Welcome to The New Social Worker's Blog

The New Social Worker is the quarterly magazine for social work students and recent graduates, focusing on social work careers for those new to the profession. This blog is a companion to the free online magazine at http://www.socialworker.com.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

My Social Work Philosophy


SOUNDS PRETTY HEADY, EH? Pondering, and stating, my social work philosophy is Part III of a three-part assignment in my Capstone course, Integrative Seminar.

In Part I, we wrote about our "espoused theory," (our values and assumptions, and what we think we want to do); in Part II, our "theories in use," (are we actually doing what we think we are doing?); and now, for Part III, we must scrutinize the first two assignments, and choose the areas of our practice that we want to work on to bring them more into agreement with our espoused practice theories, and also consider whether there are parts that we'd like to drop--or tweak--based on the assessment of our work.

A clear statement of our practice philosophy, along with the findings from Assignment I and II will be used to propose a plan for our professional development. We are allowed to use music, art and poetry to help us express our ideas.

Sounds cool, challenging, exciting, and intense--all rolled into one final assignment for the class (yes, I wrote final assignment--big smiles all around). It's due mid-April, so I have some time to let the ideas marinate...

~Ms. T. J.

3 comments:

  1. is there any way to contact you personally?  i'm a second year msw / title ive student in california...

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  2. <span>Guest- 
    If you click on T. J. (at right under Contributers) it will take you to my User Profile where there is a link for my email address. 
    ~Ms. T. J.</span>

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  3. HI, I just found your blog and I'm at the same spot as you--graduation 5/8/10 :)  Don't know if this helps or not, but here's an observation I gleaned from 10 years on a multi-purpose message board: the average bear doesn't think  much of social workers-baby-snatchers-giver-of-tax money to the lazy. BUT....when the same denigrators are in a jam with aging parents, troubled kids, addicted family members, EVERYONE'S advice is "Have you asked a social worker?" "See if you can meet with a social worker". Maybe your insurance will cover therapy with an LCSW". People do love us when they need us, whether they like to admit it or not.

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