Interview of a Social Service Agency

Traditional approaches to mediation assume that a conflict’s parties and a mediator share one compelling reason for initiating mediation: a desire to reduce,abate,or resolve a conflict.To this end,both sides may invest personnel,time,and resources in the mediation.This shared humanititarian interest maybe the only genuine reason in a few instances of mediation,but normally even this interest intertwines with other, less altruistic,

For this assignment, I decided to interview my aunt because she has been a social worker for about thirty years, and has a lot of experience. She attended Dominican college in Orangeburg, New York where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She then went to graduate school at Montclair State in New Jersey where she received her master’s in psychology. After this, she decided to go back to school for her MSW, which she received from SUNY Albany. Since she graduated, the only profession she has worked in is social work, and she is now a licensed clinical social worker. She loves what she does and is glad that she made the decision to become a social worker.

“An advocate is a person who acts in support of an interested party during negotiation, litigation, or another conflict resolution process” (Barsky, 2007). An advocate helps to give voice to people who are not being heard. They help people who are not able to obtain certain services receive the services that they need.

Fells (2016, p. 211) wrote “ just as a doctor works to bring a person back to health, so too a mediator works to bring a deadlocked negotiation back to a situation where the parties can reach agreement”. This essay discusses this statement with reference to contemporary research on dispute resolution. In order to comprehend how this is achieved, we must consider the essence of mediation, the different types of mediation and what mediators do. Negotiation and mediation are process used to resolve opposing preferences between parties. Negotiation is defined in Fells (2016, p. 3) as “a process by which two parties with differences that they need to resolve try to reach agreement through

Although social workers are expected to advocate for their clients, many social activities revolve around individual advocacy. Advocacy is the cornerstone on which social work is built. It is very important that it is framed in three sections of the NASW (2008) (pg. 61) Code of Ethics. Advocacy for those individuals, communities, and systems is not just a proposed activity for social workers it is a requisite.

Mediating and advocating for clients is an essential service provided by human service workers, but not everyone is cut out for the job; it takes encouraging, knowledgeable, and non-judgmental individuals to maintain the integrity of both the mediation and advocating processes. While an advocate is most likely found standing up for a specific group or a particular issue, a mediator helps assist two or more parties in resolving a conflict without expressing any favoritism. In order for a mediator to maintain unbiased and preserve the reliability of the mediation process, they must seek out an agency that provides services that correlate with their own belief system; otherwise they will have to check their own set of values and beliefs at the door which can be incredibly difficult, and in some cases – impossible.

Perhaps the biggest issue facing court systems in the future is the victim’s movement to have their cases handled outside the court system, and through private systems like mediation or arbitration. Mediation is a method of alternative dispute resolution in which a

1. Why or what led you to become a social worker or select social work as a career.

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.

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.

Utilizing mediation strategies such as choosing the appropriate meeting place, breaking up the difficult questions into manageable chunks, let the people involved define the issues, focus on the problem not the people, coaching and giving adequate time, the ethicists walk people on both sides of the conflict through a journey that hopefully leads to resolution (Morreim,

While being part of the Families in Transition VISTA (Volunteers in Service To America) Program, I experienced the most difficult negotiation of my career so far. During the course of one year, young professionals are placed in nonprofit organizations across the United States under the premise that a year of service is an opportunity to grow professionally, personally and improve the quality of life of millions of Americans living in poverty. For that reason, I had the opportunity to work along with two other women for the New Hampshire-based homeless services provider. During the course of the year, 3 evaluations with our direct supervisor were scheduled. One at the beginning of the year, the second one during mid-year and a third one, at the end of the year. While working closely with other individuals, conflicts may occur.

Throughout the years there has been many definitions of mediation. Nevertheless one the most acceptable definition of mediation refers to this procedure as a “…process in which the participants, with the support of a mediator, identify issues, develop options, consider alternatives and make decisions about future actions…” . They also described mediators as the third party assisting the participants in reaching their decision. This process should form a part of the pre-trial civil litigation process as its advantages on the legal system and the community outweigh its disadvantages. The distinguishing models of mediation make it a suitable approach for all or most civil cases.

This paper will cover the difference in the negotiation process and the mediation process and explore some of the barriers that hinder the processes. There is a distinct difference between the negotiation process and the mediation process. Negotiation as defined in Essentials of Negotiation is a process by which two or more parties attempt to resolve their opposing interests (Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry, ) The Negotiation process happens when individuals disagree about a situation and there’s no mutual solution that can be attain by the two parties. The disagreement leads to a conflict which involves misinterpretation, miscommunication and hurt feelings. Because the parties cannot reach a mutual agreement on how to resolve their