Workforce

News


SPRING/SUMMER 2024

Together, we can create a more

JUST future.


Welcome to the Second Workforce for Student Well-Being Newsletter! 


It has been a busy first year of our five-year grant cycle as we transitioned 

our inaugural cohort to career support, presented findings at local, regional, 

and national conferences and began to build our legislative platform.

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The Workforce for Student Well-Being

Now, more than ever, our schools need qualified and trained school-based mental health practitioners to help turn the tide of the youth mental health crisis and confront the educational disparities impacting our students.


Through the WSW Initiative, we are making a case for school social workers as one of the solutions schools and districts can capitalize on to make change. Washington ranks in the lowest tier among states for youth mental health (Mental Health America, 2022) and has approximately one school social worker for every 

12,000 students (less than 1/50th of the recommended level). By training the next generation of school social workers, we will transform the approach to school mental health with qualified practitioners equipped with current evidence-based practices.


Our vision is a four-part change strategy starting with recruiting diverse candidates in a school behavioral health career pathway using conditional scholarships. Next, we will educate school social work graduate candidates and their internship supervisors in evidence-based practices and systems-wide implementation strategies relevant to school-based mental health. We will then support these same school social work candidates in receiving their ESA and hours towards licensure. Finally, we will work 

to retain candidates in school-based mental health positions through advocacy and legislative efforts. See below for our model for change in greater detail.


Click on image below for larger view of our concept model:

Inaugural WSW Cohort

The thirteen students and field instructors in the WSW 2023-2024 cohort successfully completed the Community of Practice.


The aims of the Community of Practice are threefold:


  1. Grow and expand on school social workers’ knowledge base
  2. Reduce school social workers’ sense of isolation and improve retention
  3. Support and invest in building a Washington State School Social Work labor force that reflects the communities they serve


Our 90-minute sessions met a total of 20 times over the course of the year. Students and practicum instructors alike benefitted from the knowledge and expertise of regional and national experts in the field including UW SMART Center staff, representatives from OSPI, Seattle Children’s FAST Program, and Washington Association for School Social Workers (WASSW). Through exploration of problems and solutions in current social work practice, students felt galvanized to become change agents in their school settings post-graduation. One student said the following:



" I cannot even begin to describe the impact that CoP and WSW has had on my work currently and the impact it will have on my work moving forward. It lit a fire inside of me, on a level I didn't know existed. As social workers, we often have that fire within us to fight for change, for justice, for humans. I have always been drawn to work with adolescents/teenagers. I never saw myself as someone who had the potential to make a real difference on a system level until now. 

My thoughts are realistic, I know that change does not happen quickly and it is often an uphill battle. But I feel inspired to start that journey uphill and know that 

I have the tools and support from this incredible professional group to do so. 

I really am so grateful.



WSW in the Community

WSW has been busy sharing our model and preliminary findings with various audiences both locally and nationally. After our national presentation at the Annual Conference for Advancing Student Mental Health (ASMH), we brought our findings and model to the Northwest PBIS (NWPBIS) conference in Tacoma this past April.


View ASMH PowerPoint presentation > here

View NWPBIS PowerPoint presentation > here

We are excited to formalize our partnership with the Washington Association of School Social Workers and to expand our Institute of Higher Education partnerships with the addition of Heritage University this coming fall.

Retreat & Networking Dinner

The WSW held our inaugural Retreat and Networking Dinner this spring. 


We connected with each other in-person for the first time, finished our ESA course, benefitted from presentations on the Asking IS Caring Suicide Prevention & Intervention Across MTSS Model from Dr. Jenn Stuber and Tawni Barlow, and received training from Dr. Nat Jungbluth on Seattle Children’s First Approach Skills Training (FAST) for Anxiety.

View photos from our Retreat & Networking 

Dinner on our > website.

As we transitioned our first cohort of students to career supports we asked them what advice they have for the incoming cohort next year:



"
There is no way I could have imagined how beneficial WSW has been both professionally and personally. Every single week there was content provided that I found useful for the work we do in schools. It is educational, thought provoking, and entertaining. Rachel is incredibly supportive, do not shy away from reaching out. Everyone is here to support your success in this field. Engage and soak everything up...it goes fast! I feel lucky to be part of this amazing project. Congrats to the newest cohort!


" This experience has truly been a highlight of my second year of my MSW training! The community that we have built during this time has felt so warm and welcoming, and I feel a lot more comfortable and confident in my skills as an upcoming School Social Worker! I am so grateful for Rachel, Clynita, Nikki, and the rest of the team that has made this program all that it is, especially as it has made my MSW degree affordable and achievable! I look forward to the continued connections and community of SSWers that have been formed.



WSW Legislative Priorities

We were fortunate to have Representative 

Lisa Callan attend our WSW Networking Dinner where she shared her thoughts on the mental health needs facing Washington students.


We also recently met with Representative 

Tina Orwall about building our school mental health workforce and were privileged to have her present at the UW SMART Center's Research Institute for Implementation Science in Education (RIISE)

The Workforce for Student Well-being is developing a policy platform to help strengthen the presence of school social workers across the state of Washington. If you are interested in contributing your thoughts and expertise to our policy brief or support our advocacy efforts please sign-up for our mailing list and/or reach out to us directly.

Sign-Up Today

We plan to use this platform on a bi-annual basis to share major program developments, milestones and insights with school social workers, educators, legislators and advocates as we invest in developing the school-based mental health workforce over the course of our five-year grant cycle.


Please contact us via email, we welcome your inquiries and feedback. 

And, be sure to stay informed about this body of work through our WSW website.


We welcome your inquiries and feedback. Please contact us at wswinitiative@uw.edu

Send a Message

The WSW Initiative is a collaboration among the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, the University of Washington School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (UW SMART) Center, the UW School of Social Work in Seattle, and the state’s four other accredited schools of social work. Additional core partners include the Washington Association of School Principals and the Washington Association of School Social Workers.


We are committed to supporting students, families, schools and communities in Washington State.Through the Workforce for Student Well-being (WSW) Initiative, skilled school social workers—school mental health service professionals—will provided much needed support

to students, families, and K-12 schools.


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