Answer to Question 1
Curriculum today is no longer as simple as reading, writing, and arithmetic. Although there is currently substantial concern about teaching the basics in education, teachers must still seek to improve old curriculum and develop new materials and new teaching styles. Because social workers have training in the social psychology of individual behavior, they can serve as consultants on the mental health and human relations aspects of curriculum and on teaching style. With this focus, the social worker plays a preventive role, seeking to help teachers motivate students via stimulating materials. She or he can help create a teaching approach that is not threatening but intriguing, questioning, and supportive of the process of learning. Naturally, the social worker would also be involved in helping teachers to individualize education-to devise materials and teaching styles that meet the needs of all children, no matter what their current academic level.
The school social worker can also lead efforts in Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), which relates to creating positive school climates and recognition systems for students who are performing well socially and academically. PBIS also helps in preventing students from bullying one another. The social worker can help create a systematized approach to monitoring progress and then create new techniques to facilitate remediation when necessary. Social workers can help provide guidance in curriculum development, with an overall emphasis on human relations. Children need to learn that different is okay, that cultural or racial differences can be enjoyed rather than feared, that all people deserve respect as human beings, and that values are learned concepts that can be changed. School social workers, because of their training and unique place in the school, can provide the perspective needed to devise such a curriculum and help create systems for implementation.
Another more complex role in this area, and one that requires advanced training, is to help evaluate whether children might have significant emotional or psychiatric difficulties. Because of the unique skills and roles of the school social worker, he or she can be a liaison to the mental health and/or medical community by making appropriate referrals and by assisting in follow-up care. Given that school social workers, along with guidance counselors and school psychologists, are most likely to provide mental health referrals in school systems, it is important that these professionals have a solid foundation in mental health diagnosis and treatment.
Answer to Question 2
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