Personal Values In Social Work

Throughout life people have many different experiences that help shape who they are and what they believe in. Sometimes, culture, religion, gender, age, and many other things can influence certain values. Even some influences may be the same, everyone develops their values differently and that is what makes us individuals. Personally, my values evolved more through my experiences but my mother laid the framework for them. The values that are most important to me are, respect, honesty, empathy and equality. Growing up I was always told to respect others, especially adults, as well as other people’s property. I interperted that as, watch what you say and do around older people, let the older person have the seat on the bus and things of that …show more content…
In order to achieve this we have to take on mainly different roles. My identity as a social worker is very important and my personal values and beliefs are the main reason that I decided to pursue social work. I believe it is important that your personal values match the core social work values because that makes for a competent social worker. My personal value of respect can be linked to social works core values of dignity and worth of a person and the importance of human relations. As mentioned previously, I feel it is important to respect everyone regardless of their differences. By valuing the dignity and worth of a person as a social worker, we are striving to empower people and by increasing the clients desire to change their own needs, so we are essentially building up their self-worth and dignity, which will hopefully pour into society. By respecting a person, it nourishes the importance of human relations. When respect is given, respect is earned. By respecting the clients, families, organizations, and communities, it makes it easier to advocate for …show more content…
Having the ability to understand what a person is going through and the desire for equality will motivate me as I social work to seek social justice because I want to improve my client’s quality of life. These two personal values of mine also help with the dignity and worth of a person because I will be more understanding and mindful when empowering them to address their own needs. Lastly, equality is very important in importance of human relations. It is important because in order to make change, relationships between people have to be strong. If there is a strong relationship between clients, communities, organizations, and social groups than it will be easier to promote and maintain the change. Even though a great number of my personal values match the social work values, some of them still conflict when it comes to certain populations. One population that I would have a difficult time servicing would be sexual abused child/ children. Because of my bias towards this population it will be hard for me to have empathy for them. I feel as though because of my lack of empathy, I would not be able to provide the services that they need which is not