Date of Award
Spring 5-6-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
DOI
10.70013/6vq9amxq
Degree Name
D.S.W. Social work
Department
Social Work
First Advisor
Janice Gasker, DSW, LCSW
Second Advisor
John Vafeas, DSW, LSW
Third Advisor
Lydia DeBiase, PhD, LCSW
Abstract
School districts are serving populations of students being faced with more multiplex sets of individual, school, family, and community level risk factors (Berzin & O’Connor, 2010; Boske & Benavente-McEnery, 2010; Frey et al., 2012; Kelly et al., 2010). Many children are unable to respond effectively to the school setting due to the stress in their family’s lives and the stressors in their home environment (Openshaw, 2008). There is knowledge that social and environmental constraints can negatively affect a child’s role in an educational setting and a student’s capability to learn tends to be challenged if their emotional and physical needs are not fulfilled at home (Forenza & Eckhardt, 2020; Ilhan et al., 2019). Even though there is research to suggest that socioeconomic factors are key influences in contributing to academic inequality (Dumont & Ready, 2020), the policy decisions made within school districts tend to be disconnected to the conditions outside of a student’s school day (Downey & Condron, 2016). The purpose of this research study is to investigate the practice of home visiting by school social workers conducting home visits for school districts. Gaining knowledge about home visits within school districts needs to come from comprehensive in-depth personal communication with school social workers to include their experiences and perceptions of the intervention of home visits. Three separate focus groups were conducted with a group of schoolocial workers from a school social work networking group. Grounded theory was used as the research method to uncover the meaning of social processes, research, and concepts that include social relationships and behaviors of school social workers which began with a set of observations and then drawing on conclusions from those observations. For this research study, the intersection of categories for construction of theory is as follows. School social workers consider home visiting to be a part of their practice within school districts, but school social workers are unaware of any policy and procedures to support their practice of conducting home visits for school districts. School social workers are not supervised by social workers at their school districts and do not receive formal supervision. This lack of guidance and support given to school social workers significantly impacts their practice within schools and the intervention of home visits. Based on the findings, recommendations for school social work education, practice, research, and leadership are provided.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Kinnarney, Sadie K., "School Social Workers Conducting Home Visits: Practice and Perceptions" (2024). Social Work Doctoral Dissertations. 34.
https://research.library.kutztown.edu/socialworkdissertations/34
