What does it mean to be in the social work field? This is an important question to ask someone who is deciding to join the social work profession. Personally, I believe that my career goals align with the mission of the social work profession, along with the Graduate College of Social Work (GCSW) school mission. An individual who commits themselves to the social work profession joins this field in order to improve and enlighten individuals (NASW, 2017). A professional in social work desires to support others through their work. Social workers may help individuals by supplying the skills and resources for their clients to survive on a daily basis (NASW, 2017). As a social worker, I would take the difficulties my clients would have, and …show more content…
Recently in June 2016, I volunteered at the Methodist Children’s Home of Costa Rica. I spent 10 days socializing with young children and adolescents. Playing games with the children, and singing songs in their native language was just some of the activities I participated in. My time in Costa Rica was also spent at two other sites where we interacted with different children. While in Costa Rica I also helped construct a 10-foot-tall concrete wall and multi-recreational facility at the Methodist Children’s Home of Costa Rica. Wow! What a task that was. Physically building and working to construct protection for the children was a huge demanding task. Looking back now it was worth the effort I put into the project. Just like building the wall, graduate school will be a huge task for me to complete. However, I know that I can finish graduate school and will drive myself to do the best that I can in my studies. It was an honor to provide my assistance in a new country and gain valuable information about a new culture. It was interesting to see how these children whom had been neglected most of their life could open up their hearts for a few short days to total strangers. Being able to help others with the skills I have learned just from undergraduate school at University of Houston was a great advantage to me while volunteering in Costa Rica. I would appreciate the opportunity to continue helping individuals, families, and communities on a greater
As a professional social worker, the main goal is to help a client in a positive and respectful manner. Unfortunately, client experiences and behaviors can make this task seem extremely difficult. It is important to find yourself before trying to help someone else. Therapy is essentially attempting to make something better, and our personal values determine what is valuable in therapy. Also, thinking
The purpose of social work in the contemporary society is concern for the individual. The function of social work is to help solve problems in human relationships for a better quality of life and to protect them from harm and from harming others which will enhance well-being. I have decided to pursue social work as a profession because I am at the point in my life where I want a sense of fulfilment. I care about people, I want to help others. I want to make the world a better place to live. I want to be the change I want to see. I want to serve the people in society who are physical, mentally, and socially less privileged than I am and make them feel loved and accepted. I will work with all groups of people but I have a strong interest in working with children and people who suffer from mental illnesses and addiction. I am interested in social work because it is a career with lots of flexibility in an ever-changing field allowing me to work in different settings, with different goals and challenges, but with a shared purpose of serving the common good of people.
Social workers form relationships with people and assist them to live more successfully within their local communities by helping them find solutions to their problems. Social work involves engaging not only with clients themselves but their families and friends as well as working closely with other organisations including the police, local authority departments, schools and the probation service.
After landing in Mexico and meeting up with the people I would be working with during a three-day mission trip, we were crammed into a bus and spent the next two hours getting to know each other. We were there to build homes for a multitude of families in the town of Xochimilco, Mexico. When we arrived late in the afternoon, we were led to an empty school where we would spend our nights. Sleeping on the floor next to school lockers with bugs buzzing in my ears in a country I did not know well was an interesting experience to say the least—but that was just the beginning. At dawn, the real work began and so did a change in my thinking that had a dramatic effect on my perspectives about life.
Narrow hallways walled by human heads and limbs crowding every space between metal bars surrounded me. Children starved on unpaved streets with only rags that wrapped their bodies. I ended my high school career by serving a foreign community. In Chinandega, Nicaragua I had the opportunity to befriend and support the sick, the imprisoned, the orphaned and impoverished. This experience among others shaped me to appreciate the value of philanthropy and social justice.
Many reasons exist for why an individual decides to become a social worker. Sometimes those reasons include hopes of creating a better future for vulnerable members of society, advocating for a world free of oppression and prejudice or even creating macro level changes in policy and legislation. In any case, a social worker is guided by his or her passion, commitment and dedication towards an easing of suffering at the micro, mezzo and macro levels for individuals, groups and communities.
My understanding of the social work profession is that it is a helping profession. To me social workers help others in a variety of situations. Social workers help find and connect people with resources for food, rent, insurance, medical care. Social workers also do work fighting for social justice on the Micro, Mezzo and Macro aspect, working for individuals and family to making laws to help underserved populations. Social workers also provide education to clients for lots of reasons. Some social workers became licensed and help people with counseling that may be needed for things such as PTSD or anxiety.
Before the interview, I thought I had a good understanding of what a social worker does from the books and lectures. They help people. However, learning from the perspective of a social worker is entirely different. They do so much more than helping people. They guide clients to make better decisions.
Social workers are unique in the way that they look at many different aspects of a problem, from the individual to the societal, from the psychological to the political. Social work is about serving clients include providing counseling, therapy and education, as well as connecting clients to appropriate public or private resources. It attracts people who are interested in creating positive change in the lives of individuals, families and communities.
Throughout my life, I have always loved helping people and enhancing them to be the best person they can be. My purpose for choosing to pursue social work as a degree is through the burning desire I have upheld to support individuals achieve their goals. I consider myself as someone who is keen on acquiring new skills and knowledge of understanding on a daily basis. This is due to my motivation and determination as those two things are essential to sustain as an individual. From previous experience obtained by working in a Care home & Nursery, I have always had a passion to guide individuals who are less able to do so.
Many experts call social workers the “jack of all trades” of the modern society. This comes from the fact that these professionals assist their clients in almost every accept of life. For one thing, they promote good mental health since they can help patients with psychological conditions and substance abuse problems. They can also help in improving physical wellbeing since they can guide their clients to the right healthcare facility and assist them in obtaining financial help to fund their treatment. Of course, they can help people who are going through socio-economic difficulties by steering them to organizations who can best assist with their financial needs.
Even though I was their teacher, the kids and their families taught me just as much as I taught them. They connected me to peoples of the world that I had never considered myself to have any relation to. They illuminated how important it is to be aware of geopolitical situations around the world, because those circumstances affect my local community. They prepared me to engage in discussions with my peers about
I would also consider my research about the country Uganda pretty successful to. Now that my 20 Time project is over, I feel like I have gained a large understanding of how different the United States is from basically any other country in the world, especially Uganda. I have learned what I take for granted, and how to be acceptive of other cultures in general, which was my beginning goal. Even though by the end of this project I was expecting to have a sponsor child instead of just a pen pal, I feel like I have gotten to know someone from a different country a lot better than I had originally planned with a sponsor child. The knowledge that I continued to gain through research and “Kisses from Katie” continued to surprise me by the ways I was living compared to how a person from a range of ages are living in Uganda. By learning about living conditions there vs. living conditions here, I found myself marveling at all the privileges I was given and hadn’t even noticed before. Clean water, an abundant source of food, an awesome education, multiple pairs of clean clothes, a structurally safe house, the list goes on and on. This project has impacted me to the point where I would think about struggling kids in Uganda while I was watching T.V. or doing homework, and realize how truly blessed I
#1 A: Social work can be defined as a broad profession, with the sole purpose of improving the lives and relieving the hardships of the members of a population. Social work addresses many problems for the well being of society, including: health care, criminal justice and domestic violence, economic and public policies, child and family welfare, as well as homelessness. Social workers are trained professionals with the education and tools necessary to address problems from several different perspectives, with the intention of helping the masses and not just individuals. Social workers have the ability to inform people in need of resources available to help them achieve a wide variety of goals, whether personal social mobility, or financial independence.
My understanding of the profession of social work is to enhance human well-being and to help meet the basic needs of all society, especially the needs of the most vulnerable, oppressed, and the needs of the people living in poverty. Social work leading duties are to promote social justice and social change on behalf of clients.