Critical Reflection In Social Work

Throughout the social work practice it is important to have theories being used, as they assist in numerous ways. Theories work as a framework, provide specific guidance regarding the purpose of social work, provide the principles for the practice and imply some specific methods of intervention in each case (Healy, 2014). When in practice, these many theories can contribute to the construction of a social worker’s professional purpose (Healy, 2014). In the case of Myra, she has recently experienced sexual harassment in her workplace by a fellow co-worker named Connor. For the past six months Connor has been consistently sending text messages during out of work hours with uncomfortable and suggestive content. In order to analyse the issues Myra has experienced entirely, feminist and critical theories help provide with understanding the background reasoning for each case.

The social worker in this story had many different responsibilities and roles while working in the ER at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. His responsibilities include having to put the puzzle pieces together of who the victim is as they are being treated. This is often a taunting task because the staff is in a rush. The Social worker has to find clues like driver listens or anything else that will allow them to better understand who they are working with. Her responsibilities don't stop there. He was also responsible for working with the victims family to ensure that they were informed and comfortable.

In order to define critical social work, one must define the concept of social work - and in defining social work, one must also define critical thinking, and critical consciousness. This paper will attempt to define such concepts and ideologies and it will address and include themes of the intersectionality of social work and the Sociological Imagination, social structure and institutions.

Before beginning the Master of Social Work program at Laurier I figured I had a strong understanding of what social work was. However, I quickly learned that I had only scratched the surface. I knew oppression existed, but I never understood the depth of it. I now know that I was afraid of it. It was easy for me to stay silent, because it was such a comfortable position to be in. Doing nothing meant I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. This was influenced by the privilege I had.

Social work practice works with many people in different situations, needing concise help from professionals. This assistance includes a range of skills such as; identifying the problem or problems, apply and use evidence based practice and theories and critical reflection. All these skills are integral parts of best practice in social work, and are needed by all service users.

This was a very eye opening class for me. Coming from a mental health counselling background I have to admit it is a major difference in how social workers operate versus therapist. In this essay I will reflected on how this social work class has genuinely affected me, my strengths and weaknesses, and what I have taken away from this class. I always gain a great deal of satisfaction from helping others. I remember from middle school on through adulthood I was the go to person. If a person had an issue or needed to talk. I was the voice of reasoning. I was the one able to grab hold of certain resources if someone was in need

Throughout the class, many aspects of the curriculum were seen as useful in future social work practice. Before this course, in other course work, treatment planning and goal setting was often something that was reviewed briefly, yet within the coursework of the capstone seminar this matter had been gone over in more detail. Within this course, it was possible to gain more insight into a more balanced way of setting treatment goals that included conversations with the client concerning what they desired out of treatment in addition to what was needed. This aspect of the course was particularly useful when it came to working towards the development of the treatment plan with the client who was presented during the case presentation, Sarah.

In this essay I will discuss what learning from K216 materials has been useful to me whilst working with vulnerable and/or disadvantaged service users in my student placement, and what learning I have applied to my practice. Throughout I will look at how my learning informed what I decided to do, how I went about doing this and my understanding of the practice. I will discuss learning in respect of two areas of social work, which are ‘Communication’ and ‘Working collaboratively’. For ‘Communication’ I will focus on communication with service users with disabilities and/ or additional needs and I will explore a case of a mother who I had a telephone call with who was in crisis and in a highly emotional state. With ‘Working collaboratively’,

The class SW 6030 Human Development and the Social Environment has brought new insights and makes me see some topics in a different perspective. The critical reflection paper number one will integrate different concepts that I learned so far in this class.

Through critical reflection we have a better understanding of power relationships, which makes us mindful of not perpetuating people’s experiences of oppression in our working relationships with them. Deconstruction highlighted how implicit construction of power is disenabling and easily subscribed to as the dominant discourse. Critical reflection allows social workers to silently asking oneself as observing oneself in practice questions such as: What is my part of this feeling of tension or conflict. What can I own, how have I added to it? This helps social workers examine situations of tensions rather than blame other workers and or service users, creating a possibility and space for building more positive working relationships in solidarity. This in turn increases personal agency to create social change. We can get stuck in modernist thinking in scripts of ways of thinking and or doing things. Postmodernism and reconstructive processes through critical reflection, allows new alternative ways to think about the doing in our practice. To celebrate diversity and recognize pain and suffering is also diverse. (Bloom, 2006).

Reflection at its most basic principle "provides us with an opportunity to review our decisions and decision-making processes" however, in practice, reflection is a far broader and contextual concept, it is about understanding a person’s life and the actions they have taken throughout their lives. (Nussbaum 1997).Reflective practice first emerged from the work of a man called Donald Schon, having found that there appeared to be a gap between theory and putting it into practice (Fook 2006a: 441). He went on to state that reflective practice is a way of improving professional practice, through critically evaluating how we respond to practice situations and being self-aware (Mezirow 1991). Whereas reflection is applicable in all aspects of living (Fook 2006a).

Critical thinking is defined as the ability to effectively, conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action in their execution of their duties to better understand the client.

Critical theory in social work validates people’s experiences of oppression in a capitalist society (Payne, 1997). It understands that social problems that arise from capitalism, such as high suicide rate in South Korea are not due to individuals’ failings. In contrast to social work practice theories which are oriented around the individual, critical theory’s focus is on the social circumstances (Payne, 1997). It criticise theories such as psychodynamic and CBT for diverting attention from inequality and social injustices. Social work response to depression based on critical theory would be to transform or change the society and alleviate conditions of social structures that cause depression, rather than deal with the effects and help people

In this reflection essay, I will demonstrate my learning experience in this counseling session. I will talk about my strength, weakness, verbal, nonverbal expression, including improvements needed to become more efficient in the social work profession. I will also speak about a learning tool called process recording in Social work profession. This process recording was done with the help, with my fantastic Daughter Kendra Shelton as the client and my incredible husband Michael McVay as Video Recorder /producer.

Fook, J.. (2003). Social work, Critical theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (pp. 45-