From the perspective of a social worker, there are many ways that social workers provide help to school children. Social Workers are part of a special education team which provides support to children with problems at home or at school. We also help with managing behaviour, looking at difficult situations at home that could be interfering with their school work. We arrange meetings to ensure they are getting on well and keeping on track with attendance. Support is also given to children to ensure they are able to achieve as much as they can in school.

 

How Social Workers Help Children Manage Behaviour

Social workers help children manage their behaviour by arranging meetings with them. We tend to go to the school to meet the child and go to a quiet area, usually in an office or a classroom that is not in use. We would then speak to the child one to one and encourage them to speak about any problems they are having, either if it is in school or at home. At these meetings, we tend to try to help the child feel as comfortable as possible so they feel that they can speak to us. We then find solutions for ways in order to help the child with the problems they are having so they can change their behaviour.

 

Dealing with Problems at Home

As a social worker, we phone the child’s parents to give them ways that they can help their child to deal with school problems as well as speak about them more openly. However, we can also meet the children at their homes to see if their home life is causing problems for them. Social Workers can then see if they are acting the same way at home as they do in school. This way we can see the way the child is at home and also if there are any problems between the parents and the child. If we feel as though the child could be at risk of living at their home or that they may benefit from extra visits, we can arrange for other social workers to visit more often.

 

Helping Outside of School

 

As well as helping children with school problems we also help with problems at home with the family. We can provide needs for the family such as accommodation, food and clothing. Many families can be struggling with all different types of problems and to ensure the child is safe and is able to perform best in school we do everything we can to provide them with what is needed.