Social Worker, Guidance Counselor: Social​/Educational

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work, Master’s Degree preferred. Must either have or be eligible for a North Carolina Department of Public Instruction License for School Social Worker.

Chatham Middle

School Principal

The School Social Worker promotes and enhances the overall academic mission by providing services that strengthen home/school/community partnerships and alleviate barriers to learning. The School Social Worker contributes to the development of a healthy, safe, and caring school environment by advancing the understanding of the emotional and social development of children. The School Social Worker recognizes the influences that family, community, and cultural differences have on student achievement and success and implements effective intervention strategies.

• Assessment of Student, Family, and School Needs – Effectively and appropriately assess and address the needs, characteristics, and interactions of students, families, school personnel, and community.
  • Conducts assessments and evaluations in accordance with parent or guardian and student rights.
  • Uses student, family, and school assessment results to identify needs that impact student learning.
  • Uses assessment and evaluation results to develop appropriate interventions for students, families, schools, and communities.
  • Develops long and short-term intervention plans consistent with curriculum; students’ needs, strengths, diversity, and life experiences; and social and emotional factors.
  • Uses a variety of appropriate formal and informal tools and techniques, including observations and interviews, to evaluate the progress and performance of students and families.
• Direct Services / Service Delivery – Uses knowledge and understanding of the reciprocal influences of home, school, and community to intervene for student success via such practices as assessment, crisis intervention, home visits, conflict resolution, individual and group counseling, consultation, program development, dropout prevention, and coordination of schools and community services.
  • Promotes services to student and their families to be provided within the context of multicultural understanding and competence that enhances families’ support of students' learning experiences.
  • Provides services to students in ways that build upon individual strengths and offer students maximum opportunities to participate in the planning and direction of their own learning experience.
  • Develops and provides training and educational programs that address the goals and mission of the educational institution.
• Advocacy – Advocates for appropriate services for students and their families.
  • Advocates and facilitates change that effectively responds to the needs of students, families, and school systems using appropriate statutes, case law, policies, and procedures.
  • Promotes services to students and their families to be provided within the context of multicultural understanding and competence that enhance families’ support of students’ learning experiences.
  • Assists students and their families in gaining access to formal and informal community resources.
  • Utilizes research and technologies to assist students, families, schools, and communities.
• Consultation and Collaboration – Consults and collaborates with stakeholders on behalf of students and their families.
  • Consults with stakeholders to facilitate an understanding of factors in the home, school, and community that affect students’ educational experience.
  • Consults on such issues as attendance, confidentiality, ethnicity and diversity, mental health, behavior management, discipline, crisis intervention, and child abuse and neglect.
  • Initiates and supports activities to overcome institutional barriers and gaps in services as leaders and members of interdisciplinary teams with the unique contribution of bringing home, school, and community perspectives to the interdisciplinary process.
  • Works with individuals, groups, and organizations that have diverse interests to develop programs or systems of care that support and enhance the health, social, and emotional well‑being and safety of…