Part of developing as a social work practitioner involves reflecting
on practice experience and learning from whatever outcomes occur. Let’s assume
there are no serious question marks over competency or fitness for practice and
we are left with questions such as “how could I have acted differently to
encourage that person in their situation to take control over their own life”
and “could I have been more assertive to ensure that their needs are met in the
way that is least restrictive” or even “how could I have introduced myself
better”? I am constantly learning from my little mistakes so that next time I
can be more effective as a practitioner.
And this involves reflection and intentional change on my
part to foster a sort of self-critique rather than cruising through my
professional life. By critique I mean noticing the positive alongside the
negative, not simply noting what did/did not go well but thinking upon it and
allowing it to inform the way I practice social work. There are times when I am a cruiser; I admit
it. Sometimes time is so stretched that I just don’t have the energy to reflect.
But I try to. And when I do, the process will often bring to light an
alternative course of action or simply an affirmation that I do a job that I
(mostly) enjoy and that makes a difference to people’s lives. It also causes me
to think about issues that I might skim over in the day-to-day fighting fires
‘I-just-don’t-have-time’ rush. For example, when I meet with the service user
who can’t speak English I am usually thinking something like “it’s so
inconvenient to work through an interpreter, how on earth do they expect me to
be able to assess mental health if I can’t directly ask, this is taking twice
as long”? When I reflect upon the same situation, I am more aware of the power
difference between us and I realise that mental health problems in other
cultures are often talked about (or not as the case may be) in different ways.
I also realise that the fact that I forgot to take my shoes off was probably very
rude and make a mental note to redouble efforts to remember next time (the
service user did mention this before)!
So, I have decided to begin a blog to help me with my
reflections and to post interesting social work related things and occasionally
to have a good old moan. If you are interested, please comment and share your
own experiences but make sure that no one can be identified. That would raise
serious question marks! Thank for stopping by,
SW
Mental Health Social Worker
