Preparing School Social Work for the Future: An Update of School Social Workers' Tasks in Iowa

The authors begin this article by highlighting clinical social casework as a historic trend in school social work practice. They then identify two major shifts in current education policy related to school social work practice. One shift is an emphasis on a multilevel intervention approach, and the other is the differentiation between academic and behavioral forms of intervention. Next, they juxtapose the shifts in current policy aimed at school social work practice with national studies of school social work tasks. On the basis of their analysis of current literature and national studies, and the results of a survey on school social work tasks in Iowa, they conclude that school social work policy is experiencing a shift toward multilevel systems of intervention, such as response to intervention, whereas school social work practice continues to follow a traditional clinical model of social casework. The current division between policy and practice is an open door to a period of clarification. Professionals in the field and scholars in higher education need to continue working in concert to ensure clarity and the establishment of a model of school social work practice that is effective and grounded in social work theory.