ipl-logo

Importance Of Self Awareness In Social Work

1755 Words8 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Social workers and self awareness

Introduction In any helping process, it should be guided by goals as they support the process ("Crafting Goals and Objectives", n.d.). Thus, as the head of the social service agency, I would work with both social workers to develop their goals.
Goals
The first goal for Mr A and Mrs B is to eliminate misunderstandings through effective communication and learning more about each other. By developing a common goal, it provides a platform for them to interact and lower communication barriers. Hence, this would enhance their understanding of each other’s perspective and rationale behind their decisions. Mr A’s second goal is to find a mentor who could guide him in his personal development including developing critical thinking perspective …show more content…

According to Kaushik (2017), National Association of Social Workers (NAWS) emphasised that self-awareness is significant in culturally competent social work practice as one way of respecting the importance of multicultural identities in people’s lives. By enhancing the social workers’ self-awareness, they would develop a better understanding of how their thoughts towards certain issues including corporal punishment, came about. For example, they will realise that living in different countries give them different experiences and in turn this influence their attitudes. Thus, the skill of self-awareness enables the social workers to understand how past experiences are affecting their approach to understanding differences.
Social Work Skills: Empathy Empathy is an important skill for without it social workers would be unable to fully understand the other party’s point of view in each situation (Ruben, …show more content…

Between the principles, three has been chosen to be implemented in the agency. The first principle is, “Always try to increase your knowledge and understanding about aspects of others’ identity that are different from your own”. This is important because Singapore prides itself as a diverse society (Benner, 2016). This means that a person living in Singapore is bound to meet people who are very different from themselves. Hence, to minimise misunderstandings, it is vital to increase knowledge and understanding about others. In the agency, the social workers can overcome differences by encouraging them to mingle in an informal or social setting. For example, the agency can bring together individuals with common needs or interests ranging from various cultural backgrounds. Additionally, the agency can consider organising staff dialogues and team building. These programs provide a valuable opportunity for employees to interact, connect with each other and share their experiences. Thus, through setting up ways for staff to connect with each other, it can help enhance their knowledge and understanding of another person’s

Show More
Related
1043 Words | 5 Pages

The social worker should appreciates people from various group and do not make assumptions on any person’s cultural identity. Social workers who respect diversity are careful to protect against jumping to conclusions or making decisions based on overgeneralizations and stereotypes. Challenge Social Injustice Social workers should eliminate the injustices in order to improve the quality of life for all and for the most vulnerable members of society. Housing issues, wages, types of jobs, education and financial matters are some of the areas where a minority population gets unjustified. Challenging social injustice is a long term plan.

Read More
2139 Words | 9 Pages

The social worker can influence clients to endorse themselves and people around them. Clients will be able to develop positive attitudes toward ideal beauties and

Read More
1353 Words | 6 Pages

Who I identify as, including identifying as a social worker once I graduate, will have some level privilege and power attached to the chosen identities. Gelfand, Sillivan, and Steinhouse (2002) noted that there are may dimensions that influence our personal and professional relationships with others, and these dimensions shape how we see and interact with, include or exclude them, and ways that we oppress or discriminate against them. As a social worker whose clients share my same identity, we may benefit by my having a shared understanding of cultural norms and expectations to reach a common goal. For clients who share commonalities with me, we may benefit by being able to work more collaboratively and possibly a more trusting relationship than one that must be built over time. However, just as similarities can be empowering, I must remember that the client knows best despite our shared identities that may speak otherwise.

Read More
712 Words | 3 Pages

The social workers find resources that will help the clients resolve their situation, taking in

Read More
999 Words | 4 Pages

It is worth noting that social work practice makes use of knowledge in human behavior and development; community and economic; and cultural institution knowledge in the process of helping both individuals and communities. Social work is mostly practiced in areas such as developmental health; child well-being; clinical and medicine field; health; as well as social groups including race and ethnicity, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups. Social work is equally practiced in schools, whereby social workers in this field partners with school leaders, students, and their families to provide governance in establishing school mental health programs, discipline guidelines, crisis management strategies, and in the provision of support

Read More
1278 Words | 6 Pages

Practice based on empirical knowledge helps reduce bias, enables workers to study interpretations, perspectives or alternative solutions, and makes social workers more accountable for their decisions JD Hudson (1997). The dialogue between theory and practice In the past and present, there is hesitation among practitioners in social work to adapt theory and research because they feel that the reference to theory is the loss of connection with reality when practicing social work. In order for the social worker to be an effective practitioner, man must have a sound theoretical basis and this is not easy to achieve.

Read More
700 Words | 3 Pages

Social workers are there to help meet the basic needs of human, also with the need of helping encourage, mentoring, and empower human struggles in society and poverty. The code is designed for many reasons. It identifies core values in which a social worker mission is based, the code summarize broad ethnic principle such as; challenge injustices, respect the inherent dignity and worth of the person, behave in a trustworthy manner, and help people in need and to address social problems. The code is generally designed to help people with relevant needs to there every day life. These codes help apply better and relationship with the worker to client.

Read More
1817 Words | 8 Pages

Being a social worker is often a challenging, yet rewarding career. Social workers are responsible for helping individuals, families, and groups of people to cope with problems they’re facing to improve their patients’ lives. Social workers are also trained caseworkers in social service agencies who perform several functions which they use different components of the practice framework, the theoretical underpinnings to in order to build helping relationships. After interviewing a caseworker in a specific social agency there were advantages and disadvantages of methods along with challenges encountered in working in that specific agency. With all of this the functions, roles and responsibilities of a caseworker is what helps any agency to uphold

Read More
1672 Words | 7 Pages

Introduction Person-in-Environment Framework In our practice as social workers, we are urged to view and understand human behavior as a set of complex interactions between individuals and their environment. This is known as the person-in-environment framework. This framework encourages us to acknowledge the influence of environment on our lives and provides a beneficial framework to think about and understand human behavior (Hutchinson, 2017). Understanding our work from this perspective allows us to approach our clients from a multi-dimensional stance, taking into consideration how various factors, including but not limited to, race, class, age and gender create individual identity and shapes an individual’s experience in the context of

Read More
1508 Words | 7 Pages

Modern social workers are frequently tasked with certain objectives by their agencies, which leave little room for any work beyond specific treatments and timeframes (Gitterman & Knight, 2016). Although social workers are bound to the set of ethics put forth by the NASW, practitioners are often limited to focusing on the issues of the individual rather than the larger societal issues that may be behind those concerns. Additionally, many social work students end up working in direct practice, rather than macro work. There is a need for social workers to engage at the macro level in order to facilitate community organization and empowerment. Critics suggest this theory may not take into account the unique experiences of each individual and perhaps key characteristics of the individual or group are not taken into consideration (Sadan, 1997).

Read More
1681 Words | 7 Pages

In this paper, I will assess my identity and my personal history and how it relates to social work professions. I first address my personal history and cultural background, where I came from, as well as my experience in working in the community. I then talk about my overall strengths, both in personal and professional lives. My strengths are listening skills, open-mindedness, respect for diversity and eagerness to learn and improve my weaknesses. Afterward, I discuss my weaknesses, such as nonassertive communication skill and low self-esteem problems, and how I plan to address these issues.

Read More
783 Words | 4 Pages

In the reading, the author discusses throughout the chapter skills and techniques in the middle phase of working with a service user. Honesty is a value that is highly respected in the social work profession because it creates authenticity and trust in the therapeutic alliance. I agree with the statement completely, as I believe that being honest in regards to what one is feeling as a social worker allows the service user to be honest with how they are feeling as well. Further, it is explained that empathy is of vast importance when working with a service user in order to connect, help them uncover what they are feeling, and find specific approaches and techniques that would be beneficial to the service user. Although I agree that empathy is an important skill for a social worker to have when working with a service user, I feel that at times it can be an issue.

Read More
780 Words | 4 Pages

Social work is a profession that dedicates its efforts to ensure the well-being of individuals and the well-being of the society as a whole. The primary mission of social workers is to meet the fundamental needs of every person, especially the ones with special needs such as those who are oppressed, vulnerable and the people living in poverty. As a social worker, I intend to use these core values such as service, integrity, and dignity as guidelines to my work to make a difference in the lives of as many needy people as I can. My main goal will be to offer services to needy people to help them solve and overcome social problems that they encounter each day in their lives.

Read More
1651 Words | 7 Pages

INTRODUCTION This is a key framework of sociological theory. It depend on symbols and their meaning. The words we use to describe our behaviour and the behaviour of others is very important. To elaborate further and get into detail about this theory, firstly the theory and key terms have to be defined, secondly the major proponents and tenets, thirdly the history of the theory, fourthly the purpose of the theory, fifthly the significance of the theory for social work practice, followed by the epistemology, consistency with social work values and ethics, implication of the theory, position of the theory on the population served by the social worker, strength and weakness, relevance of Intersectionality, critical perspective on contemporary issues

Read More
1786 Words | 8 Pages

In social care, we work with some of society’s most vulnerable people. For a practitioner to best support an individual they must first be able to care for themselves. There is huge value in being aware of who we are, our strengths and our areas for improvement. This can directly affect the relationships and experiences we have with ourselves, clients, and our peers in social care practice. For this assignment, I will look at the importance of ‘the self’ and personal and professional development in social care.

Read More

More about Importance Of Self Awareness In Social Work

Related Topics

Open Document