Social Work Experience

Improved Essays
As social workers identifying their own stories, being a great starting point in discovering personal knowledge and understanding and how this is integrated into professional knowledge, insight and experience (Cree and Davidson, 2000). Opening a safe space to challenge previously held attitudes, beliefs and values, allows for a ‘deep learning’ from one another, through dialogue. To critically reflect on different ways of knowing/other ways of seeing can be a rewarding experience. Reflecting on personal values and considering how these might then relate to professional social work values and systemic barriers assists in creating better practice. Creating a ‘safe place’ to test out such theories and begin the process of integrating these methods …show more content…
An environment built on trust and respect, allows for practitioners to explore strategies of how best to engage personal involvement in professional learning processes. Encouraging other practitioners to work together to find patterns, making connections with personal histories to critically analysing previous experience. Practitioners continue to learn and unlearn as there is incongruence between what people says, what they believe and what they do. There is no distinction between the personal self and the professional self, indeed, the two are one and the same (Atherton, 1986). Therefore, creating a congruent and ethical practice. Being aware of one’s personal values and political beliefs is fundamental to social work and involves critically questioning current discourses to history and how we identify with these constructions. It is through all forms of supervision we find an opportunity for such exploration and thus have a profound impact on ones sense of self and there connection to social work ethics. Finding diversity in solidarity is a framework to help make connection to other frameworks such as feminism or anti-oppressive practice (Lister, 2000, p. …show more content…
We cannot blame not knowing due to being unconscious of systemic structures within oppressive work place practices. We need to be responsible for our thoughts and actions and even in what we don’t know that we don’t know. It is through critical refection and dialogue with others that we gain further knowledge and understanding of what we do not know, promoting organisational accountability in reflection to organisations research, policy and processes. (Mandell, 2008; Wang, 2012). Adopting this framework it becomes apparent that both the supervisor and the supervises personal and positional power needs to be openly acknowledged, as a lot more is riding on the relationship as containing a hidden agenda in current managerial time,. In particular in judgments around performance management around their attendance, conduct, behaviour and participation while managing the ongoing tension meeting of organisational outcomes as the principles of professionalism, making individuals accountable for their action and maintain unconscious in how the neoliberal systems place constrains on ethical, safe and supportive practice. (Harrison and Ruch,

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