This article calls for school social workers to work in schools to reform school systems that have historically failed and are currently failing African American children. While the hope of education is to assist students to realize their potential, school systems across the nation are not reaching this goal. School social work has a duty, a…

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 what school social workers observed to be the quality components, or the "key ingredients," of the youth development activities they implement within their practice. The article reports on findings from twenty-eight interviews of school social workers. Eight quality components emerged from the data including: (1) giving…

Authors explored the experiences of school personnel in their responses to children's exposure to violence. Thirty-one school personnel, including administrators, teachers, counselors, school social workers, and psychologists, were interviewed to obtain data on their experiences related to violence exposure in their schools and the surrounding…

This article reviews literature describing truancy and its correlates, and it analyzes the current research on truancy prevention programs. Few truancy prevention programs exist in elementary school settings. This article describes Truancy Assessment and Service Centers, a theory-driven program providing case management services to children in 85…

Schools have a wide range of connections with the child welfare system, with common interests in the care, well-being, and future life opportunities of children living in foster care. Children in foster care are often the most vulnerable students in the school system, and school social workers often serve as important resources for these children.…

Conation is the little-studied component of human action that each person uses to achieve goals. In partnership with affective and cognitive components, knowledge of a student's conative profile (method of approaching a learning problem) allows school personnel to tailor educational strategies that use the individual's personal strengths. In this…

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…

Latino youths are facing an educational crisis in this country that is cause for concern. In this article, we present evidence of the pressing need to explore solutions to mitigate educational disparities experienced by this vulnerable and underserved population. School social workers are, by their perspective and training, well suited to seek…

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…

The aim of this study is to provide school social workers with an outline of the indicators common to school fire setters regarding their experiences of bullying and victimization by bullies. A sample of juvenile fire setters (N = 379) between the ages of five and seventeen years attending a fire-setter intervention program completed a modified…

This qualitative study illustrates the resilience and posttraumatic growth characteristics (PTG) that were present and distinguished in those children who showed the greatest improvement and sustained gains after completion of the I Feel Better Now! program compared to children who showed statistically significant improvement after program…

This study contributes to the body of research on the educational outcomes of young adults who were formerly placed in foster care. Telephone interviews were conducted with 359 young adults (a 54.6% response rate). Participants must have been served for at least one year by one private foster care agency in one of its twenty-two offices. Results…

This study investigated adolescents with a mental health diagnosis and their experience of stigma in schools. Forty adolescents between the ages of twelve and seventeen who met DSM-IV criteria for a psychiatric illness and who were prescribed psychiatric medication were selected. The Teen Subjective Experience of Medication Interview was used to…

Schools have long recognized the importance of creating climates that are peaceful, laying the groundwork for good student academic learning. This article explores the work of a large urban school district as it applies a community violence prevention model developed by the local county public health department to create peaceful communities.…