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. Next, I explain why I seek a BSW degree, how my personal values align with the professional values, and how it is related to my interest in working in the …show more content…
I’m a hard-working and motivated person, because I believe that with enough practice anyone can be good at anything. As someone who is born in a collective culture, I’m harmonious and I actively seek to promote harmony and peace in groups and individuals. Because of my harmonious nature, I try to be friendly and kind to people, especially to those that feel left out. Therefore, I’m able to get along well with people while working in groups. In addition, I’m self-critical, therefore, I’m good at knowing my weaknesses and what I’m lacking. After knowing what my weaknesses are, I usually try to solve them and improve my skills. For example, I’m not a highly flexible and positive person, so I seek out to individuals who are flexible and positive in their lives and ask for their advice. Another strength that I have is that I usually have a positive outlook of my improvement, because I have seen examples of those who overcome their hardships and become successful in life, so I believe that if I try hard enough, I will be able to overcome my weaknesses. I’m also confident with my listening skills and my ability to focus on others and make them feel heard. I like to start on works and projects early so that if anything comes up, I will still have time to handle it. This habit helps reduce my stress from working in the last minute. I can also look at a problem in multiple perspectives, as I was born and raised in an Eastern culture, but I’m being educated on social and political issues mainly through a Western culture
I am good at problem-solving, staying positive during stressful situations, leading people through difficult times, and being straightforward when I handle unfortunate problems. This reason is one of my best qualities I am open-minded. I am willing to consider new ideas and opinions without being biased. I will acknowledge all these thoughts and go through them while being unprejudiced.
In the Social Work Speaks: National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Policy Statements the book provides the reader with a variety of problems in the educational system and how education can be improve based on the ideas of the NASW. The document touches on different topics that are affecting the students and the history of the programs that help shaped the education system. The selected topics below were selected in order to explain how is affecting the education system and how they can be improved. Education for Students with Disabilities and Special Needs
I am dedicated, energetic and enthusiastic. I place a high value on quality and I thrive in team environments. When given a task, I rise to the challenge as I have done throughout my academic
It’s very likely that you usually pay more attention to your shortcomings than your strong points. You customarily devote yourself to overcoming your limitations.” (Gallup, n.d., p. 5). This statement is very true; I am a very motivated individual, and I am always trying to better myself. I am a person that does not focus on my strengths, but on my weaknesses that I need to improve.
Identifying myself as a professional representative for those who require access to social work services is imperative to my field. The competency of my knowledge with the NASW core values and guiding principles will help me preserve the social work reputation and will give confidence to the public in our abilities to provide services in the many areas of this diverse profession. Investing my time in developing professional expertise through continuing educations, seminars, and conventions will help me build up myself as a specialist. Similarly, reading new information in social work practices and keeping inform of government programs will help me expand my knowledge in order to provide proficient services. As a result, other specialists
To begin with, my top strength is positivity. According to Rath, “ You are generous with praise, quick to smile, and always on the lookout for the positive in the situation” (Rath p141). I believe it is always important to be positive regardless of how bad a situation is. My job is to motivate others when they become pessimistic of a certain task. This strength is essential in both school and a career as neither a classmate or a co-worker wants to surround him or herself with negativity that makes for a long day.
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.
Something that I consider to be both a strength and a weakness in my social work career is my gentle and reassuring manner. On the surface, this may seem like an excellent trait to have. I am very much a “people person” and others are naturally drawn to me. I tend to look at situations in a positive light as much as possible and have become an expert in removing tension between family members or dealing with end-of-life concerns. The majority of the residents value this quality in me and seek me out when a difficult decision needs to be made.
Social work is a career that I have recently become interested in pursuing. I spent many years with misconceptions concerning the sector. However, following three years of working close by these experts, I have picked up a more profound comprehension of the significance of the work. I am especially interested in working in child welfare along with terminally ill children. I have got to a stage in my career where I have started to search out instruction that will make me more efficient in creating plans and providing services for vulnerable people.
In most careers professionalism is a valuable trait to have in a person’s work ethic. Social work is most certainly the kind of career in which professionalism is highly important. There are a variety of behaviors that depict professionalism. Some examples of these behaviors are appearance, demeanor, competence, ethics, verbal and writing skills, and many more. Throughout the social work program, the importance of professionalism has always been stressed, and there were several assignments that were given to us in order to apply professionalism in our field practicum and to help prepare us for our career.
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.
I am also able to implement a range of interventions based on a comprehensive client assessment. I also have the ability to apply social work knowledge and theory to practice using critical thinking in a practice approaches and decisions. It also gives me the ability to engage in social work practice that is sensitive to issues of culture, ethnicity, religion, race, class, sexual orientation, age, gender, and physical and mental abilities. It also instill in me the appropriate and the effective communication skills. I am also able to demonstrate self-discipline, the ability to reflect upon and resolve ethical dilemmas.
My weaknesses are my over-commitment to my ways. I am open minded person, however when I follow or do something, I always believe to be best & gain momentum & at that time I unable to change my directions & become fixed to my goal. As over-commitment may not seem is always an obvious weakness. It can create many hindrances if a mistake is made because at that time its very difficult for me to change my goal or work in which I engaged. While some commitment is good, too which can be a problem.
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,
Over the semester I have learned many new aspects of social work that have helped deepen my understanding of what social work is really about. This course has taught me things that will help me become a better person and will also help me with my future working with children. Self reflection is a key skill to have when working in social work. We need to understand how we are, and our social location, influence everything we do with social work. My beliefs and values would be beneficial for being a social worker because I have a caring no judgment, personality that allows me to be a neutral and to listen to people.