School Social Work Association of Alabama

A great resource event happening next week in Birmingham!!

🎉🎉 It’s School Social Work Week!!

We are honored to support our fellow School Social Workers that work tirelessly every day to help bridge gaps and tear down barriers that impact our students and their families.

School social workers are pivotal not only in supporting social emotional learning and school safety, but also in academic success.

For more information about school social work resources from School Social Work Association of America (SSWAA) visit: https://www.sswaa.org/school-social-work-week

We look forward to hearing from you about how you’ve advocated for our profession this week!!

Each year, the SSWAAL Executive Board looks outside of the social work profession to honor someone who works tirelessly to advocate for our roles in schools.

Our Kay Atchinson Warfield Social Work Advocacy award is named after Dr. Kay Warfield who is a long time advocate for school social work and has laid a lot of the foundation for social workers to be in every LEA across Alabama. SSWAAL Board Members, Emily Littrell and Chelsea Cloud were able to present this award at the State Superintendents of Alabama meeting in Montgomery on January 22. A special thank you to SSA for helping us pull of the suprise!

This year‘s advocacy award winner has been a tireless advocate for ensuring all of his students have the supports. They need to truly succeed. He has been instrumental in building up crucial support systems that serve students and meet their needs on an individual level. This commitment to student needs is evident in his districts remarkable gains and highest ever report card score in 2025. His visionary leadership also led to the creation of the New Heights Community Resource Center, a school based community resource center that brings together education, mental health, and community resources for students and families.

While he has known by many for his incredible accomplishments in these areas, the school social workers in his district recognize him for his deep belief in school, social workers, as essential partners and student success, safety, and well-being. During his time as superintendent of Tuscaloosa city schools, he was an early supporter of school, social work, building a team of school social workers years before other districts, and continuing to expand it as needs crew. He personally saw the value that School social workers brought to his district and the impact they had on student success. He constantly sought additional funds to continue building his team and eventually expanded his team to 13 school social workers across his district, his deep belief in his team of school social workers, and his tireless advocacy for school social work has deeply impacted the students, families, and community that he serves. His legacy of supporting students will continue as he prepares for retirement at the end of the school year!

We are proud to have his support and can not thank him enough for the years of hard work he has put into to his students and his social workers! Congratulations to Dr. Mike Daria of Tuscaloosa City Schools!

The Alabama school social worker of the year award honors an outstanding school social worker who has demonstrated exceptional dedication to supporting students, families, and school communities. This award recognizes a professional whose work reflects the highest standards of the field, including demonstrating passion, generating hope, exemplifying, integrity, and creating meaningful collaboration

This year’s winner arrived in her district 6 years ago and has steadily and tirelessly worked to develop her district’s school social work and mental health program from the ground up. She is a consistent advocate for her students, her families, and her team. She is an incredible collaborator, using these skills to benefit her District and her community. She has developed a community – wide mental health – focused 5K to promote mental health awareness, bringing together several school districts, mental health agencies, nonprofits, and community partners. She faithfully serves on the board of her county’s DHR. She is determined and works to secure funding and resources for her district’s school social workers department, going above and beyond to ensure they always have what they need.

She is a constant advocate, looking for ways to advocate, not only for her district social workers, but for school social workers across the state. She is described as someone who truly embodies the heart and soul of school social work. 

We could not be more honored to have Robbie Hines from Oxford City Schools represent us as the 2026 Alabama School Social Worker of the year!

Our Spirit of Social Work Award celebrates a school social worker who embodies the heart and soul of the profession through unwavering dedication, compassion, and advocacy. This award recognizes an individual who supports excellent practice and advocates for the development of excellent practitioners, fostering positive change and promoting equity.

This year‘s spirit of social work award winner has been a school social worker for 22 years, helping pioneer the school social work profession within her district and within our state. Within her district, she serves as the mental health services coordinator, leads her district crisis response and grief team, and has advocated to build up and lead a fully staffed team of school social workers across her large district.

Her team has said that she supports them so well that they are able to seamlessly meet the needs of their schools because of her support. Outside of her district, she also leads the Jefferson County Multi-Needs Team and works closely with the Jefferson County Multi-Disciplinary Team at Prescott House. Not only has she worked to build up and lead a school social work team within her district, but she has also found ways to invest in other school social workers outside her district as well. Having seen the value of the social work peer supervision group in her own practice, she worked to start a new group to invest in her newer school social workers as well.

Her team says that she leads by example and inspires every social worker she meets to serve with the same heart and respect she displays every day. We are honored to present the 2026 spirit of social work award to Kathryn Stewart of Hoover City Schools!

Last week during our annual conference we were able to highlight a few of our fellow school social workers for the individual work they do each day for the students and families they serve!

Our Rising Star award is given each year to a school social worker with less than 3 years of practice in a school setting. They demonstrate exceptional promise, and dedication early in their school, social work career. This award honors, a professional, who is making a meaningful impact through their courage, care, and innovation and supporting families, students, and school communities.

This year’s SSWAAL Rising Star Award winner began working and the school social work field in 2024 after working for many years in residential treatment facilities. Upon arrival in her School District, she quickly built a solid foundation of trust with both the students and the staff. She consistently goes above and beyond and the ways she advocates for students, and she absolutely does not give up. She has words to create a sense of safety for students who have experienced significant trauma, allowing them to be open and share with her. She has worked closely with students who are planning to drop out helping push them to the finish line when everyone else had given up on them. She works to problem solve in some of the most challenging situations, refusing to back down from any problem. She is an incredible example of empowerment-helping students by pushing them, encouraging them, challenging them, and believing in them. We are honored to have Marquita Rouser from Fairfield City Schools as our 2026 Rising Star!

One of the biggest highlights was Auburn University Social Work Program BSW Students, Annalise Remigailo, Claira Wilson and Cannon Curlee shared an inspiring presentation during our lunch session, “From Care to Corrections: Risk and Protective Factors Influencing Foster Youth Outcomes”.

It’s amazing to see the hard work upcoming social workers are putting in and we are so proud to welcome them into this amazing profession!

We also had incredible vendors and sponsors for this years annual conference!!

We can not thank all of our supporters for helping us put on our most attended conference!

Auburn University Social Work Program
Alabama Public Health-AllKids
Children’s of Alabama -PATHS Program
Love Like Lexi Project
Diskin and Durr Family Services
Y O N D R
ThriveWay

Kathryn Stewart, LICSW from Hoover City Schools and Katie Smith, LICSW from Homewood City Schools, shared a presentation on The Peer Supervision Model and how it can help social workers reduce the feeling of workplace isolation, increase knowledge base and work through ethical dilemmas.

Their peer supervision group has been in place since 2017 and has grown into two groups over the Jefferson and Shelby County area!

Dr. Dominique Maywald, DSW, LICSW-S from Jacksonville State University shared “From Drama to Safety: Conflict, the Drama Triangle and Workforce Resilience for School Social Workers”. Her presentation gave attendees insights into re-framing how conflict can shift to empowerment which can lead to helping reduce emotional strain and promote workplace resilience.

Dr. Ethan Englehardt and Dr. Hilary Joyce from Auburn University shared insightful data from their research on the use of Yondr Bags in schools and how school social workers can support these practices to reduce screens and phones in schools.