The State of School Social Worker Workload in School Education:A Time Study of Full-Time Positions in City A

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to focus on the workload of full-time school social workers deployed at school education sites in City A, to ascertain their actual working conditions and to obtain basic data that will lead to an evaluation of the School Social Work (SSW) Project. A time study was conducted on eight social workers in a municipality that has developed school social work services of the dispatch and base school type. The results showed that, overall, the items that accounted for a high percentage of their daily working hours (excluding breaks) were, record keeping (23.6%), meetings with teachers, consultation, and advice (face-to-face) (13.1%), and transportation (9.3%). Conversely, the items with the lowest percentages were meeting with children and their parents (face-to-face) (1.4%), case conferences (1.5%), and meeting with parents alone (face-to-face) (1.9%). Based on these findings, recommendations for building and improving the SSW Project are presented.