Personal Narrative: My Journey Into The Social Work Field

On Monday, January 11 2016 my fall break was over and I found myself back in at internship at Leland elementary. After almost three weeks of vacation time I must say I was not ready for the event that was about to take place that day. Around noon in one of the classrooms I was alerted of the disruptive behavior of some of the students in that class. As I walked in the class I noticed to young ladies in each other faces saying vigor language and within seconds they were fighting.

My journey into social work started from a very young age. As a child growing up I felt like I was different then all the other girls my age. As I got older I decided that when I went to college I wanted to be able to have a career that would give me the opportunity to help others. I wanted to be able to help people because I felt as though the help I was looking for and needed as a child was lacking. If this help was not lacking at the time my knowledge of support was nonexistent.

1. The development of my interest in social work originated my senior year of high school. Due to a series of events I ran away from home shortly after the passing of my adoptive single mother. Although I was adopted, my relationship with my family was close to nothing. On account of my weak family ties, I quickly became a homeless high school student with a nonexistent support system. As I struggled to find stability in my life, the school social worker had reached out to me. During the mist of my turmoil the school social worker, Mr. Hawkins, was a valuable support and lifeline. With his encouragement I was able to achieve stable housing and employment. Within a year I was able to graduate from high school and I started my first year in undergrad.

Another informational session that I attended was at the Lutheran Social Services LINK Program, which works with individuals ages 16-24, who are at-risk or who are experiencing homelessness. They provide case management where they can work on identifying areas in their life that need strengthening and use goal planning. LINK offers housing support including short-term rental assistance, host homes, and offer financial assistance for furniture, household goods, food, and education. This agency also offers a life skills group and peer support groups, they do street outreach, and they have a role in the Rochester Youth Leadership Council.

Most people who enter the social work profession are motivated by the desire to help others as well as the desire to change their world. In my mind, people who choose the career of social work must cherish it as a great opportunity for them to generate change and influence a new path for someone who was sent down a negative part. If Betty wants attain her bachelor of social work as an area competency to fall back on in the world of work, then she needs to acquire the necessary characteristics. She must therefore understand the gravity of a career in social work and the part that individual plays in pulling communities together, helping individuals and families find solutions, advance changes in social policy, promotes social justice, and foster

The history of mental health in the United States show a robust movement towards the mental healthcare system we have today. Prior to the 19th century, individuals with mental health issues were widely considered to be demonically possessed, thus contributing to the stigmatization of mental illness and the proliferation of poor treatment conditions. However, in the 1800s, there was a dramatic change in mental healthcare in the U.S. The government took a proactive role in treating the mentally ill, leading to the dawn of state psychiatric facilities.

I am passionate on helping people and making changes in others’ lives. Like I stated before, my mother had been trapped herself in the apologetic emotion for years. The mental burden had made her down. Therefore, I decided to help my mother get rid of the self-accusation, by using the knowledge I learned in the Human Services major. To illustrate, I was telling her that it was not her fault of divorce, and she was not showing me the negative image of a marriage. Instead, I admire her braveness of ending a marriage when it was necessary, especially in the time when people were stereotyping divorced women and at the place where people were being judgmental. Now, her self-blameless has been reduced, and she told me that she was not felt as guilty

Working in the social services field was always my dream. Whether working with children, family, adults, elderly etc. this career path is so broad it instills the hope of a career opportunity. My first year working in this field was in 2010 when I interned as an intake specialist in an outpatient drug treatment facility, while completing my bachelor’s degree in human services. Thereafter, I was able to branch off in various areas such as a case manager at a domestic violence shelter, housing specialist, substance abuse counselor and now a family services specialist.

Before I pursued a career in social work and I had the pleasure of learning about the elderly, I was very biased towards them. This is mainly due many negative stereotypes and connotations that I heard about them and I had very little experience dealing with them. My grandparents died when I was very young, so I was never around any senior citizens. I was under the impression that most elderly was surly, rude and dismissive of young people. Originally, I had thought that the elderly was uninterested in keeping up with today’s society and preferred to live as social outcasts.

1.The experiences I have had that have prepared me to pursue a master’s degrees in social work have been time at the Boys & Girls Club, being an officer for an honor society, and my placement at a social service agency. While I was attending community college, I began working at the Boys & Girls Club of South County for their before and after school program. During my time there, I learned the importance of time management, and I got to see the impact parent involvement could have on a student. The after school program was going through many changes and began incorporating more educational activities. As a Group Leader, I had to schedule my day to implement the new activities, like comic book readings and STEM projects, as well as the daily journals, homework time, snack time and the enrichment activity of the day. The 5 hours we had with the students were booked back to back so it was important to plan the days ahead of time, and prepare for the next day after the students had gone. As for parent involvement, after spending hours with my group of 19 students every week, I was able to tell which parents had a bigger involvement in their student’s

My passion for helping the disadvantaged and helping individuals, families and groups overcome difficult challenges, and troubles in everyday living is what influenced me to choose the field of social work. My personal life experience which involved me helping my parents with my oldest sister who was diagnose summer of 2015, with Schizophrenia, gave me the opportunity to gain insight on mental health and the challenges individuals and families face. For me and my family this was new to us and at first difficult to handle, educating ourselves on the illness and learning about the different treatments allowed me and my family to identify ways to cope, educate my sister on self-help strategies, and help her work toward recovery.

For a reason I don’t understand, teenagers will often call their peers “Social Justice Warriors” as an insult. As if being proactive about the world around us is a negative thing that should be squashed through insecurity. I am someone who has often been called a social justice warrior. But despite how those who say it would want me to feel, it actually makes me happy. It makes me happy because it means that even if they don’t want to hear or think about how the world treats people and things that don’t fit in with the norm, they know that that’s what I am fighting. To Lewis & Clark I would bring this peaceful fury. There have been times over the years when I have stopped myself from speaking up for things, but I got tired of that pretty quickly.

Between the dates from September 26th to November 9th, there was perfect attendance by all of the members of the group and the facilitators. Knowing that the facilitators worked on the mezzo groups with much dedicated, pushed each member to show up on time every session. Speaking for myself, I enjoyed having a social work student facilitate over the group because there was an option to discuss topics only related to social workers. For other classes, the topics discussed within a group could not be related to the profession I plan on pursuing. Also within our group, there was a sense of bonding since we worked with these students on a weekly basis. Knowing that each of us will be helping out each other within our career at James Madison was

The holland code has six stages to it. the first stage is Realistic. Realistic is building, fixing, and working outdoors. The next one you have is going to be Investigative. Investive has to do with thinking, researching, experimenting. The third one is artistic. Artistic involves Creating, designing, and expressing yourself. And then there is social. Its mainly Helping, teaching, encouraging other people to be the best they can. Then next one is Enterprising. Enterprising is to lead and persuade people, and to sell things and ideas. The last one is Conventional, these kind of people Like to work with numbers, records, or machines in a set, orderly way. But the holland code I got was SA. It stand for social artistic. After found this out i had ten jobs i would love to do but I manage to narrow it down to three. The three i had left where social worker, probation and parole officer, and police officer.

Everyday, people from a variety of countries depend on social psychologists due to depression or stress from a tragic situation. The role of a social psychologist is to work with people who are struggling in a powerless situation (Lassiter, "Careers in Social Work"). They are the biggest providers of health, regarding the mind, in the United States (Berzoff). In addition, social psychologists provide therapy for issues within the mind and emotional problems. A career in social psychology requires advanced education, good listening and comprehensive skills. This gives a person a comfortable living that will deal with the stress of dealing with clients (Lassiter, "Careers in Social Work").