Something I want to touch on in this post is mental health and the resources our schools have to help our students who are struggling. Specifically, I would like to talk about social workers in school - should it be mandatory for schools to have in-house social workers? There is clear evidence that students are struggling with mental health and that our schools lack the resources necessary. In my own experiences at placement, I have found that within the TDSB, it is not uncommon to hear teachers and principals talking about how they are understaffed and don't have the proper support for their students with special needs/learning disabilities. For example, in my class, if there was a student who was struggling or if they were causing problems and we needed support, we basically would call down and they would say, "Oh, so and so is in another class right now sorry!" And then it was up to us to kind of figure it out. We also had a class to teach!
In my current placement though, I am at a private school who has two in-house social workers. If there are any issues, whether its mental health related or a student with an LD, they are there for both the student and us. They are trained and qualified to deal with these kinds of issues - to be honest, we as teachers, really aren't. We take special needs courses or AQ courses, but these people spend many years in school getting a degree to do this work. I personally think it's well worth it to make space within the school budgets to hire social workers to be in the schools full or even part-time. If you keep the OCT standard of professional practice in mind, I think social workers would help us as teachers to develop our methods in dealing with children like with mental health issues. We could learn from them and also get the support we need.
What do you think?
Resources:
'The Kids Aren't Alright: Mental Health Supports Needed in More Than 90 Percent of Schools."
Courtesy of AdamP @NUO-491
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