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By building partnerships and advocating for leadership legitimacy, SSWs can strengthen policy development, intervention supervision, and ecologically informed support for students’ social-emotional needs.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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SSW role harmful to their effectiveness?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"Role confusion and misunderstandings can lead schools to underappreciate and underinvest in social work services, leaving expectations poorly defined and the position’s sustainability open to criticism.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},596084,1792166375,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,92,96,101,105,110,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & 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Leaders  \nKyle Berg  \nAbstract  \nSchool social workers possess a unique perspective and skill set for school leadership. However, common conceptualizations of the role have unnecessarily limited this capacity, and as a result, school social workers have struggled to carve out an identity in education. By reframing the role of school social workers as school leaders, schools will have an opportunity to leverage their best qualities. Social workers who are willing to work closely with school administrators, build strong partnerships with schools, and advocate for themselves as school leaders stand to gain a great deal from added legitimacy to their role.  \nSchool social workers (SSWs) show a unique capacity for school leadership. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, social workers have been marginalized from the larger operations of the school system, and have struggled to assert themselves as stakeholders (Callahan Sherman, 2016) . Common conceptions of school social work typically fall on the spectrum between direct and systemic practice, or social work in or for schools (Gherardi & WhittleseyJerome, 2018) . This limited view of SSWs, coupled with general misunderstanding of their role, can lead schools to underappreciate and underinvest in social work service (Bye et al. , 2009) . Reframing the role of SSWs as school leaders in partnership with schools makes it possible for schools to leverage the assets unique to school social work. Schools can share leadership with social workers in order to develop policy, supervise intervention programs, and ensure that the social emotional needs of all students are addressed through broad, ecologically informed programming. School systems, and SSWs, will be best served by partnering with each other, and redefining SSWs as school leaders.  \nThe Marginalization of School Social Workers  \nSchool divisions stand to gain a great deal from the inclusion of social workers on their student support teams. Officially, SSWs in Manitoba exist to facilitate learning for students who struggle to access the curriculum, collaborate with schools and outside agencies to further student success, and stress prevention and early intervention to support the social-emotional needs of all students (Manitoba Education and Training, 2017) . In nearly all contexts, the role of an SSW involves wearing many hats: often playing the role of truancy officer, case manager, student and parent advocates, mediator, and counsellor, all in a single day (Dworak-Peck, 2019) . Historically, social workers in schools have struggled to navigate value differences with other school staff and the resulting marginalization of their roles (Sugrue, 2017) . More recently, Altshuler and Webb (2009) found that role confusion, coupled with broad misunderstanding of social work expertise, makes it difficult for SSWs to legitimize their presence on school and division support teams. While generally seen as valuable, SSWs suffer from poorly defined roles and misunderstood expectations within the school system, leaving the future efficacy and sustainability of the position open to criticism.  \nMisunderstanding the Role of School Social Workers  \nRole clarity among SSWs suffers from broad misunderstanding, making social workers responsible for outlining their role, and putting them at risk of being seen as redundant. Gherardi and Whittlesey-Jerome (2018) identified two common conceptualizations of school social work practice: (1) social work for schools, and (2) social work in schools. Understanding SSWs as working in schools presents them as guests, or outsiders, hosted by schools to provide services to specific students. Within this understanding, SSWs are often accessed to provide clinical services. As clinicians, SSWs are expected to provide frontline mental health services to students, craft behaviour intervention plans, and provide family suppo","cbCaipZX2EkC341H","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaipZX2EkC341H","pdf",130451,"English","# Abstract\n## The Marginalization of School Social Workers\n## Misunderstanding the Role of School Social Workers","[{\"question\":\"How do school social workers currently contribute to school leadership?\",\"answer\":\"School social workers have a unique capacity for leadership, but common role conceptions have marginalized them from broader school operations.\"},{\"question\":\"What change does the article propose for redefining the SSW role?\",\"answer\":\"It proposes reframing SSWs as school leaders who partner closely with administrators to influence policy, supervise interventions, and support students’ social-emotional needs through broad programming.\"},{\"question\":\"Why is misunderstanding the SSW role harmful to their effectiveness?\",\"answer\":\"Role confusion and misunderstandings can lead schools to underappreciate and underinvest in social work services, leaving expectations poorly defined and the position’s sustainability open to criticism.\"}]","From Outsiders to Partners: Reimagining School Social Workers as School Leaders - Abstract | PDF",1792082410,15]