by Sara Jackson, CSW
Center for Safe & Healthy Families
March is recognized at Primary Children’s Hospital as Social Work month. When you hear “social worker” what do you think of? Do you see images of children being whisked away from their parents or from unsafe home conditions? People often incorrectly assume that all social workers work for child protective services. In fact, social work transcends many different areas of practice and at Primary Children’s Hospital, social workers serve a variety of functions.
To understand more about how social workers can help you and your family, here is a brief list of some of the ways in which social workers can help:
- Connect you with community resources for therapy, counseling and/or medication management
- Connect you with additional medical resources or specialty doctors if necessary
- Help you find transportation to/from the hospital
- Help you get an overnight room if your child is an inpatient at Primary Children’s Hospital
- Provide a list of discounted hotels in the area
- Support your family during stressful times
- Tell you where to get food/beverages
- Conduct crisis evaluations
- Help to locate a chaplain or elder
- Provide crisis counseling
- Serve as a liaison between you and medical staff
- Help contact family members in times of an emergency
- Help to explain medical procedures to you and your child
- Help you cope with grief and loss
- Help manage family conflict
- Conduct inpatient/residential and outpatient mental health treatment
- Behavioral Health provides counseling, therapy, psychiatry and crisis services to children suffering a variety of mental health issues through a number of different programs
- Safe & Healthy Families provides outpatient therapy to children who have been through a trauma, who are acting out sexually or who are having behavioral issues
So, don’t be scared when you’re asked if you would like a social worker to come visit with you…we’re here to help and to make your time at Primary Children’s Hospital easier!
Find out more about Family Support Services at Primary Children’s Hospital.
Find out more about Medical Social Work at Primary Children’s Hospital.
