Critical Reflection In Social Work Practice

As mentioned above, reflection is the act of learning from experience and using the learning to ensure that the same mistakes are not repeated. It is believed that the core aspect to reflective practice involves the practitioner acknowledging that each situation is unique (Ruch, cited in Trevithick 2012). Critical reflection is viewed as being similar to reflection in that it allows an individual to focus on the uniqueness of situations and gather different perspectives. Fook (cited in Trevithick 2012) that the main difference between critical reflection and reflection is that critical reflection generates more emphasis on the practitioner understanding reflection and the ideas generated by reflection. Reflection and reflective practice has become increasingly popular in social work as many individuals believe that the more a social worker reflects, the better their practice as they will be able to apply their experience to the situation. This essay will now discuss why reflection is useful for social work practice.
Reflection

An individual first starts to gather their reflection skills when they are a student, yet these skills will only progress as they develop professionally. This is due to experience and reflection interlinking; the more an individual reflects the more experience they will gain and the more valuable they will be as a social worker. One of the main skills a social worker needs is experience, and this can be honed through reflection. Experience is beneficial to a social worker as with experience social workers will learn the best ways of engagement with service users, how to act on a first visit, how to address a referral and so on. Reflection on these actions will also aid the individual as although situations are unique, and the social workers approach may vary, there will always be a service user and an individual supporting that service