# Child, Family, and School Social Workers

> Provide social services and assistance to improve the social and psychological functioning of children and their families and to maximize the family well-being and the academic functioning of children. May assist parents, arrange adoptions, and find foster homes for abandoned or abused children. In schools, they address such problems as teenage pregnancy, misbehavior, and truancy. May also advise teachers.

- **SOC code:** 21-1021.00
- **Canonical URL:** https://singulariki.com/roles/role-21-1021-00
- **Also known as:** Case Manager, Family Protection Specialist, Family Service Worker, School Social Worker, Adoption Social Worker, Case Worker, Child Protective Services Social Worker (CPS Social Worker), Family Resource Coordinator
- **Frame:** "AI exposure" means task overlap (how codifiable the work is), not jobs lost or a forecast. Every figure below is traced to a named public dataset.

## What this work is

**Core tasks** (O*NET):
- Place children in foster or adoptive homes, institutions, or medical treatment centers.
- Maintain case history records and prepare reports.
- Recommend temporary foster care and advise foster or adoptive parents.
- Interview clients individually, in families, or in groups, assessing their situations, capabilities, and problems to determine what services are required to meet their needs.
- Counsel students whose behavior, school progress, or mental or physical impairment indicate a need for assistance, diagnosing students' problems and arranging for needed services.
- Serve as liaisons between students, homes, schools, family services, child guidance clinics, courts, protective services, doctors, and other contacts to help children who face problems, such as disabilities, abuse, or poverty.
- Develop and review service plans in consultation with clients and perform follow-ups assessing the quantity and quality of services provided.
- Consult with parents, teachers, and other school personnel to determine causes of problems, such as truancy and misbehavior, and to implement solutions.
- Counsel parents with child rearing problems, interviewing the child and family to determine whether further action is required.
- Address legal issues, such as child abuse and discipline, assisting with hearings and providing testimony to inform custody arrangements.
- Evaluate personal characteristics and home conditions of foster home or adoption applicants.
- Arrange for medical, psychiatric, and other tests that may disclose causes of difficulties and indicate remedial measures.

## Skills, tools, capabilities

**Knowledge, skills & abilities** (O*NET, highest importance first):
- Active Listening _(essential_skill)_
- Oral Expression _(ability)_
- Speaking _(essential_skill)_
- Oral Comprehension _(ability)_
- Customer and Personal Service _(knowledge)_
- Problem Sensitivity _(ability)_
- Psychology _(knowledge)_
- Therapy and Counseling _(knowledge)_
- Critical Thinking _(essential_skill)_
- Social Perceptiveness _(transferable_skill)_
- Written Comprehension _(ability)_
- Written Expression _(ability)_

**Skills in demand:**
- Active Listening _(Common Skill)_
- Psychology _(Specialized Skill)_
- Social Perceptiveness _(Common Skill)_
- Critical Thinking _(Common Skill)_
- Reading Comprehension _(Common Skill)_
- Speech Recognition _(Specialized Skill)_
- Inductive Reasoning _(Common Skill)_
- Deductive Reasoning _(Common Skill)_
- Complex Problem Solving _(Common Skill)_
- English Language _(Common Skill)_
- Writing _(Common Skill)_
- Time Management _(Common Skill)_

**Tools & technology:**
- Microsoft Excel _(hot technology, in demand)_
- Microsoft Office software _(hot technology, in demand)_
- Microsoft Outlook _(hot technology, in demand)_
- Microsoft Access _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft PowerPoint _(hot technology)_
- Microsoft Word _(hot technology)_
- EasyCBM
- Patient electronic medical record EMR software
- Student information systems SIS software
- Web browser software

## AI exposure & outlook

- **AI task-overlap index:** 67th percentile (High) across all occupations — composite of current-era exposure studies (ai-exposure-index-v1).
- **Overall AI exposure (Felten et al.):** 66th percentile (Moderate) — source: felten_aioe.
- **LLM task exposure, γ (OpenAI / Eloundou):** 39th percentile (Moderate) — source: eloundou_gamma.
- **AI assistant applicability (Microsoft):** 95th percentile (High) — source: microsoft_applicability.
- **Frey–Osborne (2013, historical computerization estimate):** 17th percentile — kept separate from current-era studies.
- **Remote-capable (Dingel–Neiman):** no — task structure, not who actually works remote.
- **Projected employment (BLS 2024–34):** 3.4% growth (About average); 35.1k annual openings; 399.9k → 413.3k jobs.
- **Pay & employment (BLS OEWS, May 2024):** median $58,570; 382,960 employed.

## How people actually use AI here

Anthropic Economic Index — measured AI conversations mapped to this occupation's tasks:

- **Automation vs augmentation:** 17% automation, 28% augmentation (usage-weighted).
- **Autonomy median:** 4.0 (higher = AI acts more independently).
- **Dominant collaboration mode:** learning.

**Tasks most handed to AI here:**
- Conduct social research. _(0.6% of measured AI use; learning)_
- Counsel students whose behavior, school progress, or mental or physical impairment indicate a need for assistance, diagnosing students' problems and arranging for needed services. _(0.3% of measured AI use)_

**Example prompts (honest phrasings of the tasks above — starting points, not endorsed instructions):**
- Help me conduct social research.
- Help me counsel students whose behavior, school progress, or mental or physical impairment indicate a need for assistance, diagnosing students' problems and arranging for needed services.

## Sources

- **O*NET** (30.3) — U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)** (May 2024) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS Employment Projections** (2024–2034) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **Anthropic Economic Index** (v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27)) — Anthropic. https://www.anthropic.com/economic-index
- **Microsoft “Working with AI”** (working-with-ai) — Microsoft Research. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/
- **“GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.)** (arXiv 2303.10130) — OpenAI / academic. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130
- **AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE)** (Felten, Raj & Seamans) — academic. https://github.com/AIOE-Data/AIOE
- **Frey & Osborne (2013)** (frey-osborne-automation) — academic. https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/the-future-of-employment/
- **Dingel & Neiman (2020)** (dingel-neiman-workathome) — academic. https://github.com/jdingel/DingelNeiman-workathome

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_Generated from Singulariki's joined dataset; data snapshot 2026-06-02T21:00:32.945303+00:00. https://singulariki.com/roles/role-21-1021-00_