Advocates and Allies: Celebrating School Social Workers

Wendy Castiglia, a school social worker and member of the Hamburg Teachers Association, considers herself “one of the lucky people” who knew from a very young age what she wanted to do with her life. She felt called to help others, especially children, though it wasn’t until a college externship that allowed her to shadow working professionals that she learned that her calling had a name: school social work.

“I’ve always believed very firmly in giving children as much support towards a successful life as possible. That’s what drew me to social work,” said Castiglia. “If we can’t help them from the time that they’re children, what will happen to them as adults?”

After earning a master’s degree in social work, Castiglia, who grew up outside Buffalo and calls herself a “Western New York lifer,” immediately began working at a local school and has never looked back. After 23 years as a school social worker at an area middle school, she moved into working with elementary students and has been at Armor Elementary School in Hamburg for nearly a decade.

Regardless of the age of the students she is working with, Castiglia is dedicated to being a caring, kind presence in their lives.

“It’s about building a rapport,” she notes. “I meet people where they are, show respect for what they’re going through, and I’m an ally to them and an advocate for them.”

School social work is a profession that doesn’t always come with a set schedule or a typical day.

Castiglia often works with students one on one, and leads group sessions in classrooms, where she uses techniques like restorative circles and other exercises to help students learn about feelings and teach them coping strategies. At other times, she conducts trainings on youth mental health topics for other school employees, or she may be called upon to deal with emergent issues that directly impact student health and safety.

“I always joke that my students learn flexibility and patience with me, because they all know that at any given moment, I could be called into a situation that needs attention immediately,” said Castiglia.

Outside her daily responsibilities at Armor Elementary, Castiglia is also president of the New York State School Social Workers’ Association. She has long been an advocate for her profession — she is a founding member of the decades-old School Social Work Association of America — and works to ensure that more people, from parents to community members to leaders at the State Education Department and in the Legislature understand what school social workers do and why they are essential to a well-functioning school.

“I really feel that it’s important that an organization like ours has a voice in the state and is constantly reminding state leaders that we’re needed, and we’re important, and we play a vital role,” said Castiglia. “That is my motivation — to support and strengthen our profession within the state and to promote it where we don’t exist.”

This year, SSWAA’s celebration of National School Social Work Week, which takes place March 1-7 under the theme “Unite to Ignite,” focuses on the impact of school social workers, and their daily work on behalf of students, families and all members of the school community.

School social workers are key members of the Collective Care Team, working together with school nurses, school counselors, and school psychologists to foster academic and personal growth for students. School social workers are trained and licensed mental health practitioners who help students navigate issues large and small that they may face at home and at school. In addition to directly supporting students’ emotional health and educational success, school social workers connect families to available community resources and collaborate with classroom teachers and other colleagues to create a safe and welcoming school community for all.

Despite being the only school social worker at her school, Castiglia emphasizes that her job is all about teamwork. Schools are filled with inherently caring professionals in a variety of roles, she said. It’s only through partnership — with administrators, teachers, and others in the school building, each using their own specialized training and expertise — that the full picture comes together and the school succeeds.

As Castiglia reflects on her decades of work as a school social worker, she acknowledges that the work comes with challenges and heartbreak, but also great successes. She says there are still times when she doubts her ability to make change in her students’ lives, when many of them face difficulties at home or are dealing with disabilities or have other issues at play that she can’t address.

In moments like those, she reminds herself of the research that shows that one of the biggest predictors of a child’s resilience is having a positive relationship with an adult.

“It doesn’t have to be anybody fancy. Ideally, it’s the child’s parents, but for many kids it isn’t. It’s the bus driver who says hello to them every morning; it’s the lunch lady who opens their milk every day and says hi to them, it’s their teacher,” Castiglia said.

With that in mind, she focuses on what she can do, and that’s being a caring force in their lives, no matter what.

“I remind myself maybe that can be me, for somebody. If I can provide a welcoming place where they can feel safe and accepted and know that they can always come, then maybe I will be that person for them.”

Castiglia continued, “I think that’s really important for everyone working in education to know. You may still be impacting their lives in ways that someday you’ll get to know, or maybe you’ll never get to know. But that’s an invaluable impact.”