Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Provides social work services to students in elementary and middle grades and their families to assist with improving home situations, environments, and conditions that may impact students’ school work, behavior, and mental health and to help families understand the school and relevant school programs.
• Counsels students for the purpose of building relationships, promoting student engagement in personal academic success, and detecting potential issues that may require academic, social, emotional, and/or behavioral intervention.
• Serves as a liaison between students’ families and the school and visits students’ homes as necessary to conduct assessments, identify underlying causes for student academic, social, and/or behavioral issues, establish effective communication, and positively promote collaboration in resolving identified concerns by encouraging parent/guardian participation in their student’s educational planning.
• Communicates effectively with school administrators, teachers, and other school-level and district-level HCS personnel in regards to individual student matters on a case-by-case basis and facilitates conferences with parents/guardians as appropriate.
• Refers at-risk students and their families to suitable internal or external medical, behavioral, and/or social resources or law enforcement agencies as appropriate; serves as a liaison between the families and service providers in order to gain necessary assistance.
• Maintains necessary follow-up for disadvantaged students, including homeless and foster care students or those receiving state or federal assistance.
• Assesses and meets with students upon re-entry into the school system from expulsion or incarceration to discuss school rules and expectations in order to provide a smooth transition and increase the student’s academic
• Collaborates with attorneys, judges, and the Juvenile Detention Center in regards to students who violate school policy and the law and coordinates with the Juvenile Detention Center and the schools regarding the transfer of school records.
• Maintains necessary follow-up for students as appropriate to assist in the implementation of individual prevention and/or intervention plans or court-ordered actions and to monitor and support student progress in meeting identified goals.
• Educates and assists students and their families with the application process for participation in the annual Free and Reduced Lunch program.
• Documents and compiles accurate and confidential student information for use by school personnel and outside agencies while maintaining compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
• Participates in a variety of approved trainings, activities, and events, including in-service programs, seminars, conferences, workshops, etc. to address professional learning needs.
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Qualifications

A Bachelor's Degree from an accredited college/university in Social Work, Sociology, Psychology, Social Welfare, or a related field with at least one (1) year of experience as a social worker. Must possess a Bachelor Social Worker license from the Alabama State Board of Social Work Examiners.

Physical Requirements

Requires exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently and/or a negligible amount of force frequently constantly.

Terms of Employment

Eleven or twelve month year. Salary as recommended by the Superintendent and approved by the Board.

This specification has been designed to represent the general nature and level of work found in this position. As such, it is not intended to contain all duties and qualifications of an employee in this position. Consequently, it is not intended to be perceived as an identification of essential job functions as required by ADA. Note: The omission of specific statements of duties does not exclude them from the position if the work is similar, related or logical assignment to that position.