An Interview On Social Work

This paper is a documentation of an interview that was conducted with a college student in the Social Work program at Central Michigan University. The student is currently enrolled in the first semester of her last year as an undergrad. Her final step in successfully completing the Social Work program is a four-hundred-hour internship. The purpose of this internship is to explore career interests and gain experience. The student, Marie Benner was assigned to the Community Mental Health for Central Michigan agency after going through a formal application and interview process with the Social Work advisors. This interview was done face to face and lasted an hour. It took place at the Charles V. Park Library on October 25th, 2016. She can be reached

I interviewed a social worker named Keri who enjoys her job, but it does have difficult situations. While working with her cases she knows her tolerates. In the field she continues to refresh the information to make sure no law or guidelines has changed. She was asked question about crisis and how she approaches the problem when they appear. She gave her preferences on certain type of crisis counseling. I asked her about the mental illness on the nature of crisis, what multicultural considerations when providing crisis services, and the future as a social worker and how crisis services are implemented.

We believe that successful response to our clients' needs requires staff with high levels of knowledge, skills and integrity.

For this paper, I chose one of my colleague Devin who works with me at our office. I chose him because he is a psychology major and I find him interesting in terms of his curiosity in the field of psychology. In terms of his education, he is currently in his senior year of school and is majoring in psychology with honors. When asked about a particular focus in the field of psychology, he said that he does not have a specific track, but enjoys learning about positive and community psychology. While interviewing Devin, I also learned these terms specifically about positive and community psychology and how he uses the same knowledge into his daily work. I learned that the term positive psychology refers to the strengths that allow communities and individual to thrive (Michael & Neuman, 2010). On the other hand, the term community psychology refers to how individuals relate to their community, and the reciprocal of how communities relate to the individuals (Anonymous, 2015).

The field of Social Work spans across many domains and research plays an important part in growth of knowledge and development of policies and programs. In many cases, research is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented programing within colleges and higher governing institutions in addition to assessing the needs of a community and helping to implement funding sources for services that enhance the wellbeing of community members. The purpose of this interview and literature review is to provide an overview of literature pertaining to research; more specifically, its goal is to examine the crucial role of research within social work practice. The interview process entailed selecting a social work practitioner with whom I are familiar. For the purpose of this paper, the interviewee is a sociology instructor (MSW) and grant writer for a tribal college and community; research is integrated within every aspect of her profession. Because of time constraints, the interview was conducted through email

On Wednesday, September 20, 2017, at approximately 3:15pm, I interviewed Julia Dressler, a peer in my Social Work Interviewing class. The purpose of the interview was to become comfortable being recorded, increase my experience using the interviewing skills learned in class, and to be able to analyze my strengths and weaknesses, leading to a greater learning opportunity. Julia and I met in study room 308 in the George R. White Library at Concordia University in Portland. The study room was a quiet place and we had no interruptions.

Social workers provide professional support and wide variety of services to people who have social difficulties, and are trained to address human needs. They can work in different settings and can specialize in working with people, groups and communities, at all stages of life, from young children to older adults. The role of a social worker varies depending on what setting they are working in, like a hospital or a school.

Diversity & Oppression in the Social Work Context was another class that taught me the significance of culture and identity. This class gave me the context to look deeper into a person’s story and not to ignore the historical trauma that numerous populations endure. Although, I have ha countless trainings and classes on diversity I am continually learning new ideas and growing my expansion of knowledge in this area. I truly understand that there is always more to learn in this area and it still fascinates me

I observed many things from the interview with Ms. Pressley, such as body language, eye contact, organization, and the general love for her job and role as a supervisor. I was observing her facial expressions throughout the interview. I have never seen so much excitement from a person in a supervisory role. She truly enjoys being the person others can come to and learn from. One of the specifics that stood out to me was when she said, “Really get to know your people.” (C. Pressley, personal communication. October 23, 2017). I believe this is something all supervisors should do. Along with observing her expressions, I noticed her demeanor. She made me feel welcomed and comfortable by meeting me upon arrival and being present during our

Social workers can have an impact in people’s lives even though their connection is brief. In some social work settings, people may contact agency or hospital intake departments and have no more than brief contacts. This is why social workers, on the front line, need to be equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to provide effective screening and referral with the intention of a positive outcome. This was the case early in my career as a drug counseling coordinator at an addiction council. This reflection may be helpful to social work students or new practitioners. While on telephone intake, social workers need to utilize techniques to create positive outcomes.

My development as a learner and beginning social work practitioner, has given me the ability to demonstrate different theories I learned in class and incorporate them in practice. CSUDH’s MSW Self Study (2009) describes CRT as a framework to deconstruct the Eurocentric hierarchy that has been implemented in society that oppresses marginalized groups; intersectionality explains the marginal identifies that disadvantage minority groups that do not have traits of the Eurocentric identity. As a result, working with the mono-lingual senior population has given me insight about culturally competent practices that aren’t incorporated in many field placements. As a social worker, it is important to advocate for marginalized groups in order to efficiently assist participants in a culturally respectful manner. Moreover, working with Asian Americans in field placement has given in insight that many do not fit the

Many skills are required to be a social worker and even more are required to be an effective social worker. Being able to fully understand what these skills are as well as how and when to appropriately apply them is very important. Some of the myriad of skills that a social worker is expected to know, I displayed some of these with a degree of skill although there are also some techniques that I was unable to execute as effectively as I would like. In that same vein, an examination of my own personal strengths and weaknesses would be an effective strategy so that I may improve in the future.

As social workers, oppression and privilege are subjects that we will face every day in our work with clients. It is our role to help our clients cope with their experiences and well as empower them to fight against oppression. However when working with clients in communities different then our own it is important to examine our own bias so that we can keep them in check when working with clients. One way we can understand and recognize our biases more is by looking back on our life.

During this research course, I learned a lot about conducting social work research. In the past, I have taken a research course for psychology. I learned this semester there are different restrictions and requirements when conducting research as a Social Worker. Along with that, I gained a refresher on topics I was familiar with in Psychology Research Methods. I also had the opportunity to create a full research report and carry out research.

When I registered for this course I was very confused as to why I needed to take another English class. I did not know if this course was just a regular writing class or if it was a specialized writing class for the profession of social work. I was hoping this class would teach me how a social worker writes grant, reports, assessment, etc. At the first day of class, I looked at the syllabus and realized that this class was just a regular English class as all the assignments focused on writing. I was not very happy with the way this course is designed because I have already taken a few English courses here at Wayne State University. Very quickly, I found myself bored in the classroom and was not excited or motivated to do any classwork/homework.