Interest In Social Work Personal Statement

I have a long experience in social work, which allows me to analyze my path in this area and see what important changes have occurred along the way. First of all, I want to say that for me social work is always a matter of personal development. I think that it is impossible to be effective, to work properly in this sphere while standing at the same place in one’s qualification and professional path. When looking back at my way in social work, I can confidently say that I see a great deal of development in it.
My interest in social work started back in 1995 when I watched the movie “Losing Isaiah”. In that film the character of a social worker in the hospital was so vivid and impressive that I decided that I want to help people in the same way, especially those who really need assistance, sympathy and understanding. I felt that it was the right thing for me to do in life, but at that time I didn’t know where my work path would start and where it would lead me to.
I consider that moment in life to be very important for my future career. It became my starting point as a professional, as before that time I saw how much I liked helping other people, but didn’t really think about making it my career. But seeing that movie, having those feelings showed me the right way for my future. With time my desire became stronger and I saw more and more ways of how I could help people, families, and children to overcome their problems, become stronger and live their lives in a happier way.
Since that moment I’ve come through a long way that involved a lot of studying, communicating, making some mistakes, overcoming the challenges. At first I had just a desire to help people. I saw several ways how I could do it. I liked them, but wasn’t sure whether this was the path for me to go along in life. I tried some of them, got disappointed many times, but after some time I understood my main mistake that didn’t allow me to get real joy from work and life in general. It was my trying to go along some known paths, someone else’s ways in this profession, and I didn’t pay enough attention to distinguishing my own strong features.
In fact, I saw with time that instead of pursuing such foreign paths I had to find my own ones, to see what I really am, what instruments I have, what ways of helping people I can apply and improve, adjusting to my personality and worldview. This path was more difficult in certain aspects, as it didn’t have any discovered and known solutions. In finding my own path I had to make my own mistakes, to analyze what I was doing, to discover my real possibilities and preferences that were close to my soul and to my real calling in life.
I think that going along someone else’s paths is always easier in many ways. First of all, it is easy to get some information on it and to try to apply it in your life. In this case you don’t have much responsibility for it, in fact. You just try, sometimes you fail and in this case you can go into criticizing yourself, moving nowhere indeed. It is a way in which the majority of people gets stuck. They try, fail, blame selves and stop trying to go any further, as they are afraid to move on and make some more mistakes. To face your real self is even more frightening for people, as it means discovering the sides of them that are real but that are hidden for many years. They are afraid that something bad can be discovered and they don’t know what to do with it.
In my point of view, it is still better to go into discovering your real inner world and possibilities and get disappointed about some of them, than to be in ignorance about your real features throughout all your life. By refusing from some potential negative sides, we in fact refuse from all the good that can also be found if we look deep inside of us. For me I decided that I want to discover that good and that I am ready to face some negative features so as to work on them and change them. I think that for social worker it is especially important, as we deal with people, and not just ordinary ones, but those who got into some difficult situation and need our help. When we are not honest with ourselves, we cannot be completely honest with other people.
When we do not want to discover our inner world, I am sure that we are not honest with ourselves. We hide some parts of our life, don’t want to deal with them. And when we face other people with their problems, we can get into our own ones and not be able to help those people. I don’t want to get stuck in my problems in the most inappropriate moment – when some person depends on my help and waits for it. This is why, one of the main foundations of my social work philosophy is honesty with myself and other people.
I am ready to face my inner problems and to solve them, and I think this to be my strong feature. Besides, I am ready to make mistakes on my way to strong professional, and to learn from these mistakes. I am sure that in this way I can become a real specialist and reach a lot in my life. All of this understanding I also got within the years of my social work. At first I was afraid to make mistakes, to admit my limits of professionalism. I was too afraid to look at myself in a real way, with all my faults, mistakes and negative features. But the life has taught me that mistakes are important on the way of learning, but only if I can admit making them. If I don’t do it, act as if I am a perfect specialist, I just stop developing and get stuck in the problems I don’t want to admit.
Thus, my second foundation of social work philosophy is never being afraid of making mistakes. It doesn’t mean that I am not worried about them or that I don’t take them seriously. Instead, it means that I learn from them and am not afraid to admit them. Moreover, I am always trying to do my best to develop and to create such situations in which these mistakes are hard to be made. Today it often happens so that my mistakes are not visible to people, as the general outcome is good, but for me they are still the mistakes that made the solutions harder to get to and which I want to avoid in future. This is why I always analyze my experience and get my lessons out of it.
Another feature that I observed along my path of social work is the necessity to gain more and more knowledge and to develop. Every day some new situations arise and I understand how much depends on my professionalism. I see how I can help people and how many more people there are still waiting for my help. To be able to give them the support they require, I feel my responsibility for education. Today I see that I just cannot let myself stop on my way of development, as I owe it to other people and I am ready to do everything possible on my part to help them.