School Social Workers in Texas
The community I chose to serve during my 18 months in the engagement journalism program was school social workers, primarily in Texas. I chose this community because I worked as a school social worker for a year at a high school in Austin, Texas, and my time in social work taught me that many people don’t know what social workers do — I was determined to change that.
I specifically chose school social workers because I believe they have the opportunity to impact so many types of people. From students at the school, their families, school staff, and the community as a whole, schools and the education system are one of the largest places in our country where people of various walks of life congregate.
Social work services in schools began in the early 1900s. The original motive was to foster communication between school and home, and it continues to act as a home-school-community liaison. According to the School Social Work Association of America, social workers are trained mental health professionals who can assist with the following: mental health concerns, behavioral concerns, positive behavioral support, academic and classroom support, consultation with teachers, parents and administrators, as well as provide individual and group counseling/therapy.
During my time in journalism school, and in the engagement journalism program specifically, I learned the importance of listening and new ways to serve communities by meeting their needs through writing and product development.
I spent a lot of time doing one-on-one interviews with school social workers across the state of Texas. I’ll note all of my interviews and work done throughout my time in the program was done remotely — on Zoom, through phone calls or emails — due to Covid. Although it was extremely challenging not being able to show up or meet people face-to-face, I learned how to engage with people online in the midst of these tough times. Through a number of interviews I was informed of the challenges and struggles that many Texas school social workers face.
Most social workers I spoke with had a common complaint of working in a system that does not coincide or really recognize what exactly their job role is or all that they do. What I heard from school social workers, and from my experience as well, the opportunity of people knowing what they do could be tremendous in ways that expand the resources they have to offer students and communities.
Data collected by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for the 2019–2020 school year showed that out of the 1,002 school districts in Texas, only 172 had social workers as employees. This data reflects the grievances I heard from my community that they feel undervalued and alone in what they do, the extremely large workloads they face, and the disconnect between what their roles are and how the school districts view and manage them.
What I created
Throughout my time listening and serving school social workers, I wrote an explainer piece on why it’s a problem that nobody in Texas seems to know what school social workers do, followed by an opinion piece on why all schools should have a social worker.
I then partnered with the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) who asked me to create one-pagers on the various ways in which school social workers help students and how they’re valuable to schools. NASW distributed the one-pagers to legislators during the Texas legislative session in an effort to pass a bill that implements social services in the Texas Education Code. The bill wouldn’t require Texas schools to have social workers, but would require every school to have at least some way for social services to be provided to any student who may need it.
For my final practicum, I wanted to create a product that would alleviate the workload that school social workers are faced with. My initial thought was to create a website that holds all the forms, links and information on various resources distributed to clients so it’s all there in one place. The idea would be that they wouldn’t have to go searching for their files from where each form or resource sheet lives. However, once I began asking my community members if this would be useful, I was told it was already in the works of being created.
Instead of competing with the website already in the works, I decided to pivot my product idea and began making a chatbot. I sent out a survey for feedback and further ideas of what the chatbot could contain to help alleviate daily workload and the responses I received were to include information and links to forms and assessments that school staff could complete on their own instead of bringing it to the social worker to do. The chatbot serves as a resource that can be shared with any school staff so that they can fill out CPS or runaway reports and complete suicidal ideation risk assessments on their own without the social workers help.
What I Learned
I learned a lot throughout this process of what engagement with a specific community looks like. For one, I’ve learned it’s harder than you may think, especially when completely confined to being online. Not having the ability to attend workshops or events and meet community members face-to-face forced me to pivot my approach into the community and lean into individual conversations and connections through word of mouth or partnerships.
Beyond learning how to pivot my approach into a community, I acquired further best practices on how to do so during difficult times. Covid was tough on everyone in their own ways, but for my community it was especially tough in their professional lives as well. I learned how to be persistent in reaching out and flexible with having to reschedule and adhere to their schedules instead of my own — it’s important to meet people where they are. I also learned how to be sensitive and extend compassion in a professional setting, which I found was best done through allowing community members to decide what they did or did not want to disclose by putting aside my own ideas or beliefs of what I thought this community needed.
Lastly, a huge takeaway, especially for my community, was the importance of partnerships and acknowledging the people who are already doing the work. I would not have spoken with or been connected with half of the school social workers I talked to if it wasn’t for my partnership with NASW. Partnerships and their use may not be applicable across different communities but for mine it was invaluable.
It’s important to know who is doing the work you’re setting out to do in your community, and instead of competing with them, see how you can work with them or change your ideas so it coincides with what they’re already doing and/or serves your community in a different way. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel and we especially don’t need to be entering communities trying to overrun the work that’s already being done.
