Social Work Reflection

When going into my first mock interview I felt very nervous. I found myself surprised by how quickly I blanked on all of my questions that I had for my initial interview to begin the session. Keeping a professional composer is essential in the reassurance of the client that you can help them with their issues. Nevertheless, I did my best to keep this aura upon myself despite my nerves. As the session progressed, I became more relaxed and found it easier to communicate with my client and ask an array of open ended questions. These open ended questions I found where good transitions to get deeper into the conversation and the underlying issues the client suffered with. Furthermore, I found reflective listening to be fairly easy

Social work exists to provide effective social services to individuals, families, groups, communities and society so that social functioning may be enhanced and the quality of life improved. (Zastrow, 2013) Assessing my strengths and weaknesses as a social worker helps me see what I must maintain, and what I must improve on to become the kind of social worker that educates and inspires. The skills I identify with in my practice are; empathy, identifying strengths, and respect. These skill sets are vitally important to ensure clients receive the best possible outcome.

1.There were many skills that the social worker needed to be able to develop a successful rapport with the 17 year old male that was from Philadelphia. The most important skill in my opinion is the ability to listen to a story of a client while being objective. Objective means the ability to listen or look at a situation without being bias. (DuBois & Miley, 2014, p. 123.)  The ability to be unbiased is vital because it ensures that each client has the ability to receive the help that they need without someone judging them which then may effect the amount of help that they receive from the social worker.

The complexity of the case meant I had to draw on a large range of social work skills to facilitate my engagement with the service user and carers and to complete my recommendations for panel. My Skills strongly developed throughout the process of assessing the service user and carers and they were acknowledged by my practice assessor.

With my past work experiences as a case manager, I 've had various meetings about what services my clients were going to need and what my involvement was going to be in meeting their needs. This has helped me strengthen my communication skills and I have learned to talk to a variety of different individuals. I especially find myself to have confidence which has also helped me sound relaxed and approachable when meeting someone for the first time. With this in mind I felt positive I was going to do well on my interview reflection assignment for my Introduction to Occupational Therapy class.

During the session a strength that was pointed out what that I was able to reflect throughout the session and this is a strength because it showed that I am being assertive and being able to reflect back to the client everything they said and also expressing the same emotion that they told me back to them to show them what they are doing and so this shows them what emotion they are putting in with their words so that they know how they are feeling about a certain topic. I think this is a strength because they are able to show that I am not only listening but also taking in the

This meeting was good for testing my ability to not become involved in unrelated debates, as well as identifying difference within the service user I will work with during practice. The mother showed an interest in herself training to become a social worker, yet I did not respond to her derogative remarks about the types of people she expects to ‘sort out’ as a social worker.

2. Be objective. You should not jump to premature conclusions. Only record what you actually see or hear not what you think or feel. For example, the statement “The child cried “ is objective, but to say “ The child is sad “ is

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.

According to Duffy (2016), there are two different types of social work practice when it comes to working alongside a disadvantaged population. The first kind, is used more often and is called conventional social work approach, which focuses its attention on undertaking assessment and ensuring that individuals are families are received the correct support through organised services and support. On the other hand, critical social work, the less utilized approach aims to challenge the inequalities and oppression in society, by targeting the societal structure via activism and research, in order to bring forth criticism and questions on discourses attached to particular marginalised groups. The author proposes that both social work practices are important, however, critical social work should be emphasized on more frequently, especially with groups such as the ageing population as it targets the stubborn discourses (Duffy, 2016). Mattsson broadens critical social work, by relating it to critical reflection. Critical theorists have proposed critical reflection as a method to understand how social work practices can uphold oppression due to seemingly everyday actions, words and attitudes. Therefore, this can have an implication on how social workers execute their practice, as ordinary and structural features of bureaucratic hierarchies may senselessly abide social workers to uphold and reproduce social oppression, even though they might be well-intentioned. Critical reflection

This has provided me with an added insight into what interventions may be beneficial when working with clients. My aptitude for ¨thinking outside the box¨ has facilitated effective problem solving in situations that had no single or clear-cut solution. I hope to enhance this attribute during my time in field placement by refining my critical thinking skills and increasing my knowledge of community resources, so that I can gain a strengthened awareness of how to best advocate for and support clients. My ability to integrate personal goals, values, culture and socioeconomic background into treatment planning and in the treatment process has allowed me to develop realistic and attainable goals that are relevant to each individual. This strength stems from the steadfast belief that cultural relevance is essential to provide effective services. My social work experience has refined my organization and planning skills and I have fine-tuned my ability to manage a chaotic schedule. When I have encountered challenges in the field, I have overcome them by seeking supervision and consulting with more experienced colleagues. I also dedicate extra time to learning about cultures, concepts, and practices that I may have a difficult time understanding or am not familiar with. A final strength I believe will be an asset when working as a professional social worker is my dedication to the social work mission and

I learned to understand the basic elements of the interview through the social worker’s skills checklist that was given at the beginning of each mock interview. Through the checklist I learned the importance of building a rapport with clients, the funneling technique, naming feelings, naming feelings, paraphrasing, engaging in supportive collaborative behaviors, and how to appropriately

Throughout the videos, there were many times in which the interviewer was successful and conducted a decent interview. The interview room was assembled appropriately, except for the table, which could have acted as a barrier between them. The proxemics amongst them was at a respectable distance for an interviewer and a victim. His pitch and tone of voice remained calm and relaxing throughout the interview. Due to her traumatic state, it was very important that he remained calm. There were some signs of good communication from him, including positive eye contact and active listening. Active listening was shown in

The therapeutic communication video states the condition in which the interviewer should conduct themselves during the interview. It is important the patient does not feel judged, because this may cause the patient to withdraw from the conversation. It is stated the interviewer must appear empathetic and genuine in the responses to the patient’s

Once finishing the interview I recall thinking that I had forgotten one major factor within the interview, which was taking notes. This would have to be my only major weakness that I found I had whilst interviewing Mary Doe. At the time I was so focused on eye contact, so it was really easy for myself to just ask the questions and get lost in the answer whilst trying to figure out what question to ask next. The lack of note taking in response to Mary Doe’s answers left me forgetting to listen one hundred percent as I was switching focus to what came next. When researching how I can improve this skill there was a lot of positive feedback on how to strengthen this skill. One that I shall be focusing on for future interviewing opportunities is to continually jot down small phrases as spoken, any specific information that is useful