In recent years, more and more people in Japan are becoming school social workers after having social work experience outside of the education field. While having social work experience is helpful for SSWers in their work, this experience often makes them feel uncomfortable when they start their new job in the school setting. This study aims to clarify this discomfort and examine how SSWers cope with it. Interviews with three dispatched SSWers with less than three years of work experience were analyzed using M-GTA. SSWers have the following three uncomfortable feelings during the newcomer period. (1) There is a gap between the teachers' and SSWer's vision of what they want to achieve for their children. While teachers seek educational outcomes, SSWers aim to stabilize the child's life foundation. In addition, (2) when discussing support with teachers, there is a lack of a common language to understand each other's intentions. This makes it difficult to unify the intention of support. Furthermore, (3) since it is mainly the teachers who decide the division of roles in dealing with cases, even in cases where SSWer intervention is effective, they are unable to respond as they would like, and feel a lack of a sense of place and conflict about how they should be as SSWers. Finally, based on the narratives, we discuss how being able to positively perceive discomfort due to social work experience is an important factor in being able to continue as a professional while maintaining externality.

Authors:
Hitomi Satoh, Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University, Japan

About the Presenter(s)
Mrs.Hitomi Satoh is currently a lecturer at Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University.

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