Assignment of COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Describe your commitment to your school and/or your community through volunteer activities.

        Being a school social worker, I believe that I am an important asset not only for students, but for their parents and communities as well. The students may have to deal with various issues in a school, and a community may also face several issues regarding the educations of children; in such situations, the role of school social worker become crucial in so many ways. You can’t predict the future, but at least you can prepare for it with some prior activities and cautions. You can take steps before an issue is raised. This is what a school social worker should do voluntarily, because he/she supposed to do that.

        I would like to mention here that a school social worker an achieve so much by involving in certain kind of tasks and activities. A school social worker is professional, who can deal with mental as well as behavioral concerns of the students, teachers and even parents. A student’s success cannot be achieved by him/her alone; rather it is a mix of home, school as well as community. All these aspects have to work in collaboration, and respond to each other positively so that students can achieve their academic and personal goals with success. This is what I have learned in my overall experience of school social work by involving in range of volunteer activities.

        I have been doing various activities for Miami Dade County Public Schools over the years. I have been voluntarily working with educators and school districts to ensure that things are on right track. I have been involved in helping the concern authorities in program development, which are concerned with all kind of students’ matters. These programs should respond well to the needs of teachers and students. Being an experienced school social worker, I have seen so many things in my career, which I can use to give valuable input to schools and communities, and this is what I do on regular basis. I engage with teachers to help them in making viable strategies to manage class environment as well as behavior of students so that they can develop a better learning environment.

        The students and their families are also important for the school social workers. I have been involved in activities which help students in their behavior management as their attitude and behavior can be critical for their success in school. I have been providingcounseling to students so that they can be able to handle pressure and work smartly to resolve any kind of conflicts. I have to make a good contact with students’ families as well so that I can understand that what life a student spends at home, and what behavior he/she possesses. So, I have been involved with families of students and workedclosely with them. Such work process has helped me to make assessment of the behavior of the students, and see what social factors are playing their part. Once good enough information is in my pocket, I can make better decisions for the students and their families, and this is what I do as a school social worker.

        I have also been involved in activities concerned with schools staff. I used my experience and thorough knowledge to help schools staff in understanding social, cultural, health, and family aspects of students, which can affect them in so many ways. A student may have certain mental health problems, so I have been assisting teachers and school staff to understand such mental health issues as early as possible so that they can be resolved as earliest as possible, because they can be extremely damaging for the growth of a student. It is important to understand that we have good enough resources to keep things on right track, but it is essential to properly utilize those resources. As a school social worker and volunteer, I have been involved in activities to mobilize the school, family as well as community resources. The combination of these resources helpsstudents to effectively grow in their academic field.

        The families can have different issues in hand, which increases stress in the family, and that stress can badly affect the children of those families. So, I have been working with families in different communities to alleviate their stress so that they can get a progressiveenvironment at home along school to function more efficiently. The students are an important asset for a community, so I work with different methods to make sure that they are getting good enough support to play their positive part in the society. So, these are some of the activities that I perform not only for school and communities, but for teachers and parents as well.