The challenges for those pursuing careers as social workers at schools are many – not the least of which is making sure the schools understand what the social workers roles are.
“The biggest challenge is making sure schools know what our role is, because social work is a fluid field,” said Jemina Lyle, who will earn her Master of Social Work degree from Dominican University in May. “School social workers have to determine who the client is. Sometimes it’s the school, sometimes it’s the community and sometimes it’s the student.”
That’s part of what Dominican’s new Social Work Integration for Thriving Schools (SWIFT) Schools Project aims to address. It will be designed to better prepare Master of Social Work students and post-MSW students for the realities of the work they will do and ease some of the financial challenges of taking on a new job.
The SWIFT program came to be through a five-year, $3.8 million Mental Health Service Professionals Grant from the U.S. Department of Education to expand access to youth mental health services. Funding will allow the SWIFT program to place graduate students with internships in selected, understaffed suburban Cook County school districts with mental health needs and diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.
According to a press release, the grant allows Dominican to build on existing efforts to grow interest in the school social work concentration and focus on culturally responsive recruitment and placement within under-resourced schools in communities near its River Forest campus.
SWIFT program director Maria Elena Pascarella, who is a clinical assistant professor and faculty lead for Dominican’s School Work Track, said the goal is to place 20 students per year over the five years of the grant. Grant funding will cover students’ tuition during their school placement, as well as stipends for the school social workers who will supervise them.
Pascarella’s background is in social work at Holmes Elementary School in Oak Park, so she is well aware of the challenges SWIFT program participants will face.
“They have to be prepared to meet the need with a strong skill set of intervention, and what we call being culturally humble practitioners,” she said, “which means entering into communities knowing that the communities they are serving are the experts on their own experience.”
But Pascarella expects the program to foster successes for both the Dominican students and the communities they will serve.
“There is a shortage generally of social workers, but it’s more pronounced in districts where there is a diverse student body,” she said. “We know our students are uniquely qualified to provide mental health services in our partner schools, because of their lived experience.”
Getting the grant wasn’t easy. Pascarella said there were multiple people from the Dominican’s School of Social Work and the university’s Grants Development Department. on the grant application in April, finishing by the end of May. Notification that Dominican achieved the grant came in the middle of October.
“I actually happened to be at the Illinois Association of School Social Workers conference, so that was kind of a neat setting in which to find out,” she said.
Carolina Rodriguez, another social worker student, already sees many challenges in her current internship in the Waukegan School District.
“A big need in my district is (social workers) having to service another school,” she said. “They aren’t at their schools five days a week. Maybe they will be there four days a week.”
Though Lyle will have graduated by the time the program kicks off with student assignments in August, she already realizes what a game-changer the SWIFT program will be for others.
“I think it will afford more students to not worry about how they were going to pay for school,” Lyle said. “I know people who had to stop or quit their program, so that will alleviate any financial stress.”