How UT Social Work Powers UT Charter’s Mission
What happens when education meets the most vulnerable students where they are? At The University of Texas-University Charter School system, the answer unfolds across two distinct but complementary districts that serve different populations with the same commitment to excellence.
UT Elementary, a research-based demonstration school in East Austin, operates as a traditional charter serving pre-K through fifth-grade students through a lottery admission system. Founded in 2003 as a research-based demonstration school, it provides curriculum within nurturing environments that support each student’s learning journey while serving as a training site for future teachers, social workers, and other professionals.
But UT Charter’s 23 specialized campuses across Texas serve a fundamentally different population: unique learners in settings most schools never reach — psychiatric hospitals, residential treatment centers, specialized medical facilities. Here, the mission centers on creating safe, supportive environments where students facing complex challenges can achieve academic, social and emotional growth.
Fulfilling that vision requires more than innovative curriculum delivery. It demands practitioners who understand both learning and healing — which is where UT Social Work MSSW students create a powerful partnership that enhances support services while providing specialized training.
Andrea Menchaca, UT Charter’s school social work coordinator and the district’s only full-time social worker, oversees this collaboration across campuses where the stakes — and the learning opportunities — run extraordinarily high.
“We have implemented the neurosequential model into everything — from the way we train our teachers to our formal district policies,” says Menchaca. “This model helps our teachers understand how trauma impacts development, learning and behavior. It’s not about managing behavior — it’s about understanding where those behaviors are coming from in order to create educational environments respectful of a student’s need for safety, respect and connection.”
The Neurosequential Model of Education, created by Dr. Bruce Perry, emphasizes the importance of regulation as the foundation for learning and connection, helping educators understand both the science behind challenging behaviors and evidence-based intervention strategies. For Menchaca, this framework transforms intuitive teaching into systematic practice that delivers on the district’s vision of “academic, social and emotional success” for every student.
Unique Learners, Extraordinary Outcomes
UT Charter fulfills its mission of serving “unique learners in unique settings,” operating where traditional education cannot reach. Students live in residential treatment centers, psychiatric hospitals, and facilities serving children with brain injuries or neurological conditions. At Dell Children’s Hospital, teachers work bedside with medically fragile students awaiting surgery — like the student recently celebrated who received a heart transplant after months of hospital-based education. At Georgetown Behavioral Health, students receive halfday therapy alongside half-day academics, maintaining educational momentum during intensive treatment.
“Our teachers intuitively understand this population,” she explains. “But now we have the scientific foundation to understand why certain approaches work and how to replicate them across campuses.”
Practicum Under Pressure
This complex environment creates extraordinary learning opportunities for UT Social Work MSW students, who complete practicums across UT Charter’s network of specialized campuses. Menchaca supervises five interns each semester — most recently four from UT Social Work — deliberately maintaining a cohort model that provides peer support while exposing students to rapid-fire clinical decision-making.
“The amount of service we’re able to provide, I could never do by myself,” Menchaca notes. “Having other adults on campus whose sole responsibility is safety, connectionbuilding, trust, support — it’s huge.”
Social Work students engage in direct practice that demands adaptability: one-on-one support with UT Charter students who may transfer out of the program within weeks, small group facilitation with mixed-grade populations, family resource connection across complex care systems. The practicum students participate in Menchaca’s trauma-informed training sessions alongside district teachers, gaining exposure to both clinical work and systems-level intervention.
The experience addresses a critical workforce need. A comprehensive study by UT Social Work researchers, conducted at the request of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, found a 27% unmet demand for social workers statewide — a number expected to rise to 36% by 2036. UT Social Work is actively addressing that gap with more than 65 school internship programs available to BSW and MSSW students. In addition, in June, the School announced the Post-Graduate Clinical Scholarship program to support graduates seeking licensure.
Menchaca makes no apologies for her recruitment agenda: “My not-so-secret plan — because I explicitly say this to my interns — is I’m trying to indoctrinate them to be school social workers because we need more good, passionate social workers in education.”
Systems Thinking in Action
The partnership extends beyond individual student growth to organizational transformation. Menchaca’s social work students observe how evidence-based practices translate into policy development, staff training curricula, and cultural change management. They witness macro-level intervention strategies playing out in real time as she balances direct service delivery with district-wide trauma-informed implementation.
The mobility challenges — students frequently transitioning between facilities and back to home districts — require practitioners who can build therapeutic relationships quickly while maintaining the district’s commitment to high expectations for all. Despite complex circumstances, UT Charter students successfully earn credits, recover academic ground, and transition back to traditional settings prepared for continued growth.
“We specialize in making sure students can regain credits they’ve lost and catch up to grade level,” Menchaca explains. “When you’re moving from school to school — a byproduct of the foster care system — completing semester-long courses and earning credits is incredibly difficult. At UT Charter, we understand these educational challenges for non-traditional students and work to ensure they have specialized supports, including the opportunity for credit recovery.”
Menchaca emphasizes that successful practicum experiences require student self-advocacy. “This experience is for you to learn and grow as a social worker. It is also to serve the students, but it is both,” she tells her interns.
Beyond Comfort Zones
UT Charter represents practicum that transforms competent students into exceptional practitioners. The partnership demonstrates how specialized training environments can create competitive advantages for graduates entering demanding practice areas.
UT Charter began in 1998 as a distance education program, evolving over nearly three decades into its current model of embedded educational services for vulnerable populations.
The district’s innovative approach continues expanding, with Menchaca and her UT Social Work interns at the forefront of developing trauma-informed practices that other districts increasingly seek to replicate.
