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School Social Work Now!
Supporting Innovative Practice,
Effective Leadership & Applied Research
August 2013 - Vol 3, Issue 39
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Greetings!
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Are you beginning to think about the new school year? Excited to see those young, inquisitive faces? Wondering how you can provide better services in a time of growing need and reduced resources?
This week's issue of School Social Work Now! features at least two articles that may make you think about what you do and how you do it--and may encourage you to examine your practice. Consider the piece on assessing adaptive behavior and, interestingly, the article about school counselors as social justice agents. Roles and responsibilities within and among school support personnel are rapidly changing. We, school social workers, need to change with the times while retaining the very essence of what we do and what we represent. These and, hopefully, other articles will help to get those thought processes rolling.
Additionally, it is very difficult to keep up with the reforms and changes on our own. This is one of the best reasons to join your national and/or state school social workers association now. By supporting these organizations you can remain informed and ahead of the game, thereby serving your students, families and schools more comprehensively. Begin your year with a renewed commitment to your profession!
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There's still time to read great books before school begins!! Consider picking up this month's "Recommended Read", below, or one of the previous books from the year. You will find a list of these books on the ACSSW website or by clicking What SSWs Are Reading.
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ACSSW is excited to be hosting the 3rd School Social Work Institute in exciting New Orleans, February 10-11, 2014! Once again, in collaboration with Louisiana State University and Tulane University, we will be offering interactive and informative sessions that will enhance current knowledge and increase skill development! All topics welcome but special emphasis will be on poverty, aggression/violence, PBIS/RtI, and more. Be there to share your professional expertise! Just click the link above to learn more. Submission deadline is September 1st.
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Save the date!! ACSSW is hosting a multi-professional Mental Health in Schools Institute in Milwaukee, WI, on September 30, 2013. Ten 3-hour seminars will focus on trauma, motivational interviewing, and ethics and boundaries in use of technology, to name a few of the exciting offerings. Designed for school social workers, this professional development program will also be open to all pupil service providers and community mental health providers. CEUs for social workers will be available. To learn more and to register, click here.
Judith Kullas Shine
President
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Recommended Read for July and August
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Fire in the Ashes
by Jonathon Kozol
Random House: For nearly fifty years Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare the savage inequalities inflicted upon children for no reason but the accident of being born to poverty within a wealthy nation. . . Jonathan is not a distant and detached reporter. His own life has been radically transformed by the children who have trusted and befriended him.
Never has this intimate acquaintance with his subjects been more apparent, or more stirring, than in Fire in the Ashes, as Jonathan tells the stories of young men and women who have come of age in one of the most destitute communities of the United States. Some of them never do recover from the battering they undergo in their early years, but many more battle back with fierce and, often, jubilant determination to overcome the formidable obstacles they face. . .
The urgent issues that confront our urban schools -- a devastating race-gap, a pathological regime of obsessive testing and drilling students for exams instead of giving them the rich curriculum that excites a love of learning - are interwoven through these stories. Why certain children rise above it all, graduate from high school and do well in college, while others are defeated by the time they enter adolescence, lies at the essence of this work.
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Professional Development
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- new additions and updates -
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Come on .. . Follow Us!!
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Social media has become one of the primary ways to communicate and advertise widely. Please help ACSSW to become more widely known. Click on one or more of the links below and tell your friends about us. Thanks!!
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| Practice Points | 
Allen-Meares and Lane (1983) authored an article... titled "Assessing the Adaptive Behavior of Children and Youths," which appraised the status and use of adaptive behavior as a concept and measurement tool that would work in the school system. Adaptive behavior--or the ability of a person to function in society, in a group, or in a classroom according to specific standards of behavior and ability--is one factor practitioners consider when completing holistic assessments of the level of care and services necessary. At the time of the Allen-Meares and Lane article, adaptive behavior instruments and theories were gaining recognition and use among school social workers as they strove to accurately assess students to determine who among them was eligible for special education programming.
. . . at the time, the ability to assess a child's whole experience was trending toward a more comprehensive set of measurements as a complement to those more typically administered. Because school social workers are knowledgeable about the importance of a holistic approach and understand how environment affects behavior, they were ideally suited to assess the adaptive behavior of pupils identified as candidates for special education services.
As often is the case with trends, whether societal, educational, or professional, it is prudent to examine the tools that have been developed concomitantly and the way they have been used. Although several of the assessment instruments discussed by Allen-Meares and Lane (1983) are still in use, many others have been developed. This article is a brief but fairly thorough review of tools that can be used to assess adaptive behavior with attention to multicultural responsivity. Complete article.
According to a recent survey of high school dropouts, youths identified ed a variety of reasons for leaving school. . . For most students, dropping out of school is not simply due to lack of skills or dislike for school. The underlying causes of dropout are much more complex and entail many different factors. Although student and family characteristics are the predominant reasons, the environment-school and neighborhood- in which youths experience their daily lives also matter in whether or not they will graduate and succeed. Indeed, the National Research Council Panel on High-Risk Youth conducted an analysis of why students dropped out of school and concluded that too much emphasis was being placed on individual and family factors and not enough on the high-risk settings that form much of the context of young people's lives. Access Report Here.
"When I left my job to start my school social work internship, I discovered, to my dismay, the school did not have such a tool. I was able to utilize excel to track students and tasks, but it was messy. Data needed to be entered into multiple sheets for one service. For example, I would have to enter group attendance in one sheet, add the service to the sheet that tracked the student's minutes, and add the time I spent providing the group in the productivity sheet. Messy and time-consuming.
Lately I have been thinking a lot about how I can minimize Excel file clutter and still electronically track my students and my time in my new position.
In my search I came across an incredible tool for tracking your time and services." Click for more on this free tool.
Trauma Focused Coping (Multimodality Trauma Treatment)
Trauma Focused Coping (TFC), sometimes called Multimodality Trauma Treatment, is a school-based group intervention for children and adolescents in grades 4-12 who have been exposed to a traumatic stressor (e.g., disaster, violence, murder, suicide, fire, accident). The intervention targets posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and other trauma-related symptoms, including depression, anxiety, anger, and external locus of control.
TFC uses a skills-oriented, peer- and counselor-mediated, cognitive behavioral approach. The intervention is delivered in 14 weekly, 50-minute sessions, providing youth with gradual exposure to stimuli that remind them of their trauma. The sessions move from psychoeducation, anxiety management skill building, and cognitive coping training to activities involving trauma narratives and cognitive restructuring. Implementation of TFC requires a master's-level clinician and should include a co-facilitating school counselor when administered in a school setting. Learn more.
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Leadership News
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Rethinking the Work of Leadership
In 1973, Peter Drucker stated in his book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices: "Management is not culture-free, that is, part of the world of nature. It is a social function. It is, therefore, both socially accountable and culturally embedded."
Some thirteen years later, Tom Peters remarked in the article Managing As Symbolic Action: "It requires us, as managers, to get people to share our sense of urgency in new priorities; to develop personal, soul-deep animus toward things as they are; to get up the nerve and energy to take on the forces of inertia that bog down any significant change program."
Yet, here we are in 2013 with organizational leadership models that continue to deny the social nature of organizations and wallow in inertia. Our leadership practices remain authoritative. People are disengaged, distrusting and perhaps even disenfranchised. Continue here.
Social Intelligence Competencies Predict Transformational Leadership Style and Effectiveness
"Most of us know we would rather work with a leader that engages us, values us and treats us with respect. Yet some scholars still question whether or not emotional and social intelligence matters in leadership effectiveness. Over the past 10 years, numerous studies have been published and even more are continuing to emerge showing just this effect. EI and SI do matter a great deal in producing leadership effectiveness.
For example, leadership research has shown for the past 30 years that transformational leadership styles often predict effectiveness greater than transactional styles." Continue.
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Research Highlights
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Empowering School Social Work Practices for Positive Youth Development: Hong Kong Experience
School social work service has existed for almost a century in the United States. Previously, school social workers emphasized assisting individual students, especially those who are maladjusted, in adapting to schools and using the learning opportunities presented there (Johnson, 1962; Lee, 1959). During the transformation of modern school social work, practitioners have considered wider social systems contributing to the students' situations and have identified a developmental perspective of this service (Allen-Meares, 2004; Constable, 1999). Nevertheless, the issue of balancing between serving individual students and serving the educational institution remains controversial (Allen-Meares, 1993). Some school social workers play the advocacy role in bringing about positive changes to the education sector, while others concentrate on helping students adjust in the existing school system (Clancy, 1995; Ginsburg, 1989). This dilemma is not only theoretical but also touches on the heart of school social work practice. It is suggested that the empowerment perspective, as it takes heed of social work's dual obligation to both the individual and society and of their dialectical relationship, can replace the dichotomy of personal change against institutional change to become the theoretical foundation of school social work. Full article.
School Counselors' Strategies for Social Justice Change: a Grounded Theory of What Works in the Real World
A rich body of literature identifies the important role of school counselor advocacy in addressing issues of societal inequity in schools (Bailey, Getch, & Chen-Hayes, 2003; Cox & Lee, 2007; Holcomb-McCoy, 2007; House & Martin, 1999). However, limited research addresses the question of how school counselors can be trained to assume this challenging role (Ratts, DeKruyf, & Chen-Hayes, 2007; Trusty & Brown, 2005). Further, few published studies explore the subjective experiences of school counselors with regard to what their advocacy "looks like" in practice (Field & Baker, 2004; Pennymon, 2005). The voices of practicing school counselor advocates are thus absent from the social justice literature in school counseling. Recent literature suggests that qualitative approaches offer important ways to gain in-depth understanding of how school counselors develop and implement advocacy strategies (Singh, in press; Trusty & Brown). The purpose of the present study is to contribute to the literature on school counselor advocacy through identification of a grounded theory of how school counselors who identify as social justice agents advocate for systemic change within their school communities. Study.
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In the News
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U. S. #2 . . . in Childhood Poverty!!
. . . Among the world's 35 richest countries, the United States holds the distinction of ranking second highest in child poverty. A large body of research continues to document the negative effects of poverty on children and their later life outcomes. Children growing up in poverty complete less schooling, work and earn less as adults, are more likely to receive public assistance, and have poorer health. Boys growing up in poverty are more likely to be arrested as adults and their female peers are more likely to give birth outside of marriage. Researchers have estimated that the costs associated with child poverty total about $500 billion per year,or 4 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
While education has been envisioned as the great equalizer, this promise has been more myth than reality. T oday, the achievement gap between the poor and the non-poor is twice as large as the achievement gap between Black and White students. Full report from the ETS Center for Research on Human Capital and Education.
Many children are looking forward to returning to school this week from summer vacation. They'll renew ties with schoolmates, show off new wardrobes, and participate in educational challenges and another season of sports.
Some students, though, are dreading the experience. They are the children who, for whatever reason, attract the unwanted attention of school bullies.
"Any child who is perceived as being different is at risk," said Dawn Myers, Clarke County School District's director of school social work. "It can be anything, from being overweight or too thin, wearing glasses, having low self-esteem or being a child with special needs," she said. More here.
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Grants & Funding
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These grants are designed to cover financial expenses for a child's medical needs beyond a family's health benefit plan. Families can directly apply online for these grants of up to $5,000. Details.
Do Something Seed Grants for youth can be used towards project ideas and programs that are just getting started, or to jump-start a program and realize ideas for the first time. These grants can also be used towards projects that are already developed and sustainable, towards the next steps of a project and organization as it looks to expand and grow impact. Maximum award: $500. Eligibility: community projects that are youth-led and driven. Deadline: rolling. Application. |
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Webinars
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ArchivedCreating Trauma Sensitive Schools
In collaboration with the IDEA Partnership, the Quality and Evidence Base Practice (QEBP) Practice Group hosted a webinar on Wednesday April 17, 2013 titled "Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools" that featured two presentations. The first presentation featured Nic Dibble from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction who shared how Wisconsin is building on existing mental health initiatives to use a Response to Intervention (RtI) framework to help schools support students affected by trauma. Mr. Dibble shared resources including Wisconsin's toolkit for schools, links to publications and websites that describe how schools can become more trauma-informed, and specific strategies schools can adopt to be more trauma-sensitive. The second presentation featured Erin Butts from the University of Montana Institute for Educational Research and Service who discussed secondary traumatic stress (STS), burnout, and self-care. She identified STS signs and symptoms, discussed their significance, and provided recommendations for self-care. Her presentation included an interactive exercise that can be used during stressful situations. The webinar recording as well as the PowerPoint. Please note that the webinar recording started a few minutes late so the introduction and first few slides were not audio recorded. The PowerPoint slides include the entire presentation. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Comprehensive School Mental Health: A Partnership Among Families, Schools, and Communities(A PDF) In a webinar sponsored by the Maryland Coalition of Families for Children's Mental Health (MCF), CSMH Co-Directors Nancy Lever, Ph.D and Sharon Hoover Stephan, Ph.D. hosted a webinar titled Comprehensive School Mental Health: A partnership among families, schools, and communities on March 11, 2013. Since 1995, the National Center for School Mental Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine has been working to promote successful policies and programs to advance school mental health in the United States. The recent school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut has heightened the nation's awareness of the vulnerability of our children and communities to violent actions. However, it is important that we not respond by merely addressing security in schools. Rather, we must attend to comprehensive school mental health - promoting students' social-emotional learning, mental health and positive school climate; early screening and identification of youth mental health concerns; and effective school-based prevention and intervention. In this webinar, presenters discussed what comprehensive school mental health is and the role of families and schools in their partnership to address children's mental health. PDF here.
Free Podcast
Memories and experiences from childhood can have good and bad long-term effects on a person's physical and emotional well-being. A recent CDC study in five states found that more than half of respondents reported some type of adverse childhood experience that continues to affect them today. In this podcast, Dr. Valerie Edwards discusses the lingering effects of adverse childhood experiences. Access here.
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ACSSW Activities
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ACSSW's present activities include:
- hosting a multi-professional Mental Health In Schools Institute in Milwaukee on September 30th that invites school and community mental health providers to participate;
- drafting a national school social work role framework paper;
- establishing a National Center for School Social Work Practice, Leadership and Research, a long-term goal,
- developing another professional learning opportunity in exciting New Orleans, February 10-11, 2014. Watch for details to come.
- staying on top of national educational reforms and trends.
If you have interest in participating in any of these activities, contact Judie Shine. ACSSW strives to be inclusive and transparent in all of its activities and welcomes, whether lengthy or short, the participation of its members.
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