School Social Worker Job Analysis

I shadowed Mrs. Winter from Westridge Middle School in Grand Island, Nebraska. Mrs. Winter first explained what her job is as a social worker in the school system. The job is to be a liaison between home, school, and the community. This is done with gaining trust and respect as well as help with problem-solving for at-risk students. As a result, will increase overall student success. When working in the school system you are collaborating with the students, parents, school, and the community. School Social Worker’s job also includes counseling usually short term, working with community agencies or resources, and crisis intervention. Although this is their job description there is a lot more to their job that usually is specific to the school.

There was a short discussion on bullying. It was stated that bullying is a problem within every school system even if it was not caught. In Westridge the punishment fits the crime, for example, if a kid was calling another student names it would be reported and the kid would have to write a sorry letter. There is no systematic way to handle bullying within the Grand Island Public School System. Until there is a systematic way to handle bullying there are very sporadic and different ways to handle it within different schools. Suicide was a shock to see what school screens the most for suicide. The schools that screen the most according to Westridge information are the elementary schools. Overall there were around two hundred and sixty-one screens with one hundred and twenty-six of them being from elementary. There is a difference between screening and assessment and who can do them. There are specific people within each school who can screen using a chart while in school and then there are specific people in the Grand Island School System who can do a suicide assessment. There tend to be certain people who end up doing a lot of the screening including one individual who was in the twentieth for screenings that semester. Mrs. Winter’s opinion was that there needs to be a smaller group of staff that just do screening or if qualified assessments for Grand Island Public School System. Something interesting that I found

Something that rose a red flag for me is the student had on instead on medications for behavior and anxiety barriers. The student has had meds in the past for this but claimed it didn’t help. Again this is a flag to me because not many middle school students would insist on drugs for anxiety. The only type of student that I could see doing this is if they had meds in the past that worked and for some reason switched or got off them and now need them again. After the case was over I talked to Mrs. Winter about this and she explained that that was a flag for her too. The student was pushing just for the medical treatment of the drug and Mrs. Winter explained that’s why she pushed for some sort of counseling with it as well. This then raised the question if the student was taking the original medication that they claimed didn’t work. As a result of the trial, the student is to set up an appointment with a new psychologist before they meet again on a set