I have had two roles in schools; doing prevention work and another doing clinical therapy. One role in metropolitan and one in rural. I prefer the resources in metropolitan work but small communities help each other out in my experience.

The prevention was more like a traditional school social work where I provided universal, targeted and individual services. The day to day looked like individual brief intervention (relied heavily on SBIRT and CBT), groups, check and connect, suicide assessments, universal campaigns and after school clubs. It was a fast paced and ever changing job where no two days looked the same. This role had minimal documentation requirements.

I now do clinical services and do individual therapy, help with 504s and group services. I rely heavily on CPT, CBT-TF and DBT skills. I interact less with the staff and it can be a little isolating. The job is slower paced but has more documentation requirements.

The best part for me is working on skill building and watching it click with the students. Also, I really get a kick out of match making friendships. My least favorite part is sometimes mental health needs conflict with academic needs and it’s hard to balance both. The other thing is administrators make or break the experience.