The Growing Importance of School Social Workers During a Global Pandemic Research Proposal

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How School Social Workers Help ChildrenIntroductionThe problem of interest to the proposed study concerns the various reasons students need assistance from social workers, which typically include a lack of financial or academic resources and/or lack of a family support system in the home. Children that are enrolled in school today are not only faced with the entire panoply of challenges that have long been associated with an early academic career (Dealey, 2017), they are also confronted with a life-threatening global pandemic that has them and their parents validly concerned about their safety (London, 2020). Moreover, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has also significantly disrupted normal school attendance across the country, in some cases for lengthy periods of time, and these young learners will be forced to play catch up with their unaffected peers for the foreseeable future when and if they are able to return to a normal classroom environment. Likewise, the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders is expected to increase in people of all ages, meaning young people are facing a veritable double whammy of challenges to their education.In addition, it is reasonable to posit that traditional family support systems have also been severely disrupted in recent months, especially for children that are being forced to attend virtual schools. While the advantages of online learning for adults are well documented, young people may not possess the self discipline or attention span needed to endure hours-long virtual classes and still manage to learn anything. This means that school social workers also have an important role to play by ensuring that they fully understand the adverse effects that the ongoing pandemic are having on their school, the readiness of students to engage in virtual learning and what resources are available for this purpose. As the editors of the School Social Work Journal emphasize, “School social workers must possess a deep understanding of an extensive set of current societal conditions, student characteristics, and technology” (Visiting teachers to superheroes, 2018, p. 9). The latter issue is an especially important point because many Americans families are faced with increasingly severe economic problems due to pandemic-caused unemployment and lack the financial resources that are needed to provide their children with Internet-enabled computers.Against this backdrop, the role of the nation’s 600,000 school social workers has clearly assumed new importance and relevance for young people and their families (Careers in social work, 2020), and these issues are examined further below, guided by a revised research question as follows: “Do school social workers help students overcome obstacles that impede social and academic success when the student participates in services provided or recommended by the school social worker?” The independent variables that guided the research strategy were the services provided by the school social worker and the dependent variable was that student’s willingness to participate in the services provided by the social worker.Literature ReviewWith school budgets already stretch razor-thin, it is not surprising that any staff position that may appear superfluous to students’ needs at any given point in time may come under increased scrutiny, and this has been the case with school social workers in the recent past. In some cases, school social workers have actually been forced to justify their contributions to the school in order to continue practicing (Finigan-Carr & Shaia, 2018). For example, according to Altshuler and Webb (2009), “School social workers often face challenges of having to legitimize their presence as a school professional, especially as compared to school psychologists and school counselors” (p. 207). Moreover, school social workers in general are susceptible to being singled out by other school personnel and educators as being unnecessary to their mission, making them “added baggage” to the educational resource mix (Altschuler & Webb, 2009). This was an especially timely study since it identified and described the multiple obstacles that school social workers have faced in the past and their respective sources.

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Today, these issues are even more important because many Americans families are also experiencing far more discord compared to years past, and the prevalence of domestic violence and child abuse has increased since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. Given these recent trends, it is reasonable to conclude that divorce rates across the country will also increase from their already high levels, thereby further undermining the healthy dynamics of a growing number of American families that are already faced with challenging circumstances. For instance, according to Huffman’s (2013) pre-pandemic assessment of American schoolchildren: “Rising rates of divorce, cohabitation and children being born to unwed parents have caused many children to enter the public school system with less parental stability and support” (p. 37). As recently as 2014, nearly half of all marriages in the U.S. ended in divorce (Divorce statistics and facts, 2020), and while the impact of the pandemic on recent divorce rates remains…

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…can intervene. There remains a paucity of timely and relevant research concerning the proposed study’s dependent variable (i.e., students’ willingness to participate in the services provided by the school social worker), making the need for a robust research method all the more important as described below.MethodsSocial science researchers have a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods available, each of which has its respective benefits and limitations. Based on a review of the most appropriate research methods, a mixed methods research strategy that combined qualitative and quantitative elements was regarded as optimal. This selection is congruent with the guidance provided by Neuman (2008) who advises that a mixed methods approach using a custom questionnaire that integrates both qualitative and quantitative data can provide more robust findings compared to the use of either one of this strategies alone. The sample and custom survey instrument for the proposed study are described further below.SampleThe proposed study will use a sample of respondents that are all school social workers in the author’s school district which was the only inclusion criterion that was used. More to the point, the school district employs 15 social workers and all of these professionals will be recruited to participate in the study proposed herein.InstrumentationDrawing on a systematic and critical review of the relevant literature, a three-part custom qualitative and quantitative questionnaire will be developed that specifically addresses the proposed study’s guiding research question and supporting hypothesis (see proforma copy at Appendix A). The first part of the questionnaire will collect demographic data about the respondents such as their age, length of time as a school social worker, and gender. The second part of the custom questionnaire will consist of a series of quantitative, Likert-scaled statements ranged “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”These statements will be directly tied to the proposed study’s research question and hypothesis, but will include couplet statements that state the same issue in different ways to help ensure that respondents are providing consistent feedback. The third-part of the custom questionnaire will be the qualitative, open-ended segment wherein respondents are requested to provide any additional thoughts, insights or views they have about their role as school social workers. The custom questionnaire will be posted online to facilitate completion by the respondents using a free survey service such as Zoomerang or SurveyMonkey.LimitationsWhile a large population sample would provide a wider range of responses and therefore a richer description of the various ways in….....

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