Just one more week and it starts again—I’m excited and nervous all at the same time about the new school year. My life as a social worker is filled with challenges, successes, failures and the overwhelming desire to make a difference in children’s lives. Even if I only reach one child this year, that’s one child who has found a better outlook on life, new skills to help him achieve and a better chance at success.
This is my fourth year as a Social Worker Supervisor with Partnership with Children and my third year in this same school. Every year starts out the same with kids entering the classrooms, discussing their summers with old friends and meeting new classmates, but each year always develops a little differently. I hope for the best, that we can really reach these students and impact their lives, but in truth you never really know what will happen until the year ends. My yearly goals never change—improving school attendance numbers, helping students achieve socially, emotionally and academically and keeping parents engaged in their children’s lives.
The weeks leading up to the new school year are very busy. Each year I work with my team (usually another social worker and a few interns) and the school’s principal to determine which students are most in need and how we can best support these students. Our approach is multifaceted—we work in classrooms, with small groups and with individual students. The principal will usually choose 3-4 classes with the highest need that we will work with once a week, selecting a curriculum that will best meet their needs. We also operate 4-5 small groups which focus on topics such as peer mediation, bereavement, boys only, girls only, etc. These groups are generally mixed in grade levels and students are pulled out of their regular classes once a week to participate. For students most in need, we will work with them on an individual basis, assigning them to either a social worker or intern. All in all, we work with approximately 180 students, grades K-5th, just in this one school.
Once the students are identified we need to contact their parents for consent, which gets tricky sometimes. Some families don’t have internet or even phones, making personal visits the method of choice. There are also language barriers and other family challenges. It’s our job to make sure these parents fully understand our role in the schools and make sure their children are getting the best possible support.
The most fun of all is decorating the Partnership with Children classroom! We make sure we have supplies, signs are hung and the room is warm, bright and inviting. We’re excited to meet a new group of students, get to know their personalities, home life and struggles and figure out how we can fit in and help them achieve success. Let the new school year begin!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Barriers to Attendance
When you think of your high school days you may remember the excitement of freshman year and even better, the thrill of knowing that you’ll soon be attending college. But for a lot of adolescents in New York City high school brings a whole new level of complexity and stress even before they start their freshman year.
In eighth grade students apply to as many as 12 high schools they would like to attend out of the hundreds that exist in New York City. The city’s high schools have different focuses (technology, arts, etc.) and differing levels of academic requirements (some are highly selective according to exam scores, grades, etc). Given the diversity of options students need a lot of guidance in determining which schools will make the best fit for them. What I have seen often in working with inner-city high school students is that they did not apply to schools which are the best fit according to their interests, academic standing, and/or location; they may have applied to certain schools for the wrong reasons (i.e., the schools their friends applied to); and in some cases they were not accepted into any of the schools that they chose. It’s key for parents to guide their children’s selection of high schools and to be knowledgeable about what schools will be best fit in terms of academics, focus, and location. And, of course, students' grades and attendance rates in middle school play a crucial role in determining which high schools they can attend.
From my experience working with high school students, the daily commute is one of the biggest “barriers to attendance”. Some of our students travel up to two hours each way to school every day. The commute is exhausting and unsafe in neighborhoods that are desolate during early morning hours, and when combined with other issues like being forced to look after siblings, being bullied, and health problems, it dissuades students from attending school. The more school such students miss the more disengaged they become from their education. It’s a slippery slope that all too often leads them to being held back and dropping out from school altogether.
Part of my job is to find ways to get students motivated to come to school despite the hardships they face. I do this by engaging students in activities they show interest in and by building a sense of positive community through our small counseling groups, which provide students with a safe environment where they can share about the issues in their personal lives. The groups also help make school a place where students feel they are listened to and supported. For other students just knowing that Partnership with Children social workers are aware if they have shown up for school or not helps them feel cared for and acknowledged. These seemingly small measures go a long way in motivating high school students to come to school and to do their best.
These are just a few of the factors contributing to the complexity of attending high school in New York City. In my next post I’ll write about helping our students understand the system of earning academic credits and how credits impact their standing in school and potential to graduate in four years.
In eighth grade students apply to as many as 12 high schools they would like to attend out of the hundreds that exist in New York City. The city’s high schools have different focuses (technology, arts, etc.) and differing levels of academic requirements (some are highly selective according to exam scores, grades, etc). Given the diversity of options students need a lot of guidance in determining which schools will make the best fit for them. What I have seen often in working with inner-city high school students is that they did not apply to schools which are the best fit according to their interests, academic standing, and/or location; they may have applied to certain schools for the wrong reasons (i.e., the schools their friends applied to); and in some cases they were not accepted into any of the schools that they chose. It’s key for parents to guide their children’s selection of high schools and to be knowledgeable about what schools will be best fit in terms of academics, focus, and location. And, of course, students' grades and attendance rates in middle school play a crucial role in determining which high schools they can attend.
From my experience working with high school students, the daily commute is one of the biggest “barriers to attendance”. Some of our students travel up to two hours each way to school every day. The commute is exhausting and unsafe in neighborhoods that are desolate during early morning hours, and when combined with other issues like being forced to look after siblings, being bullied, and health problems, it dissuades students from attending school. The more school such students miss the more disengaged they become from their education. It’s a slippery slope that all too often leads them to being held back and dropping out from school altogether.
Part of my job is to find ways to get students motivated to come to school despite the hardships they face. I do this by engaging students in activities they show interest in and by building a sense of positive community through our small counseling groups, which provide students with a safe environment where they can share about the issues in their personal lives. The groups also help make school a place where students feel they are listened to and supported. For other students just knowing that Partnership with Children social workers are aware if they have shown up for school or not helps them feel cared for and acknowledged. These seemingly small measures go a long way in motivating high school students to come to school and to do their best.
These are just a few of the factors contributing to the complexity of attending high school in New York City. In my next post I’ll write about helping our students understand the system of earning academic credits and how credits impact their standing in school and potential to graduate in four years.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Creativity, Expression and Trust
Last week was full of great surprises. In our newly formed Art Group the students worked on a project in which they created visual representations of islands. The challenge given to the students was to draw and collage images of islands. Working in groups of three they had to determine what items were necessary to survive on their islands, what items they would want to leave behind on the islands, and then draw or collage images of those items. In some ways their work was very literal. For example they included images of money and explained that they’ll need money to buy food and pay rent. On the other hand they also thought of the islands as surreal utopias where no one would ever grow old.
As an experiment we played mellow R&B music during part of the session to discover what impact it would have on the students’ creativity. Rather than distracting them the music had a calming effect. The students seemed to go into their own internal, creative worlds and focused on creating their islands rather than conversing with each other about off-topic subjects like school gossip. The use of music actually leads into our next session which will be focused on the impact of music on ones emotions and how it can subsequently shape the type of art work one creates.
I also sat in on the Young Men’s Group and came away inspired by the sense of respect the students have for one another and how they let their guards down and shared their emotions during the session. I saw a dramatic change from the students' behavior in school, where they are very concerned about being perceived as weak and put on a tough persona with their peers. The topic the students were discussing which was put forward by the social worker who leads the group, was healthy relationships.
Many of the students have single mothers and spoke about the abusive relationships their mothers had with their fathers and how this impacted them as children witnessing domestic violence. A couple of the older students are fathers themselves, and spoke about their struggle to manage the responsibilities of school, part-time jobs, and fatherhood. I was so impressed with the students openness and truly happy to see that they’ve created a safe space to talk with each other and share about their personal struggles in and outside of school.
As an experiment we played mellow R&B music during part of the session to discover what impact it would have on the students’ creativity. Rather than distracting them the music had a calming effect. The students seemed to go into their own internal, creative worlds and focused on creating their islands rather than conversing with each other about off-topic subjects like school gossip. The use of music actually leads into our next session which will be focused on the impact of music on ones emotions and how it can subsequently shape the type of art work one creates.
I also sat in on the Young Men’s Group and came away inspired by the sense of respect the students have for one another and how they let their guards down and shared their emotions during the session. I saw a dramatic change from the students' behavior in school, where they are very concerned about being perceived as weak and put on a tough persona with their peers. The topic the students were discussing which was put forward by the social worker who leads the group, was healthy relationships.
Many of the students have single mothers and spoke about the abusive relationships their mothers had with their fathers and how this impacted them as children witnessing domestic violence. A couple of the older students are fathers themselves, and spoke about their struggle to manage the responsibilities of school, part-time jobs, and fatherhood. I was so impressed with the students openness and truly happy to see that they’ve created a safe space to talk with each other and share about their personal struggles in and outside of school.
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