PERSONAL AWARENESS AND PREPAREDNESS FOR SOCIAL WORK
PERSONAL AWARENESS AND PREPAREDNESS FOR SOCIAL WORK
Part 1
In the beginning, I have always regarded that being a social worker is similar to providing public service to people who may be in need of advice that is related to the social, emotional and life situation between a client and a social worker. The social workers are expected to have longer patience and being able to understand the issues inside the home, school and community for they are tasked to provide both direct and indirect services to students and families.
Most people define a social worker is one who provides services that relate to the social, emotional and life adjustment of an individual to help him or her make the right decisions. Some people hold this belief because they have not experienced the life of a social worker and the job that it entails to perform the duty. In reality, social work is more than giving social and emotional advice to people, but giving them hope and inspiring them to become better versions of themselves.
I observed that community services in line with social work should be improved by focusing on the values of having a positive outlook in life, commitment to self-awareness, creativity, open-mindedness, respect for diversity, having trust in the people, and being more compassionated about their situation (Segal, et al., 2012, p.25). I observed the social work has become more mechanical in the sense that there is lack of empathy, flexibility, compassion, and patience for the people. While social work means removing any biases and promoting equality, the social workers must also be reminded that they have to practice healthy skepticism and being open to life-long learning while dealing with the people.
The important values and ideologies that I believe social workers must observe is having the right qualities and characteristics by being patient, flexible, compassionate, and having a sense of empathy towards the people as they deal with the difficult situations in life. Being able to influence these people to have a positive outlook in life will help them grow morally and spiritually.
One of the aspects of social work is having the time to listen to the client’s problems and to give them sound advice to make the right decisions. It is also expected that they may not heed to the advice given by social workers, and it is important to respect whatever decisions they make.
In my personal opinion, I value social justice and being able to accept other people regardless of their race, gender and social status in life is part of social justice. One of the ways to promote this ideology is to afford every person with dignity and respect. The key to achieve this is by having an open mind and constantly looking for other alternatives during decision-making.
One of the causes of dilemmas in social work is having conflicting ideologies with the client. The role of a social worker is to uphold the dignity and worth of every individual by promoting the right to self-determination, regardless of age the clients, young and old alike. Under the CASW of Ethics Section 1.5 on privacy and confidentiality, it is import that human relationships are promoted. However, one of the dilemmas that a social worker may face is breaching the confidentiality of the client who is only a minor, and can cause a significant impact on the trust of the social worker. The goal of the social worker is to help the minor to move forward from past mistakes. However, the social worker should also be able to outweigh what will be best for the clients’ welfare. The duty of a social worker is to uphold the integrity of the clients. Thus, the social worker should behave in a trustworthy manner to their clients, the clients’ families and the communities that they serve. It is vital that social work values and goals must be able to produce direct benefits for clients and families (Murdach, 2007).
The role of the social worker is to ensure that their clients make the rights decisions for the benefit of the majority of the stakeholders. However, there are times when the clients still want to pursue their own decisions without due regard to the possible negative consequences. The aim of the social worker is to establish a harmonious rapport with the clients by becoming flexible and listening to their comments or suggestions though they may have different perspectives in solving problems. The social worker must give the clients the opportunity to give feedback to verify if the approach taken worked effectively.
Under the ecosystems approach, learning more group work theory is proven to enhance the family work aspect of social work. Although work in groups can enhance thinking about organizational change, it is important to focus on the tone that will facilitate organizational change where social work can stand out. By improving clinical skills and enhance them to become macro skills are considered as the perfect combination. In effect, social work can excel if the social workers are equipped with macro social work skills such as community organizing, grant writing, systems analysis, and policy making can significantly affect the areas of practice.
The most important theory which is significant on social work is the Systems Theory. It provides a clear description of the human behavior that can exist in the area of complex systems. The idea of this theory is that to have an effective system, it is necessary to provide the needs of each individual, giving rewards, and having expectations, and attributes of the members of the community who are living in the system. This theory simply means that the families, couples, and organization members should be directly involved in finding solutions to the problem whether it is an individual issue or not. Being able to solve the individual problems is a collective effort and every member of society should help each other to end all conflicts.
I have chosen the Systems theory as the most important theory in my profession because it shows that social work should be a joint effort between the social worker, the client and his or her family to resolve problems.
Having an anti-oppressive understanding means that the social workers should practice equality and fairness in all their dealings with their clients. Social workers should be mindful that promoting social justice means practicing equal treatment to every person equally regardless of age, gender, race, and social status in life. There are diverse forms of oppression that go along with racism and interlocking systems of social oppression (Heinonen & Spearman, 2010, p.132). Such being the case, these dimensions form part of the social structure and the social worker should be able to understand them in a holistic view.
Being in this profession has taught me how to become non-judgemental and oppressive. Patience is the key to be able to fulfil the duties of a social worker. It is a common knowledge that majority of the clients are stubborn and may turn down the advice that promotes their overall well-being. I am also aware that I should have positive influence over these people and teach them to practice healthy skepticism.
As a social worker, I must be able to engage in self-reflection and able to solve my own personal problems. Social workers must not engage their problems and allow them to interfere with their work. By having a positive outlook in life will enable the ability of the social worker towards self-determination to decide what will be best for the majority of people concerned. At the same time, the social worker should give the clients the liberty to make informed decisions. Giving people the respect that they deserve without forming any biases based on their race, age, gender, or social standing is a reflection of an anti-oppressive understanding.
PART 2 - Interview with a Social Worker
The social worker that I interviewed was assigned at a residential care and treatment facility for adolescents for 13 years, and employed as a school counsellor in the public school division for 14 years. Part of the professional experience of the interviewee is working with First Nation children, youth and their families. The most recent job is contract counselling for a counselling organization. With this environment, the social worker is exposed to a diverse clientele who have different problems such as dealing with divorce, separation, foster care, sexual abuse, victims of violence, stress anger management, self-esteem, residential school survivors, and parental support.
The focus of the social work in the counselling service area is to provide support by creating awareness, engage in individual, group and family therapy that focus on positive well-being and mental health. One of the challenges that the social worker had to face is to help the clients overcome the stigma to mental health related issues and have become reluctant about seeking support and guidance of a social worker. The social worker believes that in the future, this profession can be improved by creating awareness of being nonjudgmental and to create acceptance and awareness of the different conflicts that confront people and give hope and assure more people that they have all the support they need to secure a healing journey.
The social worker believes that values and ethics are important aspect of the profession. It was recommended that counselling approaches should be flexible in order to meet the needs of the clients and address the issues that were presented. It is not advisable to implement a rigid singular approach since it can create a barrier to provide a supportive environment to a diverse client base which requires a more varied counselling approach. The social worker mentioned that by using the Client Centered Approach, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Systemic and Family Therapy, Solution Focused Therapy, Psychodynamic and Attachment Theory and Group Therapy that adopt a multicultural framework will give the counsellor the opportunity to respond in the most effective approach that will support the client in personal, emotion, mental and social transformation and growth.
The social worker is providing counselling services to a diverse and vulnerable clientele. As such, it is imperative to establish rapport and develop a trusting relationship in order to build mutual trust, respect and acceptance. When a relationship is created, the counsellor then becomes a facilitator of the development of healthy connections and self-healing. With this interview, I learned that this is an important process because it will allow the client to build on functional skills that will promote healthy coping as they work through issues. At the same time, they meet new challenges as they receive the support and guidance through the process.
In this interview, I learned that the social worker explained that being a counsellor requires values such as patience, compassion, empathy, and self-awareness. By being honest, true, encouraging, non-judgmental and being aware of the needs of the client will establish an environment that allows for the formation of a healthy relationship between counsellor and client. By engaging in a process of developing personal insight and creating healthy change may result to the personal transformation of the client. Social work requires the ability to nurture the clients by allowing them to explore themselves without fear of criticism or judgment.
This interview has allowed me to discover that the social worker can learn the skills through personal, academic and work related experience that will give the opportunity to interact and provide support to a diverse population. My view about social work profession did not change because I felt even more encouraged to do well in my chosen field. Just like the interviewee, I feel blessed to be given the chance to experience working with children, adolescents, adults, elderly, the impoverished, isolated, alienated, and marginalized populations, the influential and affluent populations, and the educated and under educated populations and multicultural populations. The interactions with the diverse population helped me to continuously improve and develop both my personal and professional skills.
b.1.) What are the ways to improve the reciprocal process of trading or bargaining to reach a possible compromise and favorable possible agreement for all parties?
I chose this question because I want to know how the concessions and offers will enhance the bargaining positions without compromising the relationship between the social worker and the client.
b.2) What are the things to avoid to prevent social work burnout and maintain and continue a long and healthy career in this chosen profession?
I chose this question because I want to know the things that will avoid burnout in the social work profession due to the daily challenges and conflicts that the job entails.
b.3) How will the etic approach and emic approach improve the relationship between the social worker and the client?
I chose this question because I want to know how the etic approach and emic approach be able to make a comparison on the community-organizing strategies practiced by a group of individuals based on gender and the culture to be able to gain information about the unique cultural context and experiences of each individual based on the outsiders and insider’s point of view (Heinonen & Spearman, 2010, p.131).
References:
CASW Code of Ethics 2005. Web. Retrieved on March 31, 2016, from
http://www.casw-acts.ca/en/what-social-work/casw-code-ethics.
Heinonen, T. & Spearman, L. (2010) Social Work Practice: Problem solving and beyond,
3rd ed. Toronto, ON: Nelson
Murdach, A. (2007). Living in the trenches: managerial skills for practitioners. Social
Work, 52(4), 375-377.
Segal, E., Gerdes, K. E. & Steiner, S. (2012). An Introduction to the Profession of Social Work: Becoming a Change Agent, 4th ed. California: Brooks/Cole Cengage.
