School social work licensure in most states includes requisite course work often focused on school policy and child education. For working social workers who have decided to pursue necessary licensure to practice in a school setting after completing their master's or bachelor's degrees, accessing these required courses can create significant…

This article discusses a school and community collaborative initiative that targeted students of Chinese descent as a suicide at-risk population. Its main focus was to reach out to immigrant parents to help them strengthen communication and relationships with their adolescent children and to facilitate their access to mental health services in the…

Bullying toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youths is a pervasive problem in schools that has negative impacts on LGBTQ students' mental health and educational outcomes. School social workers need to understand the prevalence and dynamics of bullying toward LGBTQ students to respond appropriately to victims and…

Students who are deaf and hard of hearing are being mainstreamed in their neighborhood schools more frequently, and many school social workers feel unprepared to deal with the unique needs of this low-incidence population. This article describes the various social/emotional issues impacting students who are deaf or hard of hearing and provides…

As the classroom is an influential setting for students, new models for collaboration between teachers and school social workers are essential for meeting student needs. This article discusses the literature and model for one such intervention, classroom solutions: working on what works. Through pilot data presented from nine classrooms and two…

Recent attempts to marginalize the social work profession have had an impact on school social workers in New Mexico. To better understand the quality of the workplace for these related services professionals, a past lead social worker for a large school district was interviewed, and three open-ended items were added to the 2010 statewide school…

The promoting responsibility through education and prevention (PREP) program is an after school substance abuse and violence prevention program for at-risk fourth and fifth grade youths in St. Louis, Missouri. Staffed by licensed clinical social workers and professional volunteers, PREP offers cultural cooking classes, yoga, and art as well as…

Evidence-based practice and data-driven decision making (DDDM) are two approaches to accountability that have been promoted in the school literature. In spite of the push to promote these approaches in schools, barriers to their widespread, appropriate, and effective use have limited their impact on practice and student outcomes. This article…

This article describes the development of school social work in the Osaka Prefecture of Japan. The article focuses on micro, mezzo, and macro levels of school social work and documents the growth and development of school social work since 2005. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

In all settings, the social work profession thrives on multilevel (macro, mezzo, and micro practice), however recent data from a benchmark study of school social work professionals (Kelly, Berzin, Frey, Alvarez, Shaffer & O'Brien, 2010a) asserts that school social workers do not frequently practice macro level practice in the form of capacity…

School social work interventions that address social and emotional learning are often confined to micro-level practice. Yet the social work profession thrives on multilevel practice in all settings (micro, as well as macro). School social workers can play a pivotal role in engaging youth to become prosocial participants of their school and…

This article describes the use of an online survey tool called Survey Monkey, which can be used by school social workers and school social work educators for evaluation of practice, needs assessment, and program evaluation. Examples of questions are given. Principles of writing good survey questions are described. (Contains 2 tables and 1…

This article describes a bullying/conflict intervention system termed the student support system, which has been implemented in a suburban high school in the northeastern United States. The system is part of a concerted effort to improve school social climate, improve the quality of students' social interactions, and reduce bullying. It is based…

School social workers often conduct their business behind closed doors because much of their work is confidential. Even when they are not working in their offices, school social workers often blend into the fabric of the school culture, typically working behind the scenes and rarely taking credit for the valuable work they perform. However, if…

This article provides a model that school social workers can use to prepare elementary school children for the return of classmates whose appearances have been significantly altered as a result of illness or injury (e.g., loss of limbs, severe scarring), for whom return to school is often difficult. School social workers can be instrumental in…