Economy Puts Squeeze on Badly Needed Social Workers (NJ)
December 9, 2010
If all that schools had to worry about these days was setting common standards for the curriculum and agreeing on how to measure student progress and teacher effectiveness, our national educational picture would be downright rosy.
But add in the social problems that are increasingly challenging students and the shortage of school social workers — usually the only resource dedicated to helping students with personal concerns — and you’re looking at another major, but rarely noticed, education issue.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights recently issued detailed guidance clarifying educational institutions’ responsibilities in preventing discrimination due to race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation or disability.
That action, itself a result of several high-profile bullying-related suicides, spurred New Jersey to provide suicide prevention courses for students and make school districts codify a comprehensive policy on anti-bullying and harassment.
In Illinois, the governor is considering legislation to reduce child sexual abuse that would establish age-appropriate instruction for public school students in kindergarten through fifth grade and training for school workers on identifying and dealing with abused youngsters.
These topics are being programmed into the classroom because they, along with direct instruction on sexual health, emotional balance and social behavior — lessons that teachers a generation ago would have expected students to learn at home — have landed on the doorstep of public schools.
Teachers who never imagined having to address the multifaceted issues of sexuality, suicide or bullying are ever more leaning on school social workers who are already stretched to their limits.
The latest U.S. Department of Health and Human Service report on the topic found that one in five children and adolescents will experience during their school years a significant mental health problem such as stress, anxiety, bullying, family problems, depression, learning disabilities or alcohol and substance abuse.
Serious mental health problems such as self-injurious behaviors and suicide attempts are on the rise. A Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report in 2005 found that nearly 60 percent of adolescents ages 12 to 17 who reported a major depressive episode didn’t receive any treatment. And of the kids who did look for help, two-thirds received that help only in school.
Other studies have shown that in many states, school social workers are the major providers of mental health services to children and in some cases, such as rural or inner city areas, schools are the only mental health service provider in the community.
Yet only about 5 percent of the nation’s approximately half-million social workers work in public schools, according to the National Association of Social Workers. That organization recently went before a congressional committee to brief legislators on the need for additional federal and state investments to overcome the challenges of recruiting, educating and keeping social workers.
According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, at least 100,000 more social workers will be needed by 2018 just to keep pace with the volume of social needs in communities.
The evidence so far is only anecdotal, but states all over the country are facing hard decisions to cut programs. College and career guidance counselors, testing and special education-focused school psychologists, and social workers are at high risk because their roles tend not to be widely understood in communities.
Cross your fingers that school social workers across the country will survive reduced budgets and continue to help students and teachers navigate these perilous times we’re all living through.