Bringing Awareness to Student Services at Colonie

By Kathryn Taleporos

April 5, 2022

The week of March 6-12 was National School Social Work Week. “Time to Shine” was the week’s theme. Social workers in the district work at every school to provide essential service to students throughout their school day.

According to the South Colonie website, a school social worker is “a trained mental health professional who works as a part of your child’s school team.”

A social worker must complete seven years of schooling. A Bachelor's degree and a Master’s degree in social work is required to become a licensed social worker. Social workers are a part of student support services at every level at the South Colonie School District.

Social workers provide services such as mediating conflict between students, and supporting students through crises both at school and at home.

At the middle school and elementary levels, social workers provide individual counseling to students, and group counseling. For students, the South Colonie website says the counseling that a social worker provides can help students with a myriad of issues.

The South Colonie District website says, “... your child and the social worker will work together to help him or her understand the problem, the present and future consequences, develop goals for change, and a plan of action for change. A variety of activities will be used, e.g., writing, role-play, art, focused discussions.”

Social work intern at Sand Creek Middle School Chelsea Bunn, said that at the middle school there is more of a focus on mediating conflicts between peers. Having interned at Saddlewood Elementary as well, Bunn said that a key difference between social work at the middle school level and the elementary school level is that at the elementary level there is more of a focus on learning to regulate emotions.

Social workers face many challenges throughout their day. Bunn says that some of these challenges include dealing with crisis situations. Social workers meet with many students throughout the day; however, when a crisis occurs, sometimes the social worker is forced to choose between which situation they can be present at.