This study was an exploratory investigation of caregiver involvement in the education of youth in foster care. In this study, foster caregivers reported that they are involved in the education of children in their care and participate in at-home involvement activities more often than at-school involvement activities. Caregivers in this study…

This article reports findings from a national web-based survey of 250 members of the School Social Work Association of America (SSWAA). This study examines the types of violent events reported by school social workers and the practitioner's perception of the problem of interpersonal violence in the school context. It identifies interventions being…

With the needs and challenges of adolescent homelessness on the rise, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (MVA) was crafted as a public policy initiative aimed at facilitating access to schools for this population. While school social workers are the designated personnel for practice with homeless school-aged children, we know little about…

A qualitative exploration of a service-learning program for high school students with disabilities is presented. Focus groups with (n = 15) students and interviews with (n = 3) service-learning teachers at multiple service-learning sites were conducted to explore the perceptions of students and service-learning teachers regarding the impact of the…

Today's school social workers are facing unique challenges in the workplace. The results of the 2009 New Mexico School Social Work Survey reinforced the idea that school social workers must be able to prove their effectiveness. Building on the school social work literature on practice outcomes evaluation, a more extensive statewide survey of…

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…

"Safe haven" laws are designed to protect infants from being killed or otherwise harmed. This article examines the safe haven laws from the states that comprise the Midwest School Social Work Council and the variations between these laws regarding the age of the infant, where the infant can be left, who is allowed to leave the infant, whether…

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 U.S. school-age population has been experiencing dramatic demographic changes over the past two decades. Hispanic students constitute the fastest growing student group today, and this growth is expected to continue such that there will be more Hispanic school-aged children than non-Hispanic school-aged children in 2050. Unfortunately, Hispanic…

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…