Personal Narrative: A Career As A Social Worker

For my eighteenth birthday, my father sat me down and gave me a journey necklace. The goal of this gift was to commemorate the many milestones (i.e. entering into “adulthood” and going to college) that were coming up for me. With this gift, he also reminded me that life is a journey full of twists and turns. As a young adult, I could not fully grasp the symbolism of this gift or the life lesson that my father was trying to teach me. Now almost six years later, my life journey has been full of joyous moments and times of tragedy. One of the stages of my journey has been making the decision to obtain a Master’s Degree of Social Work. After considering many other professions and degrees, I found that a Master’s of Social Work was the perfect combination

1.The experiences I have had that have prepared me to pursue a master’s degrees in social work have been time at the Boys & Girls Club, being an officer for an honor society, and my placement at a social service agency. While I was attending community college, I began working at the Boys & Girls Club of South County for their before and after school program. During my time there, I learned the importance of time management, and I got to see the impact parent involvement could have on a student. The after school program was going through many changes and began incorporating more educational activities. As a Group Leader, I had to schedule my day to implement the new activities, like comic book readings and STEM projects, as well as the daily journals, homework time, snack time and the enrichment activity of the day. The 5 hours we had with the students were booked back to back so it was important to plan the days ahead of time, and prepare for the next day after the students had gone. As for parent involvement, after spending hours with my group of 19 students every week, I was able to tell which parents had a bigger involvement in their student’s

The history of mental health in the United States show a robust movement towards the mental healthcare system we have today. Prior to the 19th century, individuals with mental health issues were widely considered to be demonically possessed, thus contributing to the stigmatization of mental illness and the proliferation of poor treatment conditions. However, in the 1800s, there was a dramatic change in mental healthcare in the U.S. The government took a proactive role in treating the mentally ill, leading to the dawn of state psychiatric facilities.

Doing this assignment has open up my mind to the various thoughts that people have about social workers and the duties they perform. Many people have different opinions about social workers; some are negative while on the other hand some are positive. After getting my interviews from my five random interviewees, I was pleased with the responses I have received.

On September 21, 2015, I met with Ms. Katie, a student in the MSW program at NCSU, to conduct an interview. We met at Starbucks in Cary, in the crossroads shopping center. Ms. Katie’s responses helped me learn and think about social workers in the child welfare social field. As a prospective social worker, my questions were formed based thoughts that I was concerned about my responsibilities in the social work field..

1. Discuss the major reasons for your interest in the profession of social work. Whether positive or negative - what inspired or moved you to choose this direction?

My passion for helping the disadvantaged and helping individuals, families and groups overcome difficult challenges, and troubles in everyday living is what influenced me to choose the field of social work. My personal life experience which involved me helping my parents with my oldest sister who was diagnose summer of 2015, with Schizophrenia, gave me the opportunity to gain insight on mental health and the challenges individuals and families face. For me and my family this was new to us and at first difficult to handle, educating ourselves on the illness and learning about the different treatments allowed me and my family to identify ways to cope, educate my sister on self-help strategies, and help her work toward recovery.

Between the dates from September 26th to November 9th, there was perfect attendance by all of the members of the group and the facilitators. Knowing that the facilitators worked on the mezzo groups with much dedicated, pushed each member to show up on time every session. Speaking for myself, I enjoyed having a social work student facilitate over the group because there was an option to discuss topics only related to social workers. For other classes, the topics discussed within a group could not be related to the profession I plan on pursuing. Also within our group, there was a sense of bonding since we worked with these students on a weekly basis. Knowing that each of us will be helping out each other within our career at James Madison was

I chose this job because not only do I like to babysit but also I like to work with kids that have been through a lot. I want to be a counselor to not only the kids but the parents also. If I chose this job in the future, I do believe that I would like this job. I think that I would be able to make a change in the child’s life and also the parent’s life. Its sad to see such a young child to be treated like a animal by their parents, but its also sad that the parents treat their child like a animal. I think that if I chose this job I could help child face their fear of abuse and abandonment. Being a social worker I know that they go through a lot on their job and sometimes it may be tough for them to handle their emotions. I was talking with

About four years ago a social worker in my school district resigned from her position mid-year, and she recently returned to share her incredible story with us. Much like me, she was a hands-on learner and wanted to help those in need. After learning there was an opportunity to travel to Romania to help children, she jumped at the chance. There was no monetary compensation for what she was about to do, but there was an intrinsic value that would be greater than any monetary payment. After two years she became a paid missionary with the Church of the Nazarene in Sighisoara, Romania setting up camps and shelters for the children. Her journey has made me realize I don’t want to learn about or experience the world solely from books or lectures.

Last year, at my internship placement I learned and developed skills that helped me become a clinical social worker for groups and individuals. The population I served was high school students with different needs such as homelessness, mental illness, poor academic achievement and substance abuse. This academic year I was placed at the federal public defender’s office where I will be assisting attorneys, detectives and paralegal with the investigation process of indicted individuals. Each client is charged with a criminal accusation, thus my task is to help advocate for their personal rights and help them reduce their prison sentence. In addition, my role as a social work investigator will be to create a narrative about the history and characteristic

My scheduled flight from Paris lands on the tarmac at St. Louise this afternoon at three, an Uber instantly response to my call and by six, my Hotel room felt homey. For the past two years, I have traveled intensely searching for hidden secrets of magic to add to my show. I’m a professional magician working under the stage name of Vanish. I have performed on numerous occasions in Vegas, London, Paris, and the French Riviera, made several guest appearances on the David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon shows and my name appears all over the social network. I believe in lifelong learning and whenever the opportunity arises, I attend major magic symposiums. Therefore, when my manager pointed out that I had a five-day hiatus between gigs, I immediately

In every career there are pros and cons. Some may have more than others but they are always dependent upon the person working in the career. The mindset of the worker is most important to an individual because it affects the person’s perception of the job which affects the person’s work ethic. Being a social worker requires knowledge and dedication, and throughout this class I believe I was introduced to each practice. As a student taking micro practice I initially thought the course was going to be very difficult and hard to retain the information given. As the course went on I realized there are a lot of activities given that made it easy to comprehend the information and if I changed my mind set I would do great in the class. Two things

Social work consists of sociology, ethics, communication, psychology and developmental studies. As I researched this career field many of the requirements needed for my degree, I commenced in high school. When I attended high school, I took dual enrollment class English 101 and 102. Furthermore, I enrolled in psychology for two years and took the AP Psychology exam acquiring a score of four. Whilst applying for college, I qualified for the President’s Honors Scholarship who the Honors Program offers. I applied for the scholarship and granted the scholarship for the two years I attend while maintaining the requirements of the scholarship. Moreover, I enrolled in honor classes which would be beneficial towards my degree. As I work for my degree

I stood there face to face with my social worker, she tells me worst news I have an “appointment”. That lie, I instantly knew, I run off back to my class I was in to avoid what I knew was going to happen, going to a treatment center. She then forced me out of class by getting a teacher to get me from class and I then knew my life was going to come to an end for some time. As we were getting into the car we sat in silence as I begin to tear up in the pain I was going to be facing for a while. Then I got out of the car when we got there not wanting to face the fact still till I met Marcia the main desk person and we talked some. I had to answer a few questions and all that lame stuff you do when entering a treatment center. Marcia was comforting me as she knew not a single kid likes to face treatment centers since it takes away a teen's life.I deserve where i’m in there has been a ton wrong with drugs and guys in my life.