Personal Narrative: My Journey Through MSW Canidacy

PERSONAL STATEMENT The number one reason that’s repeatedly given as to why one wants to be a social worker is that, they want to help people. They want to make a difference in the world, and I’m no different from everyone else in that aspect. Nevertheless, my main goal for pursuing a Master’s in Social Work is centered on the idea of helping mentally ill patients. I realize that mental health encompasses a continuum of severe disorders, to the most common mental issues, and that they vary in intensity and duration.

Over the coarse of the MSW program from being a first year master's level student to a second year student if have grew from waiting for a clinician to take charge in instructing me to now being able to competently make take initiative in treating and communicating effectively with other with other mental and physical health professionals and patient's family members with the consent of the patient. I am able to identify gaps in services and address concerns confidently to other professionals in hopes of finding solutions. Being able to identify and manage my own values to be sure not impose my beliefs as an interference against the client's self determination.Effectively I follow protocol as of facilities ranging from admission, to treating, and discharging. When engaging in research studies with participants, I inform the subjects, explain the purpose and process and gain consent if participant is willing and guarantee confidentiality.

I am pursuing an MSW at this time with the goal of becoming a licensed clinical social worker in order to provide advanced substance abuse and mental health counseling in western North Carolina. I have many work experiences that contributed to my choice of social work as a profession. I am currently a certified substance abuse counselor intern as well as a certified minister. I provide counseling for members of the congregation I serve.

Many individuals at some point during their lives require mental health services in order to enjoy life. Clinical social workers constitute the biggest group of mental health care workers who provide the majority of therapy and counseling services. For instance, professionals aid individuals to ascertain solutions to issues that fall along a continuum from the lack of independent living skills and capacity to cope with quotidian to severe depression and mental illness. Steve Taylor, Clinical Manager at Preferred Family Healthcare located in Trenton, Missouri. Now occupying a laudable position that inspires and encourages students to stay in college and work towards giving back to the community as a social worker. Taylor on many occasions explains the duties of his case managers in a simple but effective educational quote, “teach a man to fish and he will never go hungry, give him fish he will be hungry again.” Instead of doing everything for a person, you are teaching how to do for themselves; this is a very effective way to educate mental health individuals.

With a master 's level education in social work, I see myself envisioning clients’ health and well-being. As a student, I will study and practice techniques, beyond a generalist perspective, that will allow me to give clients hope and the ability to see something greater than what they are facing. Upon completion of a Master of Social Work direct practice degree and certificates in gerontology and mental health programs, I intend to become a licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I will competently incorporate specialized skills in different professional settings while developing my knowledge of a wide range of social issues and professional standards. With commitment, I wish to develop skills that will enable me to create or find hidden resources and services for my future clients, create platforms through counselling for victims of trauma.

My hopes are that by gaining a social work education, I will be able to help address the tensions I have with the literature by working with veterans and their families to remedy said barriers to care. Whether working for a local community mental health organization, or the VHA, I can use the skills I’m learning in my educational program to help rural veterans find the care they so deserve.

The agency I am doing my practicum hours at is a nonprofit mental health agency that serves over 800 adults with mental illness across 28 locations in the Portland Metro Area. Their comprehensive support system includes outpatient clinics, group homes, semi-independent housing, homeless outreach, and peer-delivered programs. I focus on the care of adults, age 18 and over, with serious mental illness, such as Psychotic disorders & Mood disorders in one of the residential settings. Within the home, we are currently serving 17 individuals, who are receiving independent case-management dependent upon individual needs, interrelated with the challenges prevalent in those with mental illness including co-occurring substance abuse and

As a MSW Intern at Beyond Emancipation, I am in a position to offer information and referrals to those who

The specific area of interest within human services is mental health facilitation. I was raised in a household where all adults were involved in health care in one form or another. My maternal grandmother was an LPN and my mother is a Mental Health Counselor. Of course, my mother’s interest soon became my own, which inspired me to volunteer at mental health organizations even at the age of ten, where I spent my afternoons with helping with children suffering from mental retardation. An additional factor for my career decisions was, at the age of 21, I was diagnosed with Bi Polar disorder with suicidal ideations. It took several years for me to learn to manage my disorders and become a participating member

Experiencing hardships and my resilience to overcome them is the main reason I chose to pursue a Master’s of Social Work (MSW) degree. My familiarity with asking for resources, as a former foster youth, a number of my interactions involved social workers. I utilized resources as a transition aged youth; and I believe it was those same resources that kept me focused on my future and school. I became homeless at eighteen years of age and it was transitional housing, through The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) that gave me hope and direction.

Applying my expert knowledge and skills, during clinical and after earning my license, I will work with an assortment of ages, deficiencies, miscellaneous and multiethnic people. I will go all-out to work with different therapists to acquire new perspectives, in a variation of circumstances and environments. My efforts will develop my competence of self-reflection, by providing day-to-day experiences to catalyze development, life-enhancing engagements, and trained socialization. I will achieve my aspiration to positively help individuals, gain or reinstate freedom, accrediting to a more filling quality of life. After getting my license, a continuous goal I have, is to enlarge and grow, all through a lifetime of practice, by attending numerous workshops. When significantly knowledgeable and well established, I will focus on unmet job-related and educational needs in societies that lack easily reachable services. Goals I have will determinedly be adapted and augmented, as I continue to realize my fortes, desires, and distinct aptitudes in my distinctive career path. Outlining future goals, they will revolve around permanent socialization and information, in Occupational

Looking back to the WODs something that I would like to change would be be doing them correctly, as during most of the WODs I was not able to do them correctly. In the future I would like to complete all my exercises correctly with our any mistake, as during WOD#2 I did not complete the rest for 60 seconds, as I was not that tired. For the mile I walked for 17 minutes as it was really hot, and i did not want to get tired easily, so I decided to walk. However in the future, I would like to run for 1 round, jog for another, and sprint for the last. So if i do the math I would be able to run one round for a 1 minute, jog for 1:30, so if we did 8 rounds it would take me around 9 minutes to complete the mile, which is really good for me, as my

Although, working in the human service field is not a glamour’s life. The reward of knowing that I am helping someone and their family makes the hard work worth the positive impact I am bring to someone’s life. Advocating has been a passion of mine’s since I was child. I have always wanted to work with inmates and the mental ill due to my father’s experience. And that has remained the same. I want to work as a social worker. I believe that every person deserves valid and sincere advice, as well as a ligament defense team advocating for their

Starting from being a certified nursing assistant, to becoming a unit secretary for a hospital that specialize in wound care, I have always known that I wanted to help individuals in need. However, I noticed that I was not happy with helping individuals in medical need. It wasn’t until I decided to continue my education that I introduced to the world of social work. Going up with a single mother that suffered from drug abuse, my family depended on social services for a lot of assistance, from everything such as food stamps to family counseling. This life experience helped guide my thoughts on pursuing social work as a career. I know that I want to help individuals that are down on their luck, but I want to take it one step farther, by providing individual counseling to adults that may need more one on one time, than what is normally given from a social service agency. Counseling will also give me a chance to do what I love most and that is to talk and get to know the individuals that I am helping make like changing decisions. Working as a clinical social work has my interest because it does not put limits on what I can do or who I can help, and it will set me up for my future goal of becoming a licensed clinical social worker. Being my own boss and changing my community is my dream job, opportunity and goal. I am currently on my way with changing my community and living my dream, because I am currently working for a non-profit

As an Advanced Standing Masters of Social Work student at the University of South Carolina, I had the opportunity to interview a LISW at the Stairway Counseling Services, LLC in Aiken, SC. I called the interviewee on Tuesday, July 7, 2015 to arrange to meet on Wednesday, July 8, 2015 at 5:00pm, she agreed. When I arrived at her office, she introduced herself and shook my hand. Her office was very clean and inviting. She is a 45-year-old African American and her appearance was very professional. We will be discussing the range of practice roles within area of practice, knowledge and skills that are required within the practice, and the relationship between the organizational structure, its function, and services it offers.