Reflective Social Work Practice Social Work Essay

ruminative genial Work Practice Social Work EssaySocial proles atomic number 18 knowledge satisfactory nearly and apply the principles of precise thinking and profound discernment. They identify, distinguish, evaluate and integrate multiple sources of knowledge and evidence. These include place evidence, their aver commit fancy, service exploiter and carer aim together with research- ground, organic lawal, policy and heavy knowledge. They use critical thinking augmented by creativity and curiosity.I will critically examine this extract based on my proclaim practice experience and evaluate the use of theories, shits and techniques of brooding practice to dupe if it supports the statement. I will begin by providing a description of a case study drawn from my previous placement to draw on the practice experience gained and how this whitethorn illustrate my teaching so far.It is based on a 14 year old unex goodishd little girl who has been attending a horse-riding charity to help promote her well-being, self-esteem and cordial skills. For the purpose of this denomination she will be referred to as A. In this special(prenominal) example, it is A and myself who wealthy someone met as I surrender been given the task by my music taperor to talk to her near her personal hygiene. My manager mat up this would in any case help in get together the criteria required to handle labyrinthine situations (National Occupational Standards, Key role 6). Other boylike girls in her base bewilder been striken talking behind As back about her and hand non wanted to participate in company manoeuver with her because of this.I felt apprehensive about the meeting as I had non yet encountered anything like this previously. Though I was reassured by my manager that I would clear the opportunity to go through with(predicate) the best commence with her before I met with A. Unfortunately due to time constraints and my manager having to plenteou sness with a crisis she was un fitted to assist me. Prior to the initial meeting with A I began to research on how best to deal with the situation and excogitate ahead on how best to communicate with her. I wanted to do this without hurting her purportings as she was a young and impression suit competent young person. This is to a fault kn possess as second order skills when employing planning strategies in what I as a actioner am doing, being aware and discover interactions, being able to feedback what has happened (Kaprowska, 2005).Still obtaining unsure on how to break onto this detail topic due to my lack of experience, I pull in that if my nerves is apparent to A this whitethorn solely escalate her worries as well. As a result I tried to keep my anxiety at bay. I asked if she had access to shower/bath facilities as a swarm of the children who attended the organisation came from areas of deprivation. At this point I make I felt out of my depth in having this conversat ion, and on comment subsequently felt it conflicted with my own personal beliefs. I did not believe her to bring in any hygiene issues when I had worked with A in the past. This whitethorn have shown when I even uptually got to the topic at hand and told her the truth. She may have observed that I did not get hold happy explaining why I am asking these questions when I myself did not share the same ascertain as my colleagues and others. I came a itinerary from the meeting with my confidence shaken, it was do worse when I learned from my manager that A was up site and her mother had in fact complained about me the next day.I felt a expectant deal of empathy for this young girl, as a professional I had make a commitment to ensure her well-being. I was exhausting to achieve a fine balance between trying to support her whilst to a fault trying to let about well-disposed change. A reason for this I realised was that A and I had a few analogousities which may have stir red how I worked with her, the way I perceived her and also in the way I related to her. I recognise that we both had experienced bully at similar ages. Upon reflection I realised I had untrue her to be to a greater extent vulnerable in my eyes because of my own experiences which may have impacted on the running(a) relationship I had construct with her (Ojala and Nesdale, 2004). Both A and her mother were disappointed in me and felt potently enough to complain. I felt terrible that I had caused A such distress.Trust is a primary feature in conducting person-centred work. Originally essential in the field of psychology by Carl Rogers (1951) where he outlined the person centred therapy. If I was disclosing instruction to A about her poor hygiene which was not something I wholly agreed with, then being transparent and near became unmanageable. A may have observed my unease with her in the meeting, and may have lost faith in me and my work. I realise ulterior that I wanted this to change, and so actively researched how I could engage in overbearing work with A.Person centred work also involves being able to discover the clients wishes and feelings and taking this forward in a haughty manner. The hypothesis proposes that both the worker and the client are equal, it also challenges the notion of the worker being designn as an expert of knowledge, and that the expert knows best. In the meeting with A I had not really questioned her thoughts and feelings on the situation, and on that pointfore had made the creator dynamics between A and myself unbalanced and less in her favour. I had not taken her individuality as a service user into full account and consequently may have oppressed her inadvertently by not trying to clear her views and opinions.In the next meeting with A, I actively researched and utilized the person centred forward motion to help her feel valued and considered in the process. In achieving this I had learnt the gaps in my lea rning experience and attempted to farther my knowledge to benefit my work with A. This can be seen that I am applying the key elements of critical thinking as mentioned in Domain 6 of the Professional Capabilties Framework (2012).When talking with A about her riding power and work with the stem, I realised that her wishes, thoughts and feelings had by chance been over consider when providing this service. Once I reached this conclusion I also began to see that the organisation that I was based in, it may have been the case that a person centred approach was taken initially to begin with. However, when trying to lend oneself the approach fully into practice it seemed as if the people working with A may have forgotten that the planning is not fixed and irreversible. Mansell and Beadle-Brown (2004a) have say that this is may be the reason why thither is a drop and collapse in being able to take plans forward.Furthermore similar to Carl Rogers (1951) and his humanistic view for ind ividualism inside person centred practice, Yelloly and Henkel (1995) suggested uniqueness as central for effective affectionate work practice. With reference to As identity which I had not originally considered, I had come to guess that I needed to make some self-disclosures about my agniseing of how I viewed her. I achieved this by communicating mediocrely my thoughts on how I had assumed that she would not be resilient enough to understand the first meeting. I had label her as a victim of bullying in my mind when this is not how she saw herself. Perhaps if I had realised this early on I would not have meandered through the conversation of hygiene with no direction, and verbalise the facts in a much direct and open manner. I made my apologies known to A and explored more about her thoughts on bullying and its impact. This allowed me to go along consciously focused on her as an individual and aware of my own values about addressing individuals.Funding and organisational issu es at heart the social care firmament have meant that resources and number of staff available to attend to service users has meant there is an uphill struggle to meet the needs of the users (Routledge and Gitsham, 2004). These have also had a substantial effect on the voluntary sector where I was based. My interactions with A were largely unsupervised to begin with because of a shortage of qualified staff and resources. This meant the amount of time and resources I was able to spend with any of the young people attending the service has to be made the most of. This may be why having risquely skilled practitioners is vital in the verbal expression of the current political context. In the face of a double driblet recession means having to economise now also extends to social workers as well (Sanderson et al., 2002). Having enough staff members to begin with would be helpful in providing one to one work usually required for person-centred planning. Even when cladding such hardsh ips, it may be crucial to have a positive attitude and have a good team to work at heart to feel that the work you are producing is not only of a high standard but also done collaboratively. Kydd (2004) also affirms that the solution may not always lie in having enough resources but positive together to develop conducive and appropriate working environments. This may go some way to explain how my manager back up me in this particular incident and was able to provide valuable insight into how to cleanse our working relationship, by being present in future work with A. It is also in line with the organisations working policy (Appendix A).Transparency is crucial to completing positive work with people in social work. Congruence is an positive aspect of this where the worker and the service user have openness within themselves and with one another to foster trustworthiness (Platt, 2007). Though this can only happen if there is a genuine desire to be honest with one another. That th e professional will not hold up a faade and will be able to attend to what the service user is saying by staying in the present and remaining transparent. This may have seemed like a natural concept but was quite an difficult to apply when working with A. I did not want to undermine her experience of being bullied by her peers by bringing my own personal experiences into the forefront. notwithstanding I thought if I told her she may not feel quite so isolated which is a common feeling in teenagers with difficult lives (Metzing-Blau and Schnepp, 2008). Ultimately I realised my confidence had been shattered to the point where I began to question almost every piece of work I undertook with A, convinced(p) that I would disappoint her and her mother.This led me to consider other approaches or skills I could better use with A later in my work with her. I came across cognitive-behavioural therapy which is an amalgamation of both behavioural and cognitive disciplines which emerged as a fascinating new concept in 1970s (Rachman, 1997). It addresses the thinking and stirred up aspects together, and believes that behaviours can be unlearned. In this way I hoped to be able to view how A conceptualises particular events in her life. Through this I recognised the way A may view herself as she often denotative feeling low, and lack of self-esteem and self-worth. A also had a refractory habit to turn a seemingly positive situation into something negative. This enabled me to understand her experiences from a variant point of view and continuous reflection helped me see how she may have needed empowering.A strengths-based approach was also researched and utilised in my work with A, which has become favourable in both direct and indirect work with service users (Rapp, 1997). This approach appealed to me as it is more service-user led, and helps them see how their strengths play a significant role in the face of their problems or crisis that they may be facing. It is quit e different to other approaches in that it acknowledges a persons suffering and impairment as the result of systemic rather than barely psychological drawbacks. In using this approach, this helped A to understand her ability to shell out well despite the harshness of her surrounding environment and daily turn of events of caring for her mother. She was able to see her positive attributes, how others also recognised these which provided for a more balanced view of herself. This is also in line with social work values which places emphasis on helping the user feel empowered and in control (Value B, Topps, 2002).Since the incident I have had ample time to reflect on my work with A and how I feel about it. Different techniques and tools are used to enable reflection within the field of social work, which can help the way we relate to work, home, culture, and supported networks. Winter (1988) states that experience is not something that we store as we would on a computer, rather we st ory it.Similarly keeping a meditative journal is a useful technique in proactively encouraging critical reflection if done correctly (Kam-shing, 2005). This was a requirement whilst on the course, which I was not keen on at the beginning. I felt it was quite a daunting experience expressing my thoughts and feelings and could not see the benefits of this. For the duration of the placement, as my ability and knowledge of reflection improved with the help of my educator, I was able to understand how this would help me in becoming an effective practitioner. It helped to formalise my ideas, trail of thoughts and bring about a heightened sense of sense on my own practice.This technique can be seen as embedded within a scheme of reflection developed by Schn (1991). He called this reflection in action (whilst the event is occurring) and reflection on action (after the event has occurred). The journals or learning logs were primarily used after an event had occurred to understand our lear ning. This tool is available to evaluate the work I have undertaken and how my knowing-in-action may have had an impact on the end outcome. Thus will be able to improve on my skills and ability to reflect-in-action and recognise if there is something more to be done to help the service user. In my interactions with A and other users, I have also recognised that reflection on action is beneficial in evaluating my own practice and reflection in action to implement those lessons learnt actively.To be able to detect my own mistakes and correct these involves uncovering deeper learning. Argryis and Schn (1974) proposed that when we as people and practitioners simply only operationalize our goals rather than question them we are only applying single-loop learning. When this incident with A occurred, I looked at the different aspects such as theories, As behaviour, the organisations policies that had influenced my thoughts and perceptions and brought me to look at myself and the situation with close interrogation and query the governing variables to enforce social change be that within myself, the organisation or A or all of these.Kolb (1984) and his reflective regular recurrence helped me examine the structures to my reflection. He developed four stages to his cycle. These include concrete experiences, reflective observation, followed by abstract conceptualisation which includes drawing conclusions from incidents encountered and active experiment. Active experimentation is the ability to learn from past situations and try a new approach. I think this is where I feel I continued my work with A from the very first incident in trying to utilise different approaches to help her. Using this approach also made me realise that perhaps even if the event itself may have hurt As feelings it may have raised awareness about her hygiene and brought about independence. This is also in line with Value B of the GSCC codes of practice (Topps, 2002) and with Domain 6 (Professional Capabilities Framework 2012).Group studying has been known to develop enhanced learning and reflection. Bold (2008) suggests that having a supportive group to talk through your knowledge and experience gained can generate deeper learning and increase reflective competence. In using group reflection I found that having a group to talk through my morals, beliefs and assumptions that direct my work very useful in a public and collaborative setting. It provided the opportunity to look back at a past experience from multiples perspectives and raise questions. I had not realised the grave nature of discussing ones hygiene would be so difficult, with the help of the group I was more aware of my hidden assumptions on this and how it could affect my practice. look for by Dahlgren et al. (2006) highlights the importance of group reflection and the role of a critical friend to promote empowerment to both students and teachers. This may be because it allows for the students work in an informa l setting and therefore have more of a balanced working dynamics. This kind of democratic environment aids reflective learning by advancing self-knowledge. In my group learning set I came away learning more about my own assumptions about A being a carer to her mother with mental health issues meant that she may not have had facilities to aid good hygiene. The group also helped me look at other explanations for what had happened. I came to understand that whilst the issues of A smelling big businessman have been genuine, it could have also been exacerbated by other staff and children through their own assumptions about her learning disability, and status as a young carer to a parent with mental health problems. Their behaviour and assumptions daily may have impacted the way I saw A even though I did not agree with their views. I failed to raise this further with my manager when handed the task of telling A, as I may have also assumed here that she would know best.Much later I was in troduced to the critical incident technique developed by Tripp (1993). To lose it incidents that have had a strong emotional impact on ourselves as practitioners. It entails learning to look beyond just describing to gain deeper reflection. I began to understand that my underestimation in what I had to tell A, was my own failure. This underlying assumption I later realised arose from my supervision with my manager who had assured me that disclosing this information to A would benefit her. The feedback given from my group has helped me identify areas of my reflection where there may perhaps be gaps and how I could improve on these. I felt the feedback was accurate and enriching, it helped for me to understand how they saw my situation with A and were able to offer alternative explanations for the outcomes that I had not yet explored further.Overall this assignment has aimed to demonstrate that there are a number of factors involved in practicing good social work. This is highlighted by being able to demonstrate an awareness of my own values and philosophies, how my knowledge in terms of theories can be applied to inform my own practice. I have learnt that utilising and evaluating theories have furthered my practice by eliciting my understanding and learning over time. I have gained surplus skills together with multiple sources of knowledge and techniques to better help the people I have worked with. This kind of creativity is what can bring about social change and empowerment. Reflection is an integral part of social work practice and different tools like journals can augment deep learning and improve future practice. What I may have learnt from a situation initially does not mean that these are the only recommendations to take forward. Through unceasing reflection and critical thinking, it can help to question our judgements and that of others and see if more can be done to change the face of social work practice.