Reflection On Social Work

I started working as a Social Work Assistant in a Welsh child protection team in August 2014 until I gained my social work qualification in October 2014 and started practicing as a Social Worker. The team that I work in gains a lot of its staff intake from newly qualified Social Workers and it appears to be well geared to developing and supporting people who may be unexperienced in social work, but have a wide and varied set of skills from other arenas.
My position as a newly qualified social worker initially entailed working solely with Child in Need cases, giving me the opportunity to gain a better understanding of my role. By following the recommendations of Making The Most Of The First Year In Practice: A Guide For Newly Qualified Social

Morrison and Wonnacott (2010) state that these aspects are fundamental factors in supervision as they encourage me to be clear about my role, help me to develop my practice and should impact positively on the families that I work with. Research has suggested that quality supervision can lead to job satisfaction, organisational commitment and reduced staff turnover (Carpenter et al, 2012). In my second year placement my practice teacher encouraged me to use a reflection model in supervisions (Collingwood, 2005) that I still use three years later and it improves my ability to focus and reflect on my practice and

These factors have also been complemented by my second and third year placements where I completed case work and child protection duties where I started to learn how the child protection process is tackled nationally, locally and also by the individual.
In addition to this, my second and third year placements were in a statutory setting so I already knew how many of the local authority’s systems operated and also many of the other agencies concerned with working with families and children in the area. I also formed relationships with some other professionals meaning we could dispense with any period of introduction.
These factors help me to achieve what I consider to be good outcomes for the families I work with or to achieve what the local authority considers to be in the best interests of the child. I use reflection and both informal and formal supervision to look at my practice and to identify areas where there may be deficits or areas of good practice that I can pass onto colleagues through peer support and team