The School Social Work Association of America defines school social workers as "trained mental health professionals who can assist with mental health concerns, behavioral concerns, positive behavioral support, academic, and classroom support, consultation with teachers, parents, and administrators as well as provide individual and group counseling/therapy.
[3] In 1914 London County Council decided to create a school care service that would be modelled on her "Charitable Funds Committees".
[3] The new school care service relied on volunteers but they were initially organised by two women employed by London City Council and Helen Nussey was one of them.
This unheralded and extensive process led to the expansion of school social work services with the encouragement of the community.
Lastly during this time, leaders in the field like Sophonisba Breckinridge, expressed concerns of how school and education would relate to future success and happiness, and expressed the need to connect school and home in order to relate to the needs of children.
[8] The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 sought social work efforts to be initiated in the schools.
The National Association of Social Work (NASW) published a newsletter to bring attention to the issue and get responses from practitioners.
NASW's active participation in the profession eventually led to a school social worker credential with exams in 1992.
[citation needed] The services are limited to only teenage girls, and excludes boys from equal rights to access of the program.
Leading social worker Lela B. Costin,[18] in 1973 developed this model which focuses on the school, community, and student and the interactions among the three.
This model also focuses on evaluation by a school social worker of the characteristics of students, the school, and community conditions and their relational effect on the availability and quality of educational opportunities to specific target groups (students with chemical dependency, disabilities, and so on).
The model promotes view of person and environment as a unitary interacting system in which each constantly affects and shapes the other.
This model attends the complexities of the person as well as the environment by engaging progressive forces in people and situational assets, and impinging the removal of environmental obstacles for growth and adaptive functioning.
Two examples of this role expansion include functional behavior assessment, an efficient, empirically - supported, and amenable approach to undesirable school behavior that can be accomplished in a classroom collaboration model with teachers (Waller, 2008) and a leadership role in helping schools become foundational in promoting the mental health of children and adolescents in a manner similar to the role that schools already play in promoting physical health.
[20] Indeed, the roles played by School Social Workers has grown so substantially as a direct result of student needs, consultation, education, and collaboration with other school personnel (e.g. Waller, 2008) is a practice which is only destined to grow as a means of insufficient resources being used to their greatest advantage.
A survey published in 1989 by school social work experts categorized five job function dimensions.
[22] A role where school social work falls short is in the range of administering diagnostic psychological tests.
American States regulate school social work practice in different ways.
It does not replace any license or certification that individual states require of school social workers.
[23] School social workers work to promote student learning and well-being, address academic and non-academic barriers to learning, develop comprehensive and cohesive academic and social supports, and understand and apply diverse frameworks for evidence-based practice and program development for the educational process to work the fullest extent.