How do we help students and their families be healthy and successful? How do we address the social, emotional, and mental issues within our schools? It seems that school social workers are often tasked with these big questions, but limited staffing can leave school social workers overworked and student needs unmet.

“Often we don’t really talk about schools as social service agencies, but yet we honestly function as one in that we’re providing emotional support, and we’re also helping families navigate the different systems to get their needs met,” Sara Lennertz tells A Public Affair. She says when you look at the ration of students to  school social workers, school psychologists, and school counselors, “it’s not nearly adequate to the need that we have and the need that we see in our students.”

Sara Lennertz is president elect of  Wisconsin School Social Workers Association and is a school social worker at a Madison high school. She joins us on her lunch break to break down what social workers offer to our schools and students and the issues facing the profession.

Photo by Eliott Reyna on Unsplash

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