Reflective Practice in Social Work - Essay Example

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE IN SOCIAL WORK By Location Reflective Practice in Social Work Introduction Reflective practice is currently becoming increasingly influential social work idea. In the context of the UK, reflective practice is being acknowledged as the key to ensure that social workers gain experience to enable them engage in critical decision-making as well as effective practice. However, there is a lack of clarity on how reflective practice is operational and defined in learning social work (Abels & Abels 2001, p. 17). Reflective practice refers to the way in which people study their own experience in order to improve the way they work. Reflective practice is very significant for social work professionals who intend to continue with learning all through their lives. The aim of this paper to develop an understanding experiences of reflective practice. In one of my earlier positions as a social worker, I used social work techniques trying to help a woman (Vicky) who was divorced by her husband because she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Vicky is currently living alone since her only three daughters are married and she is highly stressed to an extent that she cannot go to the market claiming that all the people are talking about her condition. I applied social work techniques to help the Vicky overcome the challenges she was facing. I decided to have a talk with Vicky and her relatives to make them understand the consequences that Vicky was facing due to her condition. Afterwards Vicky changed her lifestyle and felt that I acted exactly the way I wanted as a social worker. This social work identity is known as strengths-based social work practice (Paquin 2006, p. 23). I have witnessed several events, experiences, and inspirational people that influenced my commitment to become a social worker. I was influenced to become a social worker after witnessing the way social workers help people with problems in the society. As a result of these events and experiences, the growing understanding of my preferred values, purpose, and intentions were to help the challenged people in the society to overcome these challenges. These values and purpose are reflected in my preferred way of working with people with that most people in our societies live under problems, which need the intervention of social workers to help (Sax 2006, p. 45). Involving myself in similar events in my life has helped me to gain more experience and ability to perform my preferred way of working. In my community there are several cases of parental violence and have tried to solve some of these cases thus the reason why I have enough experience and ability to perform this preferred way of working (Slocombe 2002, p. 34). The name that I give to these skills, abilities, and traits is reflective experience. The social workers in my community have highly supported me to navigate this unfamiliar territory of my learning journey. These other social workers recognized that I had qualities such as active listening, and empathy among many others. Social workers should understand that there are internal and external something/forces that influence them on how to carry out their activities. These are the factors that are involved during the process of changing behaviour. These are barriers that undermine one’s preferred social work identity. What I discovered to be the special features for these internal and external forces included emotional features (Debbie 2006, p. 67). The perfect condition of these forces to thrive includes enough experience and had some effects on my preferred way of working with people. These internal and external forces were factors that affected my preferred way of working with people. I have several skills, which strengthen my preferred way of social work identity. These skills include active listening, empathy, boundary setting, self awareness, social perception, organization, persuasion, and cooperation (Etchison& Kleist 2000, p. 67). Social work is both fulfilling and demanding profession. In order for a social worker to be successful, he or she must possess certain skills, qualities, and knowledge that is necessary to build and posses. There are several strategies that a social worker can use to recall these qualities, but I will use strengths-based reflective practices to recall them. The theoretical approach that supports the preferred way of working with others is Freudian theory. A social worker who is influenced by Freudian theory acknowledges the symbolic role of an administrator as being an individual who is the role model in the community (Harms 2012, p. 46). Freud’s theory highly influences social workers since it supports the preferred way of working with other people. The values and ethics that supported my preferred way of working include culture, peers, family, gender, location, religion, economics, sexual orientation, and life experiences, among others. A social worker will be able to recognize that he or she is continuing to work from my preferred social work identity by looking back to what have been doing in the past. My colleagues will congratulate me because they will have gained lots of experience for me after working for more than five years with me. My colleagues and the people I work with will highly thank me for the experience they will have gained because of working with me. The greatest compliment they will give me will be to work hard. This future social work version will advise me for me to concentrate on reflective practice since it is the key to a successful social worker (Hinton 2008, p. 76). Narrative reflective is highly different from the other forms of approaches have been used in the past. Using narrative reflective, I am now able to set up boundaries when am working with other people (Jørring& Jacobsen 2014, p. 24). This is something in social work that we often assume that we definitely do, although it takes time, experience, and skills. When a social worker over-identifies with the clients, this is a negative experience for both the provider and the user (Morgan 1999, p. 56). Looking at the big picture, reflective narrative approach is more different than the other past approaches of social work. Conclusion In conclusion, the essentials of using reflective and critical practice are not easy to measure and are often under-estimated. However, it is significant towards personal and professional development of social workers. More significant, reflective practice helps social workers to be responsible and accountable for all challenges and difficulties the social workers face. Reflective practice helps social workers make better decisions when faced with critical conditions. For instance, in child protection, social workers are able to come up with good choices as well as ensuring better outcomes for the children (Hepworth 2010, p. 68). Bibliography Abels, P &Abels, S 2001, Understanding Narrative Therapy: A Guidebook for the Social Worker, Springer Publisher Company, Inc., NY. Debbie P 2006, Evidence-Based Practice: Current Issues and Future Directions, Australian Social Work, 59:1, 56-72A1 14005 Etchison, M, & Kleist, DM, 2000, Review of Narrative Therapy: Research and Review, Family Journal 8 (1) 61-67 Harms, L 2012, Working with people: Communication skills for reflective practice, Oxford University press, Australia Hepworth, DH 2010, Direct social work practice: Theory and skills, Belmont, Calif: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning. Hinton-Bayre, A 2008, Telling Tales to End Wails: Narrative Therapy Techniques and Rehabilitation Counselling, Australian Journal Of Rehabilitation Counselling, The, 14, 1, p. 16, Informit Health Collection, EBSCOhost, . Jørring, N, & Jacobsen, C 2014, Narrative Therapy in CAMHS: Creating Multistoried Treatments, Journal Of Systemic Therapies, 33, 1, pp. 89-101, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, . Morgan, A 1999, What Is Narrative Therapy ? : An Easy-To-Read Introduction / By Alice Morgan, n.p.: Adelaide : Dulwich Centre Publications, c2000. Paquin, G 2006, "Including Narrative Concepts in Social Work Practice Classes: Teaching to Client Strengths". In, Journal of Teaching in Social Work, Vol. 26, pp. 127 - 144. Sax, P 2006, "Developing Preferred Stories of Identity as Reflective Practitioners".In, Journal of Systemic Therapies, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 59-72. Slocombe, P 2002, Narrative Solutions: Bringing out the best in individuals, couples & families through helpful conversations, Centacare Corporate Inc., Perth. Read More