Job Skills
To be a family social worker, you’ll need to be trustworthy, stable, and mature to deal calmly and responsibly with people and families in crisis. You should be able to work independently or as a team member, and to get along with a variety of people.

Income
In 2008, the median annual salary for child, family, and school workers was $39,530. The median earnings of the lowest 10 percent of workers were $25,870, and the top 10 percent’s median earnings were $66,430. The highest numbers of child, school, and family social workers were employed by elementary and secondary schools (mean annual salary $56,570) and local government agencies (mean annual salary $48,440).

Training and Education
There are three levels of social work training and education: the bachelor’s degree in social work (BSW), the master’s degree (MSW), and the doctorate (DSW or PhD).
• BSW. To be a family social worker, you’ll need at least a BSW, which requires at least 400 hours of supervised fieldwork in addition to 4 years of classroom courses.
• MSW. You’ll need an MSW to work in health settings or to do clinical or private work. An MSW takes about 2 years of classes beyond your BSW and requires at least 900 hours of supervised internship.
• DSW or PhD. To teach social work in a college or university, you’ll need a DSW or PhD in social work. A DSW of PhD also allows you conduct research into problems or questions relating to family social work.
All states have license, certificate, or registration requirements, although requirements vary from state to state. As of 2006, there were 458 BSW and 181 MSW programs in the U.S. accredited by the Council on Social Work Education. There were also 74 doctoral programs accredited by the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education.

Employment
Child, school, and family social workers held about 282,000 jobs in 2006.

Job Outlook
Between 2006 and 2016, the number of jobs for child, school, and family social workers is predicted to increase by 19 percent, which is higher than the average growth for all jobs. Your opportunities will be greatest in rural areas, where it’s often difficult to attract and retain qualified social workers. Social workers who specialize in helping those with disabilities or want to work in public schools may have the best employment opportunities.
With the right education and certification, you can become a supervisor, manage a program, or direct a family social work agency or department.

It’s a difficult challenge, and one few of us might face in a lifetime. Yet the referral and assessment team in Coventry gets around 40 calls every day about children reported to be at risk. Each one needs to be explored and evaluated, and a decision taken about whether to intervene. Strangely, many of the calls prove to be malicious hoaxes.

But to find out, the social workers must go to a house of strangers likely to be most unhappy about being visited with a view to losing their children. That house, as we saw, may be beyond most people’s imaginations – such as one where an anonymous fax reported faeces smeared on the window. The social workers found the children were playing with it in their catastrophic bedroom. Yet the hapless mother agreed she could not cope, and the social workers eventually persuaded the grandmother to house the children temporarily. Removal into care was not needed – yet.

We went behind the screaming headlines to see how social workers cope with the pressures – the huge caseloads, the paperwork that keeps them office-bound, the lack of staff to whom to pass on emergency cases. It means, as both social workers and clients told us, that only visiting some families once a month means the truth is easy to conceal. All this risk management is in the shadow of hostile media that spread paranoia through the ranks.

And yet many of them are proud of what they do. When they recognised that we play straight with difficult subjects, several councils agreed to let us film. We chose Coventry because of its commitment to openness, tested in many challenging meetings. We came to admire how well it manages, despite the shortcomings. As one of the social workers said, “I don’t know how long people can go on working like this. There’s no lull. It’s just 100mph all the time.” She loves her job, as others we met obviously do, but as she said: “You just would not do this job if you thought about what could actually happen.”

She means another Baby Peter case. Even the supervisors are aware it could happen to any of them. A child dies at the hands of an adult – not a social worker – in their home every six days. That is the national scandal. And we ask these underpaid, unsung people to deal with it as best they can. It’s an emotional and professional marathon. They deserve much more than simple opprobrium when things go wrong.

One subset of the homeless population includes former foster youth. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, within two to four years of exiting foster care, 25 percent of foster children experience homelessness. As several of the research articles listed below indicates, another subset of homeless individuals is those with mental health needs. There are also a large number of former veterans who become homeless. It is estimated that between 23 percent and 40 percent of homeless adults are veterans (National Alliance to End Homelessness). Finally, many of those who face homelessness are families—women and children. Of those children who are homeless, 43 percent are younger than six (National Alliance to End Homelessness).

Social workers in a variety of positions will likely provide services to this diverse population at some point in time. It is therefore important to be equipped with the information necessary to understand and address the needs of these individuals. To that end, this Web site provides resources on research pertinent to issues faced by social workers. These include journal articles, papers presented at a national symposium, and descriptions of organizations that provide research findings and further information.