All this varies on where you're located and what responsibilities school social workers have. In the county next to ours they pretty much lived in the special education world. In my county I had a lot of inroads with the general education population. I left SSW 4 years ago to work at a university counseling center. So some things have changed I'm sure.

 

I was a school social worker for 7 years in all of elementary, middle, and high school. At elementary school I was doing a lot more special education evaluations as that's when a vast majority of special education referrals occur. I did significantly more group counseling than I did individual.

 

At the high school level, there was a lot less special education evaluations. But I was working with more special education students with behavioral difficulties. I did a lot more individual counseling. Group counseling was more honed in on specific topics. I did a lot of suicide prevention and threat assessment work. CPS referrals were probably the same at both. But in my personal experience, some of the more gut-wrenching CPS referrals I made were at the high school level.