CUSD 10 Recognizes National School Social Worker Month

March is National School Social Worker Month.  Collinsville Community Unit School District #10 is using the opportunity to thank our Social Work team and make the community aware of their many contributions to our schools and families.

Mandy Robbins, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) assigned to Renfro Elementary School says, “Within our district, we have many varied functions, based on the needs of our assigned buildings.  Some of us have one building, while some travel between two buildings to address the mental health needs of students.”

Generally, CUSD 10 School Social Workers prioritize:

1) ANY student in emotional/behavioral/basic needs crisis.  This includes a student harming himself or others, a student expressing suicidal ideation, a student whose caregiver is being investigated for abuse/neglect.

2) ALL special education duties: the identification, assessment, and possible intervention with any student in need of an IEP in order to access instruction for educational success;  attendance at IEP meetings and accompanying reports/documentation;  specific interventions (both classroom and pull-out based) to address social-emotional barriers to success; assisting parents to access counseling/psychiatry/basic needs-based resources within the community; near constant consultation with school staff for the promotion of student success.

3) Prevention/intervention efforts for the general education population: bullying prevention and sexual abuse prevention education, schoolwide;  serving on building-based problem-solving teams to consult on behavioral interventions for the classroom and identify students in need of services; providing individual and small group skillstreaming for enhancing social-emotional skills and functioning; ongoing communication with parents to provide consultation with respect to parenting through mental health challenges; near constant collaboration with teachers, administrators, school psychologists, nurses, SLPs, and any community providers for the enhancement of students’ mental health.