Brooke Clark May 2, 2024 SW 4030-101 Final Reflection Essay From your perspective, describe the importance of engaging in social justice-focused practice at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. Provide an example of how you will incorporate a social justice focused practice at the micro, mezzo and macro levels. 2. As a social work student, I understand that each level of social work practice is going to be involved in my future career, no matter what agency I eventually work for. I will have to engage in micro, mezzo, and macro work, and I will have to engage at each level efficiently in order to benefit my clients, their families, and their communities. On a micro level, engaging with clients and building rapport in a respectful manner is of utmost importance. In order to best …show more content…
I understand their needs as well as their population’s needs. I will also analyze my own view of their culture from a critical lens before engaging in practice with them. I will identify my own conflicting biases and best avoid them, via therapy, intensive analysis of my own thoughts, and intensive surveys. As a white person from a primarily white, small, backwater country town, this is extremely important. This will be the change I want to see. On a mezzo level, I will understand the communities and families I work with by immersing myself in their culture. This is imperative to accomplish as I will need to know the community's needs outside of a research level, and on a more individualistic basis. I will get to know the communities I work with on a very close level, and I will do this by engaging in volunteer work in my free time. I volunteer at community events, shelters, and organizations. In doing so, I will get to know the community and their needs, what they lack and where they excel. By understanding the community needs, I can best advocate for them on a macro
Morales, A., Sheafor, B. W., & Scott, M. E. (2012). Social work: a profession of many faces. (12th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Ideas of community, social progress, and culture are an ever-evolving social work issue. How do we as social workers choose to approach needs of groups and communities at the macro level? In order to grasp an understanding of true helping systems it is important for one to have a range of knowledge to justly participate within the formal helping structures an models that comprise of the social work field. In attempt to create our identity as active justice based social workers it is essential for one to conceptualize the framework of intersectionality. According to Kirsten-Ashmen, “Intersectionality involves the idea that people are complex and can belong to multiple, overlapping diverse groups “The intersectional perspective acknowledge the breath of the human experience, instead of conceptualizing social relationships and identities separately in terms of either race or class or gender or age or sexual orientation”; rather an intersectional approach focuses on the “interactional affects” of belonging to multiple groups (p. 48).” In order to remain committed to intersectionality I will apply theories and models to a progressing community in the city of Boston. A critical analysis of the strengths and weakness within each theory related to the specific community will be discussed. I will expose the intersecting layers, allowing for identity development through the lens of the macro social worker. I will begin by discussing my experience through the research process with my team members. After giving a detailed description of the project we can further explore the empowerment theory and systems theory to better explain the development of Dudley Street. The two theories are able to give an understanding of Roxbury’s forward progre...
The micro level intervention that social workers participate in can be dealing with a loss in this case a loss of a black male who was supporting Martin Luther King in obtaining the right to vote. Jimmy Lee Jackson was killed by white officials and his family was devastated by his loss. The mezzo level intervention can be the community of Selma who actively supported the march to Montgomery to gain the basic right to vote. “In the 1960s, social activists brought the plight of racial groups to national attention and pressed for the passage of civil rights legislation” (DuBois 138). The macro level intervention can be seen as the whole nation of America gaining the right to vote via a legislation being passed by President Johnson. “Social workers have been in the vanguard of the civil rights movement for decades, advocating antidiscrimination legislation and ensuring that civil rights are central concerns of social work practice” (DuBois
“What is my agency’s purpose and what is my role as a social worker in this context?” This is a micro and mezzo issue and related to the core competencies of Professional Identity and Practice Contexts.
When pursuing a degree in social work, one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences within the degree aspect is the capstone project. The capstone is a multi-integrative assignment that is structure to provide social work students with the opportunity to apply their academic, professional and personal experience in the field through the application of a project. With allowing students to master the knowledge, skills, values, and ethics needed for effective social work practice, the capstone project also provide a development to really contribute in the knowledge of the profession. All social work capstone projects encourage students to unite their work to community issues and problems through learning, observations and internship. This paper examines the values, policy, conceptual framework, group
Popple , P. R., & Leighninger, L. (2011). Social work, social welfare, and american society. (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
I first became interested in social work when I took a human rights course as part of my political science major requirements. Throughout the course, I was fascinated and disturbed by the historic oppression of many large groups in society, and I realized my interests lie outside of the political arena; thus, I double-majored in social policy & practice because of my desire to learn more about how to enhance human well-being, fight social injustice, and pursue social change. I soon realized I wanted to pursue graduate social work education in order to gain a more holistic understanding of social problems and human ailments and, in turn, better understand the best ways to fix them. My background in political science and social policy gives me a unique perspective on the field of social work, as I have gained immense knowledge on social issues, the law, and public policy that will be useful in my graduate school and professional endeavors to fight for social justice and human rights.
Social work practice is usually associated with working directly with a client in a facility or providing a home for a child. However, the social worker also associated themselves on a more larger scale to address issues and make changes in their community or even the world. In a macro-level, social workers focus on the community and the more large-scale like issues in the community. As a macro-social worker, they tend to work with large groups of individuals, communities, or major organizations. Therefore, endeavoring in a workplace is a concern for social workers as becoming competent in organizations is an important aspect of this type of social work.
The National Association of Social Workers, NASW, considers the following as its six most core values; service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence. The value of service is considered to be a core value because offering help to those in need is a crucial goal for all of those looking to practice in the field of Social Work. These services can include, but are not limited to, addressing social problems, helping those in need, and volunteering their knowledge to those who cannot otherwise afford such help. Social Justice is also an important core value for a Social Worker to develop. As a Social Worker one will encounter many people from several different walks of life, no two cases will ever be exactly the same. Some of these walks of life can leave a client vulnerable, defenseless, exploited, oppressed, and troubled. Therefore it is important to learn what Social Justice is, and how to help people from falling victim to injustice. Dignity and Worth of the Person is one of the most important values that one should uphold. People who need the help of a Social Worker many, but not all, times feel powerless, embarrassed, and worthless because they feel as though they cannot control aspects of their life an...
Social Workers are very important to everyday life. They are the ones that help people in need when they have nobody else to turn too. Also, they provide resources and better understanding of predicaments that you could be experiencing. I will reflect on how the class has affected me, my own experiences and how some theories have connected to my life experiences, and lastly, if the class helped toward my major. This class is important for someone that wants to become a social worker and wants to learn about the different theories used. Also, learning about me during this process of completing this class is fun and a way to see if the social work profession is right for me. There was many theories explained throughout this class but many will not be said because it wasn’t the main points that I was trying to get across. There are two tools that are used that can help a social worker organize a client’s life: Bubble map and Briefcase exercise. There are so many different ways a social worker can help a client deal with their problems and come up with a solution. It is up to that social worker to identify the client’s problem and see what theory fits.
To provide effective social services, a social work graduate must possess a multitude of knowledge, skills and abilities. This will be a reflective paper on everything that I know for sure as a student of social work who is about to go into the world of work.
Wilson, K. et al. al., 2011 - p. 78. Social Work: 'Introduction to Contemporary Practice'. 2nd ed.
Chenoweth, L & McAuliffe, D 2012, The road to social work and human service practice, 3rd edn, Cengage Learning, South Melbourne.
Social Justice is about making society function better – providing the support and tools to help turn lives around. This is a challenging new approach to dealing with poverty in all its forms. It is not about income poverty alone.(SJS) Throughout this essay I will explore why Poverty is a primary issue when striving for Social Justice and how, we as professionals, can attempt to overcome this by working together to achieve a fairer more just society. Social Work, Primary Education and Community Learning and Development are working together collaboratively to achieve Social Justice. I will discuss the changes that have taken place in our professions and the guidelines and regulations that we must adhere to. In addition to this I will examine the positive and negative outcomes of my group experience working together with CLD, Social Work and Education Students. I will also address the historical perspective in addition to the philosophical perspectives.
Social justice is a core value in the social work field. We define social justice as, “all citizens would possess equal fundamental rights, protection, opportunities, obligations and social benefits (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2015, p. 29). Unfortunately, we understand there are many members in today’s society that are not receiving social justice. Some may not want help and believe that s/he is able to do it on their own and then there are the individuals that we may not know about that could really use our help. Our jobs as social workers is to help those who need help no matter if they are rich, poor, disabled, white, Hispanic, it does not matter because everyone should be treated equally. As NASW states, “The original mission of social work had much to do with championing the rights of society’s most vulnerable members, from children to homeless people to the physically disabled” (NASW: National Association of Social Workers, 2015, para. 1).