Social Service Worker Interview:

1.) What is your job description?

Social worker in the Summit Program of the Washington County Public
Schools. I work in the Summit Program at Northern Middle School in
Hagerstown, MD. The Summit Program provides intensive therapeutic support
for special education students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. There
are seven Summit programs in Washington County2 high school programs, 2
middle school programs, and 3 elementary programs. There is at least one social
worker, two paraprofessional assistants, and one special ed teacher for each
Summit classroom.

2.) What experiences/education help you to be successful in your job?
I have a Masters Degree in Social Work (from Howard University in
Washington DC) and a clinical license to practice social work professionally
(LCSW-C). A Masters degree and clinical license were required for the social
worker positions at Summit. Moreover, I have 20 years experience working
with special ed students with emotional and behavioral disabilities in a school
setting (in both non-public and public settings) and I have for several years
worked with adults, adolescents, and children in outpatient therapeutic settings.

3.) How many clients do you serve? Do you serve a select group of kids or do
you handle every child in the county?
All of the Summit social workers are primarily responsible for the students in
the Summit Program. We work closely with the Summit special education
teacher and paraprofessionals to support the Summit students to be successful,
educationally, socially, and emotionally. Each Summit classroom has between
10 and 15 students and all of them have an Individual Education Plan (IEP)
which outlines both educational and social emotional goals. However we also
provide support to non Summit Special Education students (who have IEPs) and
general education students and school staff at the direction of the principal and
assistant principals. The number of general education students served by
Summit social workers varies from school to school.
This year we had 25 Summit students at Northern (we have two classrooms) 13
who I had primary therapeutic responsibility for, 12 more I was a back up
therapist for and who I had in group therapy with our other Summit program
social worker. I also worked with approximately 20-25 other Northern
studentsabout half in gen ed and half in special edproviding more intensive
and/or extended support over the course of the year. I provided social work
services to one other student, an 18 year old Special Ed student who attended
Marshall St. school. I met with him at Marshall St. school.

4.) What kinds of needs do your clients have? Is there a range?
I consider my clients to be several kinds of people:
a. Summit students struggle for a variety of reasons with several kinds of things.
Many of them have serious psychiatric issues, many have been victims of
serious abuse and neglect, many have experienced serious dysfunction and
challenges in their families of origin, many have experienced multiple foster
homes and residential placements, and have had multiple school placements and
experienced serious failures and frustrations in school settings. They are often
several levels below their grade level in academic performance, they are often
developmentally delayed and socially immature, and struggle to conform to a
structured academic environment without staff support and assistance;
b. parents (and guardians, grandparents, foster parents, adoptive parents,
residential staff) of Summit students often need help to understand their childs
behavior, need assistance how to structure things at home to increase the
likelihood of academic and social success, need support from Summit staff to
know how to best support their child;
c. Summit staff, especially the parapros but sometimes the special ed teacher,
may need assistance in working with a Summit studenthelp with interpreting
the behaviors and devising best strategies to successfully respond to the
behaviors to increase the possibilities of success;
d. general education students, with and without IEPs, sometimes need as much
help and support as do the Summit studentstheir histories (behaviors and
challenges) at school have just not risen to the same level of (IEP) need as have
the Summit students. And while we (Summit social workers) may be able to
provide some support and interventionand we can coordinate with the
schools dropout prevention staff, the counseling staff, and the administration
gen ed students cannot access the resources of the Summmit special ed teachers
or the paraprofessionalsnot directly anyway;
d. parents of gen ed students often need support and help to understand their
child and are often open to recommended strategies to help their child improve
academic and behavioral success;
e. other school staff (teachers, counseling office, dropout prevention staff,
behavior specialists) who may at times need some help interpreting or
intervening with a given students (Summit or gen ed) challenges;
f. Special Education Case Managers (building wide), who have primary
responsibility to case manage their non-Summit students in Special Ed. I might
provide the counseling services for one of their students, we might collaborate
and support a student who does not have counseling services on their IEP but
who might benefit from occasional therapeutic intervention. We might meet the
student or their parents together if thats helpful.
g. school administration: Summit social workers are paid from Special Ed funds
earmarked for the Summit program but once we are placed inside a school (and
most of the Summit program social workers are in school-based programs; there
are three itinerant social workers who support Summit students placed in a
school without a Summit program) we serve at the direction of and under the
supervision of the principal.



5.) What interactions do your have with parents? Do parents view you
positively, or is that a challenge to work around in your job?
Lots of contact with parents and guardians and program staff as mentioned
above: phone calls, school visits, occasionally home visits, IEP meetings. I
think we are generally viewed positively by parents (especially when our
interventions have proven helpful and constructive and more importantly when
their child is doing well academically and behaviorally) although we can be
lumped in with all of the school staff and administration in a negative light when
things have not gone well. Generally most of the Summit parents are involved
and supportive although sometimes it is challenging to encourage them to
remain supportive and helpful when things hit rough stretches. It can be more
challenging at times with some parents of general education students especially
those without an IEP. Some of what we do is to encourage a gen ed parent to
utilize the support services available outside of Special Education (through the
school counseling office primarily) and to support a student until a Child Find
process is completedwhich assesses whether the student should receive more
intensive services with an IEP. Its been a mixed experience whether a general
education parent views my interventions positively.

6.) How does the school help you meet the needs of your clients?
The best scenario is when all of the school players work as a team. There is
supervision and accountability from admin; support, energy, and resources
available through other staff (in various capacities) in the building. Summit
social workers also regularly participate in SST and (at Northern) Student
Solutions meetings. Students who are not doing well and who need help are
discussed at these meetings. I also serve on the Student Assistance Program
(SAP) committee which attempts to intervene with students who may have a
substance abuse issue.

7.) What interactions to you have with teachers? With principals?
As mentioned above.

8.) Do you collaborate with people outside of the school?
We will make contact with outside therapists and psychiatrists, DSS case
managers, CPS or foster care staff, DJS staff, residential program staff, and
whoever else as appropriate and necessary (and with appropriate Releases of
Information from parents or guardians) to support the student.

9.) What are the biggest challenges you face in your job?
Sometimes its trying to get done what needs to be done for too many students
when there isnt enough time. Sometimes its facing the reality that there are too
many issues and not enough resources to make a meaningful difference in a
students lifebut doing the best one can anyway. Sometimes its letting go of
ones expectations when its clear that progress will be much slower or will be
much less clear during the time I have to intervene. Sometimes its facing ones
limitations (education, experience, insight, abilities) and carrying on regardless.
Sometimes its seeing a student regress (for understandable or mysterious
reasons) after having previously made great (or so we thought) progress.
Sometimes its knowing a given child is going to get killed (educationally,
emotionally, socially) at the next level (high school for us who work in middle
school) because while they are being promoted we know they are not ready to
move on but on they will move. Sometimes its getting the call (from a parent, a
social worker, a teacher) that one of our students who has moved on has failed
miserablyor was expelled from school, or is now in jail.

10.) What could be done to better assist you in meeting your clients needs?
I wouldnt mind the School Board giving me a BMW G4 as a perk for all the
hard work I doitd make all the heartaches in question 9 a little easier to deal
with.
I actually think the Summit program and the people theyve hired to staff it are
doingall things considereda pretty good job with a challenging population
of students with a pretty wide variety of issues that work against their success at
school and against us who try to support them. It could be a lot worse.


Recommendations for Improvement:

As Billy McLaughlin stated in his interview, there isnt really
anything that needs changed to make his job easier. The biggest
struggles he faces are the children. Their lives vary and come with
many issues. Sometimes, he cant help them all the way he wants to.
They are people and sometimes you cant change people. So, there
really isnt anything that would help him meet his clients need better.
If his clients didnt have such difficulties, then he wouldnt be needed.