Lizet Zuniga

Lizet is a bilingual social worker, licensed in New Jersey, who specializes in school social work. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, where she actively participated in the Psychology Students Association. She also received a Master's degree in Social Work from Rutgers University and was an honored member of the Phi Alpha National Honor Society. Throughout her career, Lizet has worked in various mental health settings, including as a Clinical Supervisor for the Program for Assertive Community Treatment (P.A.C.T.), where she supervised a multidisciplinary team and provided counseling to clients with mental illness and substance use disorders. In her current role as a School Social Worker for the Child Study Team in New Jersey's public schools, Lizet provides case management services to special education students across all grade levels within the district and for students attending private special education schools outside of the district. She also offers counseling services to students, conducts social history evaluations as part of comprehensive Child Study Team evaluations (most of which are bilingual evaluations), and develops Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for classified students. In addition to her work, Lizet serves as a lecturer at Rutgers University, where she teaches Clinical Social Work in Schools. Lizet feels proud and honored to be part of the Rutgers DSW Program Class of 2024.

Educators often face a range of difficulties, such as challenging classroom behaviors, limited resources, and excessive demands. These can lead to emotional exhaustion, high levels of stress, and burnout (Bettini et al., 2019; Gilmour et al., 2022). According to the American Institute of Stress, 46% of teachers and school staff report high stress levels. Research has shown that teacher burnout and stress can negatively impact their job performance, productivity, and ability to establish positive relationships with their students (Agyapong et al., 2023).

As a doctoral student, Lizet presented on “Educators, are you Coping or Surviving? Teachers Working with Students with Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties”, at the NJEA 2023 Convention, November 2023.

https://assets.njea.org/njea-media/2023ConventionProgram.pdf