Social Work Reflection

As a social worker an individual must understand that diversity characterize and shape human experience. In diversity the key words that a social worker should pay attention to is cultural awareness, self-awareness, ethno-conscious practice and sensitivity. Having cultural awareness is being aware of individual’s cultural and values. Self-awareness is being aware of personal biases and values when working with diverse groups. Ethno-conscious practice is being concern with social justice and equality. Sensitivity is understanding the difference in assessment, intervention and evaluation when working with diverse groups.

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

Setting a boundary is an important core value in the field of social work. According to the Social Work Code of Ethics, “social workers should provide and represent themselves as competent only within the boundaries of their education, training, license, certification, consultation received, supervised experience, or other relevant professional experience” (Code of Ethics of the NASW). Professional helpers are generally compassionate people, but they also need to recognize the value of setting limits. This was the case when I worked as an adjunct instructor, which included providing individual tutoring. Sara Towns (name changed), a student and distant cousin, evoked the possible clouding of boundaries. For new social workers, this kind of reflection may be helpful as they define their roles. Through a series of professional and personal experiences with Sara, I learned that boundaries must be maintained to foster a positive relationship and prevent potential conflicts.

Firstly, the National Association of Social Work Standards and Indicators for Cultural Competence in Social Work Practice (2015) under 1.05 Cultural Competence and Social Diversity states that social workers should strive to

Our client is a 6-year-old female who lives with her parents, siblings, and pets in a spacious home in Lansdowne, Pa. On our initial visit, we developed a rapport with our client by asking questions about her day at school and engaging her in conversations that were meaningful and specific to her. As she gave us a tour of her home upon our request and introduced us to her siblings and pets, we were able to ask questions about her daily routine to both further develop a rapport while also learning valuable information about her environment. We were also able to observe her occupational performance in a variety of tasks within her home. Her mother was an integral part of our experience as well and we were able to develop a rapport with her on the first visit through informal conversation. In addition to providing background information on her daughter, she asked us about ourselves and vice versa, and we were able to find common areas where we could allowed us to ask a lot of follow up questions to gain a deeper understanding of our client and her occupations.

As a social worker, it will be my job to motivate my clients to succeed despite the difficult times. Cultural competence is important when dealing with diversity. Empathizing with a person’s circumstance by using a strength based perspective is imperative for the advancement of a client. Putting forth effort to motivate and find individual strength is momentous. I would love the opportunity to broaden and develop my advocating skills at the University of Alabama, ensuring that I always respect and am mindful of individual differences associated with cultural and ethnic

131). These are two I was guilty of growing up. As I have gotten older and became acquainted with individuals whose culture or ethnicity is different from my own I have found that it is important to learn more about their individual backgrounds and part of this is having a better understanding of diversity. Being a social work student has allowed me to become even more aware of the importance of a client’s background, as-well-as minority status. As social workers it is important to follow the principles set forth in NASW’s Standards for Cultural Competency. Number 3, Cross-Cultural Knowledge, tells us that as social workers we must possess and continue to develop our knowledge and understanding of, “The history, traditions, values, family systems, and artistic expressions such as race and ethnicity; immigration and refugee status; tribal groups; religion and spirituality; sexual orientation; gender identity or expression; social class; and mental or physical abilities of various cultural groups” (2015, pp.

I was allocated my first Social work placement working in a hostel alongside my manager who provided me with support at all times and she also gave me supervision. The Housing agency works alongside vulnerable Young People age range 16-25 who are at risk of homelessness. There overall aim is to Make inable young people included in society rather than excluded. I was case managing four young people. In (appendix 2) Readiness for Direct Practice Feedback it states that my three areas of strength were “Warm open approach, Active listening, good use of open questions and Strength of summarising and leading on to next steps (leaving written information) (Helen Crawley, 2016). These were my strengths at the beginning of starting my placement and

The objective of the session was for the social worker to engage in introductions during the first meeting with this family. The session was where the social worker found out all the information about what is going on in the client group. As she finds out information, she is able to see connections of how some problems may be affecting others. She stated, “our purpose today is for me to get to know all of you.”

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.

Analysis, research, and interviews are paramount in understanding the needs of every client. Aside from an individual evaluation, social workers need to determine the greater conditional forces. Part of the dynamic process is understanding the socio-economic aspect that contributes to inequity. Understanding diversity and socio economic challenges of various group provides context from which the individual’s issues complications can be better assessed. The entirety of this analysis provides an individual with their own

My first few days at Bethel Home have been nothing like sitting in the classroom, but I absolutely love it. I have learned that everything that I had been learning in the classroom had been preparing me for the first moments of my internship. I have been able to shadow the many responsibilities of a skilled nursing home social worker. I have experienced meeting individually with residents to establish a relationship, I also experienced meeting a multidisciplinary team who I can work alongside for nine months. I enjoy the experience of working with other professionals so that I can understand their viewpoints on situations. I find it interesting how I am recognizing things I’ve learned in classes that I am now experiencing in field such as dynamics between different professionals. After my first week, I am also realizing how important self-care is.

Social Work has the potential to work in and with each type of public sector, which includes the public sector, commercial sector, and voluntary sector. For this reason, it is relevant to understand each of the service sectors. Chapter 5 looks at how each sector is run and what their goals are. Furthermore, it looks at the challenges that are crossed and precisely how the sectors play a role in social provision. This information is beneficial to know as a social worker so that when working in various service sectors the different inner workings are understood. This understanding will increase productivity while working in each sector.

As a social worker, I am aware that though I may choose a particular field to work within, there are few instances when I may pick and choose the specific client population I work with. Since my social work journey began in 2008, a population that has been most difficult to serve objectively and without bias has been the subset of clients that purposefully vote in elections against their own self-interests, in particular, those that vote with the Republican Party. Raised in the evangelical South, the ideology of the Republican Party is not foreign to those of us that live here as, “The South has served as the ideological vanguard of Republicanism for decades” (Hood, 2015).