Social work is unique from other professions because of its approach in helping clients to have their lives function in the environments in which they live. Basically, the social work profession trains its workers on the person-in-environment approach. Going with this perspective, the profession teaches its workers to help clients to optimize the opportunity for change either for the situations they find themselves in or themselves. The social workers deal with individuals, families, communities, organizations, and groups. Also, what makes social work unique and distinctive from other helping professions are ethics, values, the emphasis on social justice, appreciation for human diversity as well as the understanding of policies on social welfare and services and a strong foundation in education (Hepworth, Rooney& Strom-Gottfried, 2016). Social workers have demonstrated a unique approach when solving problems of big magnitude. Their intervention in administration, clinical practice, research, public and private sectors is evident from the success they achieve in their practice.
According to Golightley and Goemans (2017), there is no other profession in human service which can claim or take credit for what social work has done with its endurance and commitment to the most vulnerable citizens in the world. Indeed, the ethics about this profession puts great emphasis on its moral mission to empower vulnerable citizens in both the public and private sectors. Nearly 10% of the American citizens living below the poverty line have been assisted with social workers to overcome life challenges. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the agency on child protection receives almost 2million reports of child neglect or child abuse. Of these cases, almost 500,000 cases are substantiated (DuBois & Miley, 2013). Social workers in the United States provide crucial clinical services to treat and protect neglected and abused children and help families to deal with stressful situations in life. Social workers deal with issues of social and public policies that increase child abuse and neglect such as unemployment, poverty, and homelessness. Many families are affected by mental health. Going with the statistics provided by U.S. surgeon general, 20% of the U.S. population is affected with mental illness (Hepworth, Rooney & Strom-Gottfried, 2016). The social workers offer critical help and clinical services to the people who are affected by mental illness, mood disorders, substance abuse, anxiety or other forms of mental illnesses. In the same light, the social workers are usually at the forefront of ensuring that there is enough funding of services dealing with mental health.
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Section Two
My interviewee is a pediatric social worker at a level four employed at Vanderbilt Children’s hospital for 17 years. She deals with certain specialists in adolescents medicines such as eating disorders. She also covers infectious diseases in children, allergy clinic and individual and family therapy in adolescents. Since she has many responsibilities, she decides on how to go about carrying out her duties. Sometimes she makes her rounds with her clients and meets them where needed either as a social worker or medical worker.
She describes her day to day activities as fast paced attending to both outpatients and inpatients. She balances both seeing both patients from medical centers and outside. Also, she is a supervisor for the LCSW licensure and thus she supervises her staff and trains her master students.
With regards to the code of ethics and its use in her daily activities, she admits using the code of ethics in different ways. For example, she understands that having a personal opinion over an idea does not alter or overrule the views of the clients. She further asserts that she gives her clients option even the ones that she does not agree with. When handling a pregnant patient for instance, she has to give all options including abortion even when she does not agree with it. She also points out that as a social worker, she remains nonjudgmental at all times and allow her clients to make choices out of their free will.
With regards to the pros and the cons of her field of work, she points out that she feels good about seeing many people and being able to help them and work with them. She also feels good about being part of a team handling and helping out chronic patients and getting exposure to the many different situations throughout the day. The cons she points out include watching kids dying and encountering accidents which she cannot help. She also points out that sometimes patients do not want to understand the options she gives them since they go against their religious views.
The greatest challenge in her view is limited amount of resources which do not offer enough solutions to the many problems. According to her, people offer simple solutions to complex problems. She indicates that it is difficult when nobody wants to donate psychiatric ward and have them up as a donator or donating a cancer cure research facility. The things she finds most rewarding in her job is meeting people in their times of need. Walking the journey with her patients and watching them get back their health and pursue their goals is an act she finds rewarding.
With regards to strengths and challenges in getting where she is now, she says gaining exposure is key and that it is important for one to know what one wants to do with life early enough. She says she always wanted to work with therapy and kids and especially the adolescents so she picked a relevant program and picked up an internship in her area of interest.
She says that continuing with education and professional development is not just important but it also a requirement to keep the working license. She also points out that it is important since it helps one to keep up with the ever changing society and culture. She says that the interaction of social workers their clients and other professionals is different for everyone and depends on the type of service, their location of work as well as the situation is for interaction.
With regards to the barriers that the agency’s population faces, she points out that it is difficult when the adolescents are in a point in their growth and when they want to make personal decisions even when the cortex of the brain has not yet matured to make rational decisions. The adolescents make these decisions out of their strong feelings and not out of reasoning. She says that the most pressing issue facing children, families and society today is technology. While she points out that having information is good, she argues that if the information lands in the wrong hands then it becomes a challenge.
With regards to what should be done to make welfare of children to be more responsive to the needs of children, families and workers, she argues that there is need to provide more resources, give better pay, and create more awareness and understanding of the world.
With regards to how the interview impacted her intellectually, emotionally or behaviorally, she believes that the interview helped her to know how to explain her job position and generally her career better to other people. She believes that the interview helped her know how to answer questions more detailed and clearly yet still thoughtfully.
Section Three
The interview has enabled me to understand why social work matters in the society. I have believed that social workers are a repository of knowledge which is needed to balance the complex relationship between the public matters and the private challenges. No other helping profession by design has demonstrated the unique connection like social work has. The interview has reinforced the perceptions that I had with social work but in a much stronger way. What surprised me is how the social workers go the extra mile and deal with the many challenges to deliver. It made me believe that social work is a calling especially for those who are dealing with adolescents. My biggest take away was the number of vulnerable citizens that get help from social workers in the country. The information I got from the interview relates to the knowledge in class. I was able to connect easily with the information I got from the interview even though I got the in-depth information of what social entails from a practical view as opposed to a theoretical standpoint. Since my personality is enriched with human service and giving back to the community, the interview made me stay committed in my quest of being a social worker so that I can give back to the community.
References
DuBois, B. L., & Miley, K. K. (2013). Social work: An empowering profession . Pearson Higher Ed.
Golightley, M., &Goemans, R. (2017). Social work and mental health . Learning Matters.
Hepworth, D. H., Rooney, R. H., Rooney, G. D., & Strom-Gottfried, K. (2016). Empowerment series: Direct social work practice: Theory and skills . Nelson Education.
