Re-Imagining School Social Work: Insights from a Tri-Country Study

School social work is an important and growing specialist area of practice in many parts of the world as it involves practitioners working to ensure that children and adolescents navigate and overcome obstacles that might impede their academic and social success. Social workers in schools undertake a wide range of tasks to ensure that children, adolescents, their families and communities are empowered and supported to achieve to the best of their abilities. These roles include improving school attendance, monitoring and offering support for behaviour, assessing and addressing risk of harm, working to improve children’s overall health and wellbeing, supporting families facing financial difficulties and engaging with the other services in the community, to mention a few. This paper presents the findings from a 2-year funded research project examining the role and purpose of school social work in the United Arab Emirates, England and Ghana. Drawing on data generated from 37qualitative semi structured interviews, a significant finding is that school social workers can contribute to the realisation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by undertaking daily social work tasks within education, school settings and with families.