Category Archives: Articles

Were You Ready For Distance Learning? 5 Tips School Social Workers And Students Can Use Now

Disclaimer – I’m not going to try to reinvent the wheel.  These articles say it better than me!

 

I will Be posting more tips and ideas of how you can incorporate technology/ distance learning into your practice.  It’s definitely a learning curve, and we can  help  each others.  I’ve  been  using  technology  in  practice  for  some  time  and  exploring  and  testing  out  tech  tools  with  my  students.   I  guess now I  can  put  my  skills  to  work!  Check  out  my  COVID-19  resource page  (click here)

Tip #1 – Realize that we can only do what we can

Tip #2 – Help kids understand whats going on and reassure them it will be ok

Tip # 3 – Learn how to take care of yourself

Tip #4 – Connect with others

tip #5 –  master one distance learning tool

Before Using Zoom Video Conferencing Tool For Educational Reasons – Read This

zoom computer

 

 

Social Workers Make Gains in the Chicago Teachers’ Strike

It’s been a trying two weeks being involved in the teacher’s strike in Chicago . More services for our students was one of the primary focuses in this years strike. More social workers was on of the buzz words heard over and over again during the strike. It was great to know that the teachers, parents, and students were saying that they valued the profession and the work that is done daily by these individuals. It was an overall win for other clinician groups, such as nurses, and case manager groups.

Some of the basic things that other professionals are accustomed, to had to be fought for during this strike. The right to have a private and consistent place to work with students was tentatively agreed upon, as was the right to have a work free lunch when traveling from school to school. School social work positions will be increased and the goal is to have a school social worker for every school. This will be a huge gain. A social worker working in a school with over 1,200 students won’t have to have another school added to their schedule one day a week , because a case load doesn’t meet the boards formula.

Workload vs. caseload was a key arguing point. A social worker may be able to maintain their caseload to a certain number, but you can’t predict the continuous crisis, and needs of the schools population. When you are the social worker of a school, you service everyone and not just IEP students. There is the skill set school social workers bring into the building, and teachers and administrators turn to school social workers for advice and intervention.

Social media continued to play a huge part in keeping the momentum of the strike alive, and informing clinicians of their part and place to report to during the strike. It was a rewarding experience to be together with other social workers sharing a common goal ,while discussing tricks of the trade, and being able to eat a nice lunch together with enough time to share and catch up with each others world. Daily I would look at the evening email to see what new place or theme was going to be visited the next day. Lets not forget the exercise one would get daily on the picket line, it was easily 10 miles a day or 20,000 steps 🙂

Social media definately played a role in getting the word out, and keeping a movement alive. Social workers were there supporting the cause.

Following is a review of some of the many articles found on the 2019 teachers’ strike.

articles related to the STRIKE

Is This True? The Fabrication Of Social Media Inspires Depression and Anxiety —

Social media was designed to make interaction a lot easier. But today, when we look closely, we are socially awkward. This is why social media causing depression and anxiety isn’t surprising. We are gradually getting so addicted to proving ourselves to the rest of the world that we fail to realize our real self-worth. Social […]

via Is This True? The Fabrication Of Social Media Inspires Depression and Anxiety —

Social media, Depression, & Suicide: What We Know & How Social Work Can Help from Sean Erreger LCSW

Wonderful find from my social work virtual pal Sean Erreger focusing on how social media is effecting our youth.  Recently I participated in developing a screening tool at my school that would assist in finding students that were anxious and how social media impacted them. The information shared was definitely eye opening as to how much time our students are spending on social media.   Social media is definitively a factor in our teens and preteens lives.  Elementary students are gaining access to cell phones as early as age 5.  Mr. Erreger gives some great advice on how we can assist the students we work with.  Check out the page link to find Erreger’s and other great presentations there.  Below he shared his presentation at from the Global Social Welfare Digital Summit

 

 

 

 

 

Black Panther Resources – Creating Engaging Social Emotional Lessons Through Movies

 
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If you haven’t seen the movie Black Panther, then hold off reading this blog post until you see it.  There are plenty of spoilers in this post!!  If you have seen the movie, I’m sure you have heard the great reviews and opinions regarding Black Panther.  As a clinician, (I went to see the movie two times already) I looked at the movie through different lens.  It was so many great messages in this movie and the connection to great therapeutic discussions, are endless.  

Clinicians often use videos and clips as social stories that teach various social skills and how to respond to conflicting scenarios.  The Black Panther movie has endless lessons and themes.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to post the endless amounts of articles that support Black Panther’s positive teaching and imagery.  Below I have included links to great resources that Larry Ferlazzo has put together. It may be a while before Black Panther comes out on video, but there are a good amount of clips on YouTube that can you can view .  These clips can assist in your discussions on various social themes within the movie.   In the link below, there is also a curriculum that has been developed to teach lessons after viewing the movie.

Developing The SEL Lesson – Questions

Some of the great ideas that can be developed and discussed are as follows:

  • Who is your role model of the film

  • In what ways was the character similar to or different from you?

  • What are some of the themes within the movie (the power of fathers (or the lack thereof), the power of education, the power of suggestion and the tension between doing something versus sitting on the sidelines, and the role of females.)

  • What problems are the characters facing?

  • Who did you view as the antagonists, and what obstacles did they present?

  • What feelings are evoked from various themes?

  • What are the family values, how are they the same or different?

  • How did the protagonist succeed in overcoming the challenges?

  • What real world connections can you make from the movie?

Check out these great resources on Ferlazzo’s page.  I couldn’t have done a better job 🙂

The Best Resources For Teaching About The Black Panther Movie — Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

© 2018 Lindsay Silveira, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio The Black Panther movie offers some great teaching opportunities. Here are some useful resources: The 4 Things Teachers Should Know about the 2018 Black Panther Movie is from Donors Choose. The Black Panther Challenge has teaching resources. Here’s an article about it. Black Panther co-star…

via The Best Resources For Teaching About The Black Panther Movie — Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

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Social Media Toolkit for Social Work Field Educators – Get your Free Copy! #swtech

We are pleased to announce the availability of the Social Media Toolkit for Social Work Field Educators. This toolkit provides Field and other Social Work Educators with tools and resources to help social work students and field instructors assess, develop, and maintain an online identity for professional purposes. There are two parts to the toolkit…

via Social Media Toolkit for Social Work Field Educators – Get your Free Copy! — Teaching

Social Worker Month: 10 Reasons for Social Workers to Stand Up

As some of you know, March is National Social Work month; it was officially recognized as such by the White House in 1984. Since 1984, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) has been selecting a different topic to focus on each year. This year, NASW is promoting the theme: “Social Workers Stand Up,” as a way for social workers to take pride in their profession, and help inform others about what social work is all about. To that end, I asked 25 social workers what they love most about their work. They were limited to responses of 100 words or less. In 25 Social Workers Share Why They Love Social Work!, professionals’ responses and the different aspects of work they mentioned were categorized to give ‘big picture’ results. This, in turn, illustrated that social workers love the field because they view it as providing them with: job/career versatility, ability to heal/problem solve, opportunities to work with and train inspiring colleagues, and prospects to make the world a

Source: Social Worker Month: 10 Reasons for Social Workers to Stand Up

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Why Hashtags Matter – #SWvirtualpal

Twitter has been such a great tool for learning, sharing, and meeting new colleagues.  If you haven’t tried a twitter chat, there are some great social work chats being held on twitter.  One way to curate and organize your topics is through using hashtags.  Hashtags also can also help you find out whats happening in your professional community.

There’s one great hashtag that I want to promote, and I hope it catches on.  The hashtag #SWvirtualpal is a cool hashtag that helping social workers develop a community on twitter.  Laura Hitchcock helped develop this term and writes about it on her recent blog post.  Please read her post to learn  how to find your SWvirtualpal.  https://t.co/FVftFcK1Tx

swvirtualpal

Find me on twitter as @socialworkpad

 

7 Online Resources for Social Workers — Social Work Community

So until I started this blog a few months ago, I was pretty oblivious about other social work on-line resources. One of my underlying motives for starting this blog was to re-up my passion for social work through more regular research and reading about social work and the topics we touch on a daily basis. […]

via 7 Online Resources for Social Workers — Social Work Community