What Is A Reflection In Social Work

The social worker in this story had many different responsibilities and roles while working in the ER at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. His responsibilities include having to put the puzzle pieces together of who the victim is as they are being treated. This is often a taunting task because the staff is in a rush. The Social worker has to find clues like driver listens or anything else that will allow them to better understand who they are working with. Her responsibilities don't stop there. He was also responsible for working with the victims family to ensure that they were informed and comfortable.

This capstone course assisted in connecting all the material I have learned thus far in the program as well as helped me to identify what skills and knowledge I need to continue working on. The capstone presentation, as well as class, helped me to practice strength-based language and be conscious of how I describe my clients when presenting them to others. It can be a habit to use negative language to describe a problem-saturated story and unintentionally describe a patient’s story in a way that comes off as stigmatizing. This class helped me become conscious and tactful about how I word sensitive circumstances. It was a great experience to present my patient’s case to the class and practice being thoughtful of how I portrayed my patient’s presenting problem to the group.

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.

Part ONE: Please discuss your experiences at your site. What did you do? What were the clients like? The staff?

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.

This was a very eye opening class for me. Coming from a mental health counselling background I have to admit it is a major difference in how social workers operate versus therapist. In this essay I will reflected on how this social work class has genuinely affected me, my strengths and weaknesses, and what I have taken away from this class. I always gain a great deal of satisfaction from helping others. I remember from middle school on through adulthood I was the go to person. If a person had an issue or needed to talk. I was the voice of reasoning. I was the one able to grab hold of certain resources if someone was in need

Throughout the class, many aspects of the curriculum were seen as useful in future social work practice. Before this course, in other course work, treatment planning and goal setting was often something that was reviewed briefly, yet within the coursework of the capstone seminar this matter had been gone over in more detail. Within this course, it was possible to gain more insight into a more balanced way of setting treatment goals that included conversations with the client concerning what they desired out of treatment in addition to what was needed. This aspect of the course was particularly useful when it came to working towards the development of the treatment plan with the client who was presented during the case presentation, Sarah.

The journey towards the attainment of the Bachelor of the social work degree has been an enlightening and educational experience, as the individual is exposed to the realities of many social and political issues in the society. As a student, I ventured into the degree, with minimal insight as to how the degree can influence and shape the way I perceive the social world, and the way I relate these matters to myself. However, throughout my endeavour, which encompasses years of theoretical studies, and two intensive placements at two drastically different organisations, I believe I have accumulated the bare minimal knowledge to possess a solid foundation about the unfairness and inequality that people in disadvantaged conditions face. Social workers are predominantly found in welfare organisations which Howe (as cited in Limber, 2015) suggested largely influences the practice, direction and values of the social worker, and impacts on their ability to act autonomously (Lymbery, 2015). During my placements, there was a dominant theme that frequently stood out and enticed my attention. This was the accepted practice of focusing on the individual’s problem, as opposed to the social problems that existed and the lack of acknowledgement about the social restrictions of the human agency that limited self-determination. The realization that organisations were managed this way was important in ensuring that I made a proactive effort to understand and untangle the reasons behind such

In this essay I will discuss what learning from K216 materials has been useful to me whilst working with vulnerable and/or disadvantaged service users in my student placement, and what learning I have applied to my practice. Throughout I will look at how my learning informed what I decided to do, how I went about doing this and my understanding of the practice. I will discuss learning in respect of two areas of social work, which are ‘Communication’ and ‘Working collaboratively’. For ‘Communication’ I will focus on communication with service users with disabilities and/ or additional needs and I will explore a case of a mother who I had a telephone call with who was in crisis and in a highly emotional state. With ‘Working collaboratively’,

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

Reflection at its most basic principle "provides us with an opportunity to review our decisions and decision-making processes" however, in practice, reflection is a far broader and contextual concept, it is about understanding a person’s life and the actions they have taken throughout their lives. (Nussbaum 1997).Reflective practice first emerged from the work of a man called Donald Schon, having found that there appeared to be a gap between theory and putting it into practice (Fook 2006a: 441). He went on to state that reflective practice is a way of improving professional practice, through critically evaluating how we respond to practice situations and being self-aware (Mezirow 1991). Whereas reflection is applicable in all aspects of living (Fook 2006a).

making Practice-Based Learning work Reflection on PRACTICE A resource commissioned by the Making Practice Based Learning Work project, an educational development project funded through FDTL Phase 4 Project Number 174/02 and produced by staff from the University of Ulster. www.practicebasedlearning.org Author Patricia McClure School of Health Sciences, University of Ulster www.practicebasedlearning.org contents Reflection on Practice 02

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.

My placement is at Gateway Youth in Elmont. Gateway is a prevention program specializing in working with youth between the ages of 5-17 who are in conflict with their family, in need of academic or emotional support, or who are involved in the juvenile court system. Services provided include case management, crisis intervention, and advocacy with the schools, court, and community. As a social work intern, I am placed at Gotham Ave Elementary School working with third graders. At this school, Gateway Youth provides an after-school program for students that need supervision with their homework and inclusion in activities before their parents can pick them up.

A helping profession is one that nurtures the growth of or addresses the problems of a person's physical, psychological, intellectual, emotional or spiritual well-being.