It’s the final day of Social Work Week at the TDSB — a time to recognize the dedicated professionals who support students’ mental health, well-being, and success every day. School social workers play a vital role in helping students navigate challenges, build resilience, and feel connected at school.
To mark the occasion, we sat down with Dedrie and Yulanda, two TDSB social workers to learn more about the work they do and the impact they make across our schools.
Q: How do school social workers support students’ mental health and well-being?
A-Yulanda: Social workers work tirelessly supporting students across our schools. By working across a continuum of mental health supports, called Tiers, they respond to individual, family, school and classroom needs.
From September 2025 to February 2026 there were 590 Tier 1 initiatives, which included workshops, education and debriefing sessions for students. In Tier 2, social workers were assessing, screening, and providing intervention to individual students and in groups.
A total of 1,106 students were supported during that time.
In Tier 3, social workers provide specialized consultation and assessments for students, families and caregivers, by supporting and connecting them to more intensive mental health supports. And roughly, 6,580 students were supported through Tier 3.
We have 140 Registered Social Workers, who have all been trained in Culturally Adaptive CBT, a therapeutic intervention proven to be effective in diverse populations. All social workers at the TDSB also use a Trauma Informed Lens to provide the appropriate therapeutic intervention to support the mental health and well-being needs of our students and families.
Q: What signs might indicate a student could benefit from speaking with a social worker?
A-Dedrie: Signs can include any changes in personality, demeanor, behaviour, and academic success. These can be identified by teachers, administrators, school support staff, parents/caregivers, or students themselves. The less noticeable signs are those that the students carry silently and alone. It is often through a caring adult in the school, whom the student trusts, that they may disclose any feelings or thoughts of needing support.
Social workers at TDSB continuously provide consultation, training and support to school teams so that they too can become aware of signs that might indicate a student could benefit from speaking with a social worker. The trainings and initiatives, which social workers have been providing, leading and supporting include:
- AntiSex Trafficking, Human Trafficking and Healthy Relationships;
- Healthy Masculinity in various schools (and expanding);
- Mental Health Student Ambassadors with over 1000 students in 70 schools,
- Root2Rise: A Black male mental health symposium
- Digital Safety events for parents/caregivers
- Suicide Prevention trainings through PR726 and SafeTalk
Q: What kinds of challenges are students dealing with today?
A- Yulanda: Both the COVID-19 pandemic and social media have changed the ways in which students interact with each other and understand themselves. This has created a unique challenge for our students today. Currently, through social media, our youth can remain physically in isolation, and have unfiltered and uncensored access to thousands of persons, images, and mixed media. We see the impacts of these in our schools today. This includes, increased anxiety, isolation, depression, the development of unhealthy coping skills, and seeking comfort and friendship from unknown people and places. A recent survey completed by The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in 2023 (Grades 7-12) reported that over a third of students surveyed in Ontario indicated elevated levels of stress.
It is for these reasons that social work continues to provide education to our students about the harmful effects of social media and the underlying impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through individual counselling sessions, group workshops and intentional symposiums, the social work department strives to increase the awareness, and need for intervention in our students and with our educators.
Q: How does your role differ from that of a guidance counsellor or psychologist?
A - Dedrie: The role of the social worker differs in many ways. Social workers use engagement and relationship building skills to complete a holistic and clinical assessment for each student or family referred. This allows social workers to consider the impacts of any identified individual, family, community, or systemic factors impacting any particular student or creating barriers to student success.
Social workers provide crisis intervention, connection to community resources, and advocate for students’ social and emotional needs. We focus on the emotional and social needs of students, within an academic setting; however, academics is not the primary focus of the intervention or support. All social workers at TDSB have clinical skills that allow them to counsel and support students individually. Using modalities such as Culturally Adaptive CBT, Trauma-Informed Practice, or Narrative Therapy, our social workers can provide evidence-informed interventions and support to our students.
Q: How do you collaborate with teachers, principals, and other school staff?
A - Yulanda: Social workers spend a lot of time collaborating with colleagues to support students and their families. This can look different depending on the scenario, and can include, supporting classroom lessons or workshops, providing alternative perspectives for how situations or students are viewed, providing community resources that can be shared with a student and/or their family, problem solving various ways to provide support or intervention. As a member of the school team, it is imperative for collaboration to occur between the school and the student/family. Often seen as the bridge, social workers strive to support and connect the home environment with the classroom setting.
Q: What’s one thing you wish every parent knew about school social work?
A – Dedrie: It would be fantastic if every parent knew there was such a resource connected to every school and every social worker is responsible for supporting 4-7 schools at one time throughout the year.
Another, thing we wished parents knew is, while there is a process to access the support (clear informed consent), social workers strive to connect students and families with supports that are intentional and identity- affirming to bolster the entire circle of care surrounding them. Often, parents are not always aware that this is a support available at the school level.