HANCOCK COUNTY — Sarah Nagle doesn’t hesitate when asked what motivated her to become a school social worker.
It’s because she would have given anything to have someone in that role to support her when she was a kid.
The 28-year-old Greenfield woman, who serves students at Eastern Hancock Elementary School, vividly remembers the day she arrived at school in tears as a fifth-grader after fellow students taunted her on the school bus for having a parent serving time in jail.
“This girl on the bus was like, ‘I saw in the paper your (parent) got arrested,’ and everybody was asking me all these questions. That’s embarrassing. You don’t talk about that kind of stuff, especially back then,” said Nagle, who also spent many nights at a local church as a kid due to domestic issues at home.
While mental health issues and services have risen to the forefront in recent years, Nagle said things were much different when she was a kid, when there wasn’t much focus on children’s emotional wellbeing.
“I’d go to school all upset and (teachers were) just like, ‘Why are you crying? Stop crying. Move on.’ Nobody really cared, per se. Maybe they didn’t know. Maybe I was just really good at hiding it,” she said.
Today, Nagle is proud to be part of the change in how students’ emotional needs are addressed.
“Nowadays if a student comes to school upset they will come to me or write me a note saying they want to talk, and I can teach them some coping skills to help them get through it,” she said. “I want to be that person for them I never had as a child.”
Outside Nagle’s office is a pale blue chair with slips of paper on it, which students can fill out and drop in her mailbox signaling they’d like to talk.
“Sometimes students are dealing with their parents getting divorced, or a family member has passed away, or they’ve been abused. It’s just all over the board,” she said.
“Some of them have been through some really heavy trauma, and hearing them talking about it and walking alongside them can be really tough. This is hands down the hardest job, but I feel like it’s one of the most rewarding at the same time,” Nagle said.
Nagle is among the countless professionals being celebrated as part of National School Social Work Week, which takes place the first full calendar week of March each year.
While school counselors focus mainly on academics while also supporting students on a personal level, social workers are specially trained to walk students through all of life’s ups and downs.
According to the School Social Work Association of America, school social workers and counselors work together to help educate and support children socially, emotionally and physically. Social workers provide support both through small groups and one-on-one interactions, through classroom presentations, consultations and networking with community resources to connect students and families with the support they need.
“Social workers provide essential services to our students and families,” said Katy Eastes, assistant superintendent for the Southern Hancock County schools, which employs six social workers district-wide.
“They are able to match families to community services to support the overall well-being of our students so that they are able to be better prepared to learn. Our social workers also play a role in the social successes of our students in and outside of the classroom environment,” said Eastes. “They curate community partnerships to provide programming to our students, connect our families to county resources, and provide clothing and hygiene items.”
Robin LeClaire, director of student services for Greenfield-Central schools, said social workers play an essential role in students’ overall wellbeing.
“Social workers help students not only with mental health and academic issues, but with getting resources they and their families might need, including foster kids, those (working with the Department of Child Services) and (those with unstable housing),” she said.
The Greenfield-Central school district hired its first social worker in 1988 with the hiring of Terry Miller, who continues to work at Weston Elementary School to this day.
The district now has six social workers and nine counselors throughout its eight schools, and officials plan to add three more social workers thanks to a grant awarded in January by the U.S. Department of Education.
“Many people think of social workers in terms of removing students from homes, but they don’t always see all the positive things they can provide,” said LeClaire.
“They connect families with services they may need, like help with food and housing, with Christmas expenses, or with mental health support. If a parent is struggling with paying utility bills, or if they need coats for their kids…a lot of people don’t know the increased need kids have for those services and support today,” she said.
The COVID pandemic pushed many of those needs to the forefront, she said, and the rise in school shootings and mental health issues have made that kind of support more essential than ever before.
“When we’re looking at issues like school shootings, the people who have been involved in those have had undiagnosed or untreated mental health issues, so we really want to make sure our students have access to mental health support so we can address issues early,” said LeClaire.
At Eastern Hancock Elementary School, Nagle visits each classroom on a weekly basis and knows each student by name.
She uses classroom visits to teach students about life skills like coping skills, communication and managing emotions, varying lessons by grade level.
“I teach them that everyone at school deserves to feel safe and respected, that their voice is important, and they do have a say in what goes on in their life,” she said.
“The most rewarding thing has been watching the kids overcome a situation they’ve really been struggling with, being the person who is there to listen to them when they feel like they don’t have anybody,” said Nagle, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in social work.
She’s enjoying her first year as a full-time social worker, after completing internships at Weston Elementary in Greenfield and another elementary school in Indianapolis.
Nagle said she’s built up a good number of connections with other school systems, which comes in handy when connecting students with resources.
“I’ve got ties at all four (Hancock County) school systems, which is nice. There’s some pretty good rapport amongst us,” said Nagle, who works at Eastern Hancock, graduated from New Palestine High School, completed an internship for Greenfield schools, and previously worked as a counselor at Mt. Vernon.
Networking with fellow schools, churches and nonprofits is essential when it comes to connecting students and their families with the right resources, said Nagle, who once helped obtain a bed for a student who didn’t have one.
She chose to work at the elementary school level because “that’s where my heart is,” she said.
“Elementary school is where I struggled the most. I wish I could have had somebody to talk to back then about what was going on in my life.”
