Meeting the social and behavioral health needs of students: rethinking the relationship between teachers and school social workers.

Background: While school-based mental health professionals obviously must provide mental health services to students directly, the literature is increasingly identifying an empowerment role for these professionals, whereby they support teachers as primary service providers. The purpose of this study was to identify subtypes of school social workers within the context of collaborative practice, and to identify individual and contextual factors associated with these classifications as well as overall levels of collaboration.

Methods: Latent class analysis, conducted using data collected as part of the National School Social Work Survey 2008 (N = 1639), was employed to examine underlying subtypes of school social work practitioners in relation to collaborative practices and to examine predictors of collaborative practice.