Charting an Agenda for School-Based Research in Racial Equity, Social Justice, and Pandemic Recovery Around the Framework for 21st Century School Social Work Practice

This roundtable discussion will focus on advancing a PreK-12 school-based research agenda around the Framework for 21st Century School Social Work Practice and its impact on pandemic recovery and the ongoing reckoning for racial equity and social justice. The School Social Work Association of America recently revised the national practice model first developed in 2013 to bring about a stronger focus on the home-school-community interlinkages as essential elements in promoting student success through the focal areas of academics, behavioral, social-emotional, and mental health. This framework identifies school social workers’ core professional activities to promote student success. It also highlights those essential competencies and skills that school social workers must have to support social change. Advancing the state of school-based research requires concerted efforts from emerging scholars and mentoring from senior researchers with critical stakeholders such as our profession’s journal editors.

In this session, we bring together the editors from four journals relevant to school social work practice and research to discuss the science of school social work practice and foster solutions to the complex social problems, some of which were highlighted by the racial reckoning of 2020 and others exacerbated by the pandemic. Editors from Children & Schools, International Journal of School Social Work, School Mental Health and the School Social Work Journal will be represented in this roundtable. Facilitated by the co-chair of SSWR’s School Social Work SIG and a current doctoral student with six years of practice experience as a school social worker, this roundtable will chart a scholarly agenda for our profession in response to contemporary societal needs. Bringing together scholars from a range of career stages and experiences, this discussion will center around the contemporary practice challenges our profession is facing, particularly as it relates to addressing needs in this ongoing recovery from the pandemic and the unjust racial climate. Following an introductory outline of the revised school social work practice framework, we will discuss the mission, goals, and audience of each journal. We then dialogue on the state of research, highlighting contemporary and promising trends and the prevailing gaps in each of the areas represented in the framework. The presenters will draw on their experience both in their own research and as editors for their respective journals to discuss the need and opportunities of growth in the science of school social work practice. Trends in funding opportunities and models for researcher-practitioner collaboration around the revised practice model will also be discussed. This discussion will spur new insights into translational research as it relates to school social work research and practice. It will also promote a shared understanding of the constructs of the revised national practice model in advancing the agenda around school-based issues in this time of pandemic recovery and advocacy for racial and social justice. The discussion will bring together scholars at every level in their career trajectory with the editors of the four school social work journals to collectively chart a research agenda that will lead us into the 21st century and beyond.