Social Work Practice

I wouldn’t say that social work, in and of itself, has ever REALLY appealed to me.  It isn’t about not wanting to help others; that has actually always been a part of my personality.  No, my initial disinterest probably stemmed from the repetition of “paper work” and overload of others’ issues that I heard from several people who had been or were in the social work field.  The bias I created towards it was hard for me to get over.  

Back to the beginning, I grew up the middle child of seven; three brothers and three sisters, nine years older and nine years younger—directly in the middle.  There is something to be said about growing up in close proximity home—sharing space, things, and only having time alone when you are using the restroom.  So, that could be a little dramatic, but the reality of the situation is that this sort of upbringing, at least for me, caused me to do a lot of soul searching and I found that I cared for people.  I cared about their hurts, wants, and needs.  This was not limited to my family, though it may have been early on.  My parents placed a value on putting others first.  We went to each other’s games, concerts, and activities.  We ate dinner together and learned what it meant to invest in people outside of ourselves.  It’s striking, when set in that backdrop, that social work was the way that I ended p choosing.  For some, an upbringing like that may have burnt them out… for me, I think of it as having a lot of experience with it—it’s what I know, so I keep doing it.

Social workers are a special breed.  This breed is a group of people who have a special, vested interest in the lives of others.  This interest often supersedes their own interests.  Good social workers understand how to balance their lives between their work and meeting the needs of those with whom they work.  Some social workers will struggle early on while they try to learn that balance through trial and error. 

Social work practice covers a broad range of professional arenas.  Social workers can work within big business, corporate consulting, education system, judicial system, your more obvious “social work” agencies, or in many other professional settings.  The benefit of having an MSW or greater is the potential to work in a wide range of organizations at a wide variety of capacities.  This flexibility makes the degree much more viable and one to be achieved.  There are definitely still struggles to find jobs for those who have recently graduated or who have recently been let go from their previous job. 

There are some personality qualities that seem to be a recurring feature of social workers.  Empathy, optimism, and flexibility are these recurring qualities.  In order to discuss them thoroughly, I will talk about each individually before tying them all together.  Empathy is a term commonly used in social work classes and amongst social work practitioners.  A common theme associated with this term is, “Meet the client where they are at.”  The theme has to do with the client coming first.  The client’s needs, desires and overall goals should be the most important thing to the one providing service.  Meeting a client where they are at demonstrates that they are more important to you as a person than they are as a time slot to be filled in the schedule or a financial means to an end.  Empathy takes a person’s story an allows the provider, who is otherwise uninvolved in the situation, to join with the client in problem solving and goal setting if that is what they desire.  Otherwise, maybe the client would rather just talk or not talk.  “Meeting the client where they are at” is a state of mind for the provider; it requires setting aside their own agenda and working towards selective solution.  The other thing about empathy is that a client has the right to disclose as much or little as they want.  Unfortunately, they also reserve the right to withhold information which could have helped the provider find resources for the struggling client.  The point of this is that a provider can only be as helpful as the client allows them to be based on the amount and type of information the client provides.

Optimism is the glass half full mentality.  Optimism allows social workers to overlook much of the craziness of work, clients, providers in order to start finding solutions instead of dwelling on the problems.  I believe that optimism and “hope” are interchangeable in a lot of ways.  A provider who is hopeful is going to be more likely to have a positive relationship with their clients.  The clients with whom the provider works will feed off of the optimism a lot of times and will see their situation with a renewed energy and level of positivity they would likely not have enjoyed without the optimism and hope of their case worker.  Hope is a little bit deeper than optimism, in my opinion and surpasses understanding in terms of sensing hope in situations where it would be so much easier to doubt.

Flexibility is the final character quality that I see exuding from  many of the social workers with whom I am in contact.  Social work schedules are often chaotic.  Whether they are fully booked with appointments or, through cancellations, meetings and trainings, their schedule is strangely open.  

Flexibility also means that the provider gets from place to place when they need to be there.  They will take off their treatment team “hat” when they leave the workplace, and will put on their resource officer when at the school where they also work, then put on their homeowner and family man hat once with their families.  There will always be a significant amount of stress to which social workers will be subject.  Managing these stressors will likely be the difference between a good practitioner and one who is not very good.

Social workers have tough jobs, but many of the good social workers exude empathy, optimism, and flexibility.  These qualities have shown, over time, to be helpful to providers and clients in a therapeutic setting.