Social Work in Schools – (un)acceptance of School Social Worker as challenge of social work science and practice – example of Republic of Srpska

School Social Worker is dealing with issues that involve children safety and well-being, their learning capabilities, as well as with family capacities and abilities to deal with different aspects of their daily lives. Working... [ view full abstract ]

School Social Worker is dealing with issues that involve children safety and well-being, their learning capabilities, as well as with family capacities and abilities to deal with different aspects of their daily lives. Working with children/pupil, and family, school social worker helps a child to develop good „people skills“ and to feel good about themselves, as well as she/he works with family on development of parental skills. In cases of families with dysfunctional family relations, the cooperation between school social worker and Social Welfare Centers is crucial in fulfilling all tasks in the field of social and child welfare, including the improvement of children life quality.
Social Work in schools of Republic of Srspka was introduced in 2008 by passing the Laws on primary and secondary education. Empirical studies on representation and needs for school social workers, as well as on their position within the School Experts Teams, point out on the conclusion that we have only few good examples on acceptance of school social workers. In this paper we present you some of the results of the mentioned empirical studies, as well as some ideas on how to improve the „position“ of social workers in schools.