207). Moreover, school social workers in general are susceptible to being singled out by other school personnel and educators as being unnecessary to their mission, making them “added baggage” to the educational resource mix (Altschuler & Webb, 2009). This was an especially timely study since it identified and described the multiple obstacles that school social workers have faced in the past and their respective sources.

Today, these issues are even more important because many Americans families are also experiencing far more discord compared to years past, and the prevalence of domestic violence and child abuse has increased since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. Given these recent trends, it is reasonable to conclude that divorce rates across the country will also increase from their already high levels, thereby further undermining the healthy dynamics of a growing number of American families that are already faced with challenging circumstances. For instance, according to Huffman’s (2013) pre-pandemic assessment of American schoolchildren: “Rising rates of divorce, cohabitation and children being born to unwed parents have caused many children to enter the public school system with less parental stability and support” (p. 37). As recently as 2014, nearly half of all marriages in the U.S. ended in divorce (Divorce statistics and facts, 2020), and while the impact of the pandemic on recent divorce rates remains unclear, it is also reasonable to suggest that fewer people are getting married and more people are getting divorced than in the past.

These are important trends for social workers in schools where many, if not most of the students will live in single-parent homes. A growing body of research confirms that young people who living in single-parent homes are at a greater disadvantage for a number of reasons, including most especially a lower socioeconomic status and reduced access to both parents to help with schoolwork at home (Huffman, 2013). This study was highly useful since it stressed that school social workers are in particularly well situated to help these students deal with such problems, though, and ongoing support and individualized interventions can help improve academic performance as well as reduce discipline problems and absenteeism (Huffman, 2013), all of which combine to contribute to improved academic success.

In reality, though, school social workers also help students in a number of other ways as well, including the administration of specialized skills training as well as counseling for individuals, groups, and families (Allen-Meares, Montgomery & Kim, 2013). In addition, social workers in schools also help young learners by providing home visitations when appropriate, developing efficacious interventions, serving as an advocate for children, their families and the schools and providing crises interventions when needed (Allen-Meares, Montgomery & Kim, 2013). The crises interventions that are used by school social workers exist along a continuum ranging from tier 1 (universal) to tier 3 (intensive, individualized treatment). The vast majority of young learners (95%-99%) can have their treatment needs satisfied using tier 1 interventions which are delivered school-wide in classroom settings, but some students require tier 2 or 3 interventions that are specifically targeted at individual problems (Allen-Meares et al., 2013). This was an especially useful study since it provided evidence-based guidance that can be applied in virtually any primary educational setting.

Yet another way that school social workers help young learners is through dropout prevention initiatives (Randle, 2016). As noted above, students may be faced with any number of problems that prevent them from actively participating in their education and some of these problems may be so severe that they compel these students to drop out of school altogether. In this regard, a qualitative study by Webber (2018) drew on a series of interviews with school administrators, counselors and other school social workers to identify the main strategies that are used for dropout prevention which were as follows:

· Supporting student attendance;

· Providing intensive support for selected at-risk students; and,

· Encouraging dropouts to return to a diploma-granting program (Webber, 2018).

Clearly, succeeding in encouraging young people to remain in school represents a major way that school social workers help these students achieve their full academic and personal potentials. Although the stud by Webber (2018) was limited by virtue of the relatively small number of interviewees, the empirical observations provide useful guidance from the field that might not be possible to achieve otherwise.

While most school social workers may not serve in all of the capacities identified above, it is clear that the profession is far more important and valuable – especially today -- than some members of the school system might otherwise believe (Altschuler & Webb, 2009). In sum, the proposed study’s guiding research question builds upon the existing body of knowledge concerning the dependent variable of interest about the various ways in which school social workers help students and expands upon it by examining some of the specific constraints that limit students’ academic success and evidence-based ways that social workers in school can intervene. There remains a paucity of timely and relevant research concerning the proposed study’s dependent variable (i.e., students’ willingness to participate in the services provided by the school social worker), making the need for a robust research method all the more important as described below.

Methods

Social science researchers have a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods available, each of which has its respective benefits and limitations. Based on a review of the most appropriate research methods, a mixed methods research strategy that combined qualitative and quantitative elements was regarded as optimal. This selection is congruent with the guidance provided by Neuman (2008) who advises that a mixed methods approach using a custom questionnaire that integrates both qualitative and quantitative data can provide more robust findings compared to the use of either one of this strategies alone. The sample and custom survey instrument for the proposed study are described further below.

Sample

The proposed study will use a sample of respondents that are all school social workers in the author’s school district which was the only inclusion criterion that was used. More to the point, the school district employs 15 social workers and all of these professionals will be recruited to participate in the study proposed herein.

Instrumentation

Drawing on a systematic and critical review of the relevant literature, a three-part custom qualitative and quantitative questionnaire will be developed that specifically addresses the proposed study’s guiding research question and supporting hypothesis (see proforma copy at Appendix A). The first part of the questionnaire will collect demographic data about the respondents such as their age, length of time as a school social worker, and gender. The second part of the custom questionnaire will consist of a series of quantitative, Likert-scaled statements ranged “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”

These statements will be directly tied to the proposed study’s research question and hypothesis, but will include couplet statements that state the same issue in different ways to help ensure that respondents are providing consistent feedback. The third-part of the custom questionnaire will be the qualitative, open-ended segment wherein respondents are requested to provide any additional thoughts, insights or views they have about their role as school social workers. The custom questionnaire will be posted online to facilitate completion by the respondents using a free survey service such as Zoomerang or SurveyMonkey.

Limitations

While a large population sample would provide a wider range of responses and therefore a richer description of the various ways in which school social workers can help students, the specialized nature of the topics and limited number of respondents that are available means that the smaller, above-described sampling approach will be most appropriate for the purposes of the proposed study.

Ethical Issues

Any research that involves human subjects has significant ethical issues involved. Therefore, the institutional informed consent form depicted at Appendix B will be obtained from each respondent that agrees to participate in the proposed study by completing the online custom questionnaire (see proforma copy at Appendix A).

References

Allen-Meares, P., Montgomery, K. L. & Kim, J. S. (2013). School-based social work interventions: A cross-national systematic review. Social Work, 58(3), 253-262.