Usually in school, parents and children communicate only with the teacher and administration representatives (the director and his deputies for the academic part). But in order for the learning process to be more successful, the school still has a psychologist, a social educator, a safety engineer and a head teacher in educational work. Often parents do not even know what is included in their job duties and with what questions they can turn to them for help.
In this article, let's look at what a social educator does and what duties he has in school.
Who is a social teacher in school?
A social educator is a person who provides interaction between a family, an educational institution in which their child is educated and other organizations.
The school social teacher studies the psychological and age characteristics of all schoolchildren, organizes various types of socially useful activities, helps to implement legal protection and social support for the child and family, directs the actions of parents and teachers to prevent the negative impact on the development of the personality of complex children.
The work of the social teacher in the school is to interact with:
- children of the "risk group";
- parents;
- law enforcement agencies;
- socially unprotected families of students;
- pedagogical collective.
The official duties of the social pedagogue in the school
The main functions on which the social pedagogue depends are:
- creating a healthy climate in the school community, especially within the classes;
- the organization of extra-curricular time for schoolchildren, their inclusion in socially useful activities, the organization of social and pedagogical activity in society, various types of cooperation between adults and children;
- ongoing communication with the students' families, especially from the "risk group"
- protection of the rights of the child, including from parental cruelty
- the formation of humane relations between teachers and children;
- providing professional assistance to children and their families to resolve conflict and socially difficult situations;
- representation and protection of the interests of children and their families in various public services and public organizations;
- organization of the prevention of the use of psychoactive substances.
In order to do its job, the social educator has the right:
- be a representative and advocate of the interests of children in the services of municipal bodies and authorities (in court, the police);
- collect information about the family, do sociological surveys and diagnostics;
- to send official inquiries to public organizations and state institutions related to the official activities of the social teacher;
- to conduct work on studying the experience of family education: to visit at home to identify housing conditions and their sanitary condition, monitor visits, interview neighbors.
It is to the social educator that you can apply for advice to families of disabled children, low-income people, guardians and guardians of orphans.
One of the most important directions of the work of a social pedagogue is preventive work, which consists of:
- socialization of adolescents;
- prevention of smoking , alcohol and drugs;
- promotion of a healthy lifestyle;
- organization of free time: circles, sports, attraction to volunteer work or participation in social projects.
The activity of the social teacher at school is very important, since in this difficult time of legal insecurity, growth of cruelty in the family and child crime, children need social and psychological help.