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Pediatric social worker skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Susan Snyder Ph.D.,

Dr. Dianna Cooper

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical pediatric social worker skills. We ranked the top skills for pediatric social workers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 32.7% of pediatric social worker resumes contained social work as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a pediatric social worker needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 pediatric social worker skills for your resume and career

2. Patients

Here's how pediatric social workers use patients:

Developed a plan for intervention that was consistent with the social/emotional/physical needs of patients and caregivers.
Worked with pediatric patients and their families, especially with patients with a diagnosis including Hematology/Oncology.

3. Mental Health

Mental health is the state of wellbeing in which an individual can cope with the regular stresses and tensions of life, and can work productively without having any emotional or psychological breakdown. Mental health is essential for a person of any age and helps them make the right decisions in their life.

Here's how pediatric social workers use mental health:

Assisted with all case management duties with the adult mental health population ranging from ages 18 to 80.
Provide parent management training, mental health referrals and case management referrals.

4. Patient Care

Patient care entails the diagnosis, recovery, and control of sickness as well as the maintenance of physical and emotional well-being through the use of healthcare providers' services. Patient care is described as services provided to patients by health practitioners or non-professionals under guidance.

Here's how pediatric social workers use patient care:

Collaborated with inpatient neurological team members to develop treatment plans and patient care.
Identified and assisted with removal of psychosocial barriers which inhibited the treatment, patient care, and discharge process.

5. MSW

Here's how pediatric social workers use msw:

Trained and supervised a MSW student/active duty officer during his clinical rotation.
Supervised MSW student from the University of Pennsylvania and composed written evaluations.

6. Family Therapy

Here's how pediatric social workers use family therapy:

Provide individual/family therapy and domestic violence preventive psycho-education.
Provide individual and family therapy to adolescent residents of co-ed residential treatment center, serving mentally ill and behaviorally disordered youth.

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7. Community Agencies

Community agencies stand for the organizations operated to provide human service in the community.

Here's how pediatric social workers use community agencies:

Worked closely with schools, child care, community agencies to identify uninsured children.
Interfaced with CPS, Juvenile Court System, DDD and other community agencies.

8. Direct Clinical

Here's how pediatric social workers use direct clinical:

Provided direct clinical and case management services to children and families infected and affected with HIV.

9. Medical Care

Here's how pediatric social workers use medical care:

Collaborated with multidisciplinary team members to ensure continuity of care, access to treatment, and maintenance of sound medical care.
Provided education on Pediatric Oncology, chronic illnesses, and ongoing medical care.

10. Child Abuse

When a child who is under 18 is mistreated by an adult, it is considered child abuse. There are many forms of intentional harm and mistreatment for example physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, medical abuse, and neglect in providing adequate basic life necessities.

Here's how pediatric social workers use child abuse:

Investigated child abuse cases and took authorized protective action when necessary.
Served on the Child Abuse Review Team and other committees in the hospital setting related to provision of service to children/youth.

11. Home Health

Here's how pediatric social workers use home health:

Assess Home Health patients to identify social and emotional factors negatively impacting their medical condition treatment plan or rate of recovery.
Provided Home Health/hospice's families and patients with case management by coordinating and collaborating with community resources.

12. Clinical Services

Here's how pediatric social workers use clinical services:

Rendered families with clinical services, including family assessment, psychosocials, psycho-education and short-term psychotherapy services.
Staff Therapist - Responsibilities Provided direct clinical services to assigned clients and achieved positive intervention outcomes with clients using best practice standards

13. Rehabilitation

Here's how pediatric social workers use rehabilitation:

Performed advocacy and referral services to other social service agencies which included alcohol and drug rehabilitation programs.
Coordinated outside referrals for clients in need of psychiatric care, medication management, addiction rehabilitation and various other services required.

14. Acute Care

The branch of secondary healthcare which is responsible for giving short-term care to patients recovering from severe injuries or urgent medical problems is known as acute care. Acute care comprises multiple domains like; emergency care, urgent care, short-term stabilization, pre-hospital care, critical care, and trauma care.

Here's how pediatric social workers use acute care:

Provided discharge planning and counseling for medical, surgical and renal dialysis patients and families during acute care hospitalization.
Managed adult inpatient acute care medical/surgical units with emphasis on discharge planning, resource mobilization, and supportive counseling.

15. Substance Abuse

Here's how pediatric social workers use substance abuse:

Provided education/referrals to families regarding new diagnosis, safe sleep, shaken baby syndrome, substance abuse and domestic violence.
Assisted with issues such as substance abuse, as well as physical and emotional abuse.

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What skills help Pediatric Social Workers find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on pediatric social worker resumes?

Dr. Susan Snyder Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Georgia State University

Being able to clearly demonstrate experience is helpful. Students should not include passive activities, like attending meetings, or menial tasks, like making copies, but skills that show what they are qualified to do. Good activities could be community organizing, event planning, grant writing, program evaluation, or facilitating groups. Additionally, students who demonstrate strong written and verbal communication skills, including social media skills, tend to do well. Working collaboratively, including across organizations, is important for a lot of different positions our students seek. If students' resumes show that they can also analyze data, they can have even more options.

What soft skills should all pediatric social workers possess?

Dr. Dianna Cooper

Associate Professor, Campbellsville University

The "change theory" used in social work practice follows several steps, including engaging, assessing, planning, intervening, evaluating, terminating, and following up. Soft skills are most likely to occur in engagement, intervention, and termination. Social workers are trained to "start wherever the client is," understanding that clients can be individuals, families, groups, communities, or organizations. Social workers are trained to respect the client as the expert in their needs, honor self-determination, use a strengths-based approach, and respect difference while using inclusion. The training turns into soft skills such as being empathetic, warm, genuine, and respectful. Social workers also develop skills in knowing when to listen and when to nudge the client toward action. Social workers are trained to intervene and, when change is completed, to terminate. Helping clients know when to end services also requires soft skills of talking about hard topics, seeing a brighter future and setting goals, recognizing when change is happening, and saying goodbye respectfully.

What hard/technical skills are most important for pediatric social workers?

Dr. Dianna Cooper

Associate Professor, Campbellsville University

Hard or technical skills are most likely to occur in the stages of assessing, planning, intervening, and evaluating change theory. Social workers are trained to gather lots of information and then analyze strengths and needs. Social workers present their assessments to clients and work together to create goals and the steps that reach goals when executed. The process involves using the client's vision of what "better" looks like. Social workers then use evidence-based techniques to move the client toward the goal and define measures to know when the goal is met. The technical skills used in this process include analyzing many types of information repeatedly, knowing what resources exist and how to refer, knowing how to design effective goals and steps to achieve goals, researching current evidence-based practices, defining and measuring progress, and setting limits and timeframes.

What pediatric social worker skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Lillian Wichinsky Ph.D.

Associate Dean, University of Nevada - Reno

The need for social workers with expertise in mental health care, school-based social work, health and substance misuse are particularly important. Sixty percent of mental health care in the US is provided by social workers and the need is growing.

What type of skills will young pediatric social workers need?

Samantha Fletcher Ph.D.

Executive Director, National Association of Social Workers, New York State

The core skills of social work do not change over time. These skills include empathy, active listening, critical thinking, assessment, intervention, evaluation, advocacy, policy analysis, and adaptability. Social workers also need to evaluate the organizations they work in to assess for oppressive practices and policies. One of the profession's core values is social justice, which directs social workers to "pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers' social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice" (National Association of Social Workers, 2017). As a profession, social workers aim to dismantle racist, sexist, heterosexist, xenophobic, ableist, classist, and religiously biased systems and structures.

Do you want to know more?

List of pediatric social worker skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a pediatric social worker resume and required skills for a pediatric social worker to have include:

Social Work
Patients
Mental Health
Patient Care
MSW
Family Therapy
Community Agencies
Direct Clinical
Medical Care
Child Abuse
Home Health
Clinical Services
Rehabilitation
Acute Care

Substance Abuse
Financial Assistance
Domestic Violence
Comprehensive Assessments
Care Planning
Chronic Illness
Community Resources
Crisis Situations
Emotional Support
Child Protective
Local Agencies
Pediatric Emergency
Foster Care
Psycho-Social Assessments

Emergency Room
Referral Services
OB
IEP
Crisis Intervention
Durable Medical Equipment
Community Referrals
Family Assessments
CPS
Law Enforcement
Parent Support
Behavior Management

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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