Personal Statement: A Career As A Social Worker

At first I thought I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to help children learn and grow through the process of education, but something amazing happened. I was hired at the Saint Louis Crisis Nursery. It was this organization filled with people called social workers. The work they did was amazing. The work they did could change lives. I want to be a social worker because I believe in people. I want to help them become what they want to be in life. I want every child from an impoverished background to know that if they want a doctoral degree, they can have it. I want every teenage mother to know she can do more than get a technical certification in the hopes of making more than minimum wage. I hope to help people reach their greatest potential.

I want to help people know their self-worth. I want to help guide people to know that if they set their minds to something, they can achieve amazing feats.
As a social worker, I would be most effective working with children and youth.

I have always been led to work with children. Every time I try to work in another type of job, I always find myself in another position to work with children. I walked away from working with children in the beginning because I did not feel the field held enough value and was underpaid and underfunded. Although, my happiness told me something else. I would want to work in the child welfare system and eventually open my own non-for-profit organization. All the organizations in St. Louis were opened or started by people who saw a need and tried to fill that gap between what was being done by the state and communities. I hope to fill the gap between what is being done by our current government, and the communities in which our children

live.
I specifically would like to help children in poverty who are not seeing varied ways of life. It has been shown that integration is one of the best educational outcomes for children in poverty, and it increases their likelihood of going to college. While this may be a large indicator of whether children in poverty go to college, integration has not made much headway in the 21rst century. I am led to work with this population because there is a solution to below average reading levels and early high school dropout, but because of politics our poor children are literally left behind. I work with impoverished children every day. I have fifth graders who write and read on kindergarten levels. The average reading level for a freshman in the Delmar school district is a third-grade reading level. (2016, October 18) I learned this when speaking to the English teacher at the high school. These children need someone who cares about their education and their goals. Some of the children I work with want to be a fast food worker. This is the highest aspiration they feel they could have.
This class has shown me that social workers have many roles.

I feel I have always had a spark for working with children, but it is nice to see there are other positons and options for people in this field. I realize there are many avenues I can take as well. School social work is an option I had considered for its flexibility and higher than average pay. Social workers in the school position could work with any range from poor to rich children. This demographic switch would give the social worker a wide view of what their possibilities look like and working with many types of people gives a social worker perspective. As a social worker, I could work with sex trafficking victims and still affect children as these victims may be parents. Domestic violence is another part of social work that people could work in, and again influence the children it has impacted. This class has given me the opportunity to see how much I care for working with

children.
Since I currently work in social work in the St. Louis area, this class allowed me to take a step back and see what other services are available to the people I serve through my position at the Crisis Nursery. I feel that the St. Louis area has some great services, but it is lacking in many areas, specifically in the homelessness sector. St. Louis has a homeless population and very few options for housing and helping these individuals get back on their feet, or helping with ongoing mental health issues that contribute to some chronic homelessness.
Overall, I feel social work is a great field to be in. There are many opportunities for growth and advancement. Social workers will always have a job because someone always needs help. This has made me realize I will be continuing to a MSW program when I have finished my BSW. If I am helping people get where they want to be I can work in the field of social work.