Social work and social welfare deal primarily with promoting social development and change, the empowerment and liberation of people, and promoting social cohesion as well by preaching diversity and inclusivity. The world today is such that individualism is highly valued and people are more concerned with establishing their financial securities and upholding their social statuses to the extent that they have neglected their duty towards one another, especially towards the minority groups. The minority groups thus continue to be disadvantaged and hurt, prompting the intervention of a third party who is better placed to understand their struggles and pain. As a professional social worker, I believe I am well equipped to identify and resonate with the minority group I work with, both from personal experiences growing up and from a professional point of view.
Growing up, my family's house one day caught fire, and even though the fire department tried all they could to put out the fire that had rummaged a better part of our neighborhood, the houses in our block were burnt to ashes and no family was able to salvage any of their property. Due to this loss, the local department offered us temporary shelters as the authorities worked with the relevant agencies to compensate the families for their losses. In as much as my family and I, together with our neighbors received the support of the local authorities until we were able to stand on our feet again, this experience scared us and impacted me profoundly in particular because it was the closest, I ever came to being homeless. At this period, I started interacting with the homeless street children that lived nearby. Getting to understand life from their point of views opened up my eyes to the challenge’s street families go through, from the lack of shelter to food, and other basic needs which to them are a luxury.
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From this point, I felt a longing deep within me to help give hope to the homeless people around me, marking the beginning of my journey in social work, more particularly working with the homeless people. The reason I consider working directly with these individuals instead of following other social avenues such as nursing is that I believe the purest form of help the society can help is making a direct impact to the actual situation on the ground. We cannot pretend to offer education to children who are not sure of where their next meal will come from or where they will spend the night. In as much as such secondary approaches offer a long-lasting solution, they cannot be implemented without providing some assurance of a better tomorrow by first providing short term interventions. When the street children are fed and sheltered, it becomes easier for them to stay in school focused on finding permanent solutions. In other words, the situation we experience in the society today call for immediate interventions, which in as much as they may not be long lasting, they pave the way for more long-term solutions to be implemented by watering the ground on which the seeds of permanent solutions will be planted.
The rate of homelessness in America is alarming, and I believe it is high time we stepped up to work closely to get these individuals, especially children out of the streets. I am particularly interested in working with children and teenagers because they have more potential that needs to be exploited and channeled in the right direction. The core value of social work that best relates to my understanding of what I do is service (Voshel & Wesala, 2015) . This value requires me to act with the best interest of the minority population at heart, which is why I am more concerned about the future of the street children who do not go to school but instead waste away on drugs and lawlessness. Of personal values, beliefs, and strengths, I grew up in an environment that advocated for equality for everyone. I believe that no matter where they come from, these street children are humans too who deserve to be given the same treatment and opportunities in education and family as every other American child. With this in mind, my strength lies in the social services area. By working closely with the child services sector, I will be able to give more street children a chance at living the life they deserve as children without having to worry about their situations. To become an even more competent social services worker, I will need to further work on my communication skills (Hepworth, Rooney, Rooney & Strom-Gottfried, 2016) . By having an open and honest conversation with the street children, I am able to develop a relationship with them which makes it easy for them to trust me hence follow my lead into foster homes and orphanages where they will be taken care of. To further improve on this area, I plan to take communications lessons part time where I will learn how to hold honest and open conversations bearing in mind the critical pointers of communications
Even though I am not a sociology majored student, my love and passion for justice and equality, especially for disadvantaged children out in the streets makes a professional social work career a good fit for me, since I will be driven by passion, and not merely the need for employment. Currently, though I am still deliberating whether to pursue a social services career actively or to become a volunteer. But no matter the decision I make in the end, my love and passion for working with the less fortunate members of our society will always remain.
References
Hepworth, D. H., Rooney, R. H., Rooney, G. D., & Strom-Gottfried, K. (2016). Empowerment series: Direct social work practice: Theory and skills . Nelson Education.
Voshel, E. H., & Wesala, A. (2015). Social media & social work ethics: Determining best practices in an ambiguous reality. Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics , 12 (1), 67- 76.
