The State of American School Social Work 2014: Initial Findings from the Second National School Social Work Survey
Method: A non-probability, purposive sampling strategy was used to collect responses from as many practicing school social workers in the United States as possible. The survey was delivered in an online format and was in the field from February 3, 2014 to April 7, 2014. To capture responses from the largest number of practicing school social workers, a sampling strategy was applied at national, state, and local levels. At the national level, three national organizations distributed the survey (NASW, SSWA, and CWSE) alongside 30 state associations, six state departments of education, and 23 school social work social media groups. Lastly, we relied on snowball methods to reach individual practitioners at the local level. These efforts suggested the sampling frame consisted of approximately 8,500 practicing school social workers.
Results: Data were collected from 2,677 (a 31.5% response rate) practicing in 46 states and the District of Columbia. Descriptive data reveal respondents were consistent with the 2008 survey (90% female, 80% white, 84% having an MSW). Practice settings were also consistent with previous survey work, indicating that the most common setting for school social workers were elementary school settings (37%) and most school social workers (76%) were in either one school (45%), two or three schools (22% and 9% respectively). Initial analysis reveals school social workers struggle to implement evidence-informed and data-driven practices at both prevention (Tier One) and more intensive levels of intervention (Tiers Two and Three), with respondents reporting large case loads, proscribed roles, and inadequate community resources as major barriers to evidence-based practice. Despite calls for school social work to utilize progress monitoring tools and standardized measures to evaluate practice, 57% of respondents stated they do not use universal screening tools at all and 53% said they still don’t use standardized progress monitoring instruments to track the effectiveness of school social work interventions.
Implications: The Second National School Social Work Survey reflects a field that has remained consistent and lagging behind calls to implement evidence-informed and data-driven practices[2]. The need to better integrate pre- and post-service training in data-driven practices are noted, as well as possible recommendations for ways to overcome barriers that school social workers report facing.
[1] Kelly, M. S., Berzin, S. C., Frey, A., Alvarez, M., Shaffer, G., & O’Brien, K. (2010). The state of school social work: Findings from the national school social work survey. School Mental Health, 2(3), 132-141.
[2] Dupper, D., Rocha, C., Jackson, R. F., Lodato, G. (2014). Broadly trained but narrowly used? Factors that predict the performance of environmental versus individual tasks by school social workers. Children & Schools, retrieved http://cs.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/04/22/cs.cdu004