Critical Reflection on Social Work Practice

Subesh Panta 

 

Social work is not only a profession of giving the desired materials to a needy person but also creating a change among socially excluded individuals, a scattered family from violence, oppressed group and communities so that they can think they still exist in human society and for better social functioning. The world full of chaos consists of people surrounded by various crises affecting them mentally, physically and socially. Not other than social work practitioner with lived experience intervene practically with these kinds of people because of moral values they put as an important role. Learning from lived experience provides social work practitioners with unique insights that facilitate professional compassion, expand understanding, challenge negative and stigmatizing attitudes, and facilitate skill development (Bell et al., 2006; Beresford & Boxall, 2012; Happell& Roper, 2003; Irvine, Molyneux, & Gillman, 2015). This essay will analyze the self-reflection, lived experience as a social worker to a number of issues based on critical reflection theory for instance, racial and ethnic oppression, social and economic disadvantage, and gender inequality and so on.

According to (Jarvis et al 2003; Mezirow, 1990), critical self-reflection refers to becoming aware of our presuppositions and challenging our established patterns of thinking. It is also a way of questioning one's own assumptions, presuppositions, and meaning perspectives (Mezirow, 2006). Critical self-reflection may be an important skill for facilitating transitions by allowing individuals to reassess or alter existing life structures (Bee, 2000). Literature suggests that critical self-reflection facilitates student transitions in different ways starting from instructor-based learning to more self-directed learning style after entering university (QAA, 2015). So, based on critical reflection theory, the writer will link beliefs and values constructed within himself to solve the problem inoppressive groups and communities throughout the professional lived experience and at the same time describe the influence of how does it arise to become a social worker.

The grown-up in a Hindu middle-class family, where there is an instant number of values and belief, from early days of childhood, I have seen my family members, especially mother; always keen in seeking to help needy one from a rural community and creating strong will inside them to live a happy and prosperous life. She has been a great inspiration for me. The ethical knowledge built in me like selflessness, honesty, acceptance, cooperation, kindness is a positive consequence of her helping nature to vulnerable ones. The interconnectedness between ethics, knowledge, and belief has shaped my values as well as approaches to different social issues. Ethics of a person comes from society in which you are surrounded by and knowledge is associated with understanding your surroundings come from and belief is often understood as a religious phenomenon. Being a population of the biggest continent in the world compiled of the maximum number of individuals, societies, and communities even the countries living below the poverty line, I am Inhabitat of developing country Nepal, following consisting people from diverse race and religion with their own historical belief and values making them unique in nature. Nepal is shaped by huge religious and caste discrimination as well as gender inequality. Many individuals, as well as communities, are facing oppression in the name of religion, caste along with gender. Remembering one incident, when my father took me to old age homes for distributing basic materials to senior citizens and when I tried to ask about those old age people; he replied, they are the old ones dispersed from home by their own children. This unusual reply from him stroked my mind and I began to think why own children so such harsh behavior. Also, while visiting one of the rural villages, I have my eyes opened when I saw a young boy in school uniform and from the same home small girl carrying an empty pot to fill water going towards the river. All those incidents built a belief in me like, girls should be engaged in household work rather than sending them to school and also after getting old we should send our parents to old age homes. When I grew older slowly and slowly I began to realize that there are huge differences in the societal system because of misperception, values, and belief among people according to their cultural background thinking that girls are just for doing household purposes, sending them to school for education is a sin. This is a blind belief in them which shows the form of invisible oppression. As I grew older, those false beliefs in me got transferred into positive one that everyone is equal, girl has also the right to be educated and it's the responsibility of children to look after their parents when they are old, exactly as said by Mezirow, questioning own assumption and changing as the time goes on. Nevertheless, these kinds of scenarios have enlightened me to take necessary steps in tackling and reducing such kind of situations.

As by critical reflection theory, there is a transition point in a student from instructor-based education to university one. Likewise, after starting university degree, I began to study deeply in my own way about the issues in societies. At the same time, placement in Children and women in Social Service and Human Rights (CWISH) started. The human service organization in which I took the first step and contributed to the betterment of children as well as women according to my knowledge, value, and belief. Initially, it was difficult to tackle with my value which was in me when I was a child regarding the female education and their engagement only in household work rather than other things. Slowly and slowly, after getting intensive knowledge and the actual scenario of the women changed my values.  Overwhelming situations impacted me deep inside, "There is something needed to be done quickly to remove such kind of heartless act". First, I started interviewing vulnerable women who were given skill training and job by the organization women to know about their background. Most deceiving things common in them were because of minority caste community banished them and after having a consecutive baby as a girl their husbands divorced them. After all these, I asked the supervisor to start anti-oppressive practice with those women. But instead of saying yes straight away, he replied these practices in social work lack focus at a micro and individual level. The reason why anti-oppressive approaches in social work emerged in response to the struggles of ethnic minorities, feminists and people with disabilities to challenge the power structure (Langan 1992; Payne 1997). Typically social work practice has been more micro/individual focused. The ability for such a focus to address issues related to oppression was called into question with the rise of radical social work in the late 1960s and early 1970s; radical social work laid the groundwork for anti-oppressive practice (Lynn 1999; Payne 1997). The anti-oppressive approach ultimately aims to change the structure and procedures of service delivery systems through micro-changes, including legal and organizational transformation (Dalyrmple and Burke 1995; Dominelli 2002). Obviously, like approaching anti-oppressive with individual oppressed women isn't viable but locating the surrounding where it emerged and practicing in those locations with communities is the best way out for this problem especially in developing countries where ethnic minorities play a vital role. Exactly the same point me and my supervisor discussed and came to conclusion not to rewind the dark memories of women instead of empowering them through different income-generating activities so that they can live dependently now and in the future.

Whereas, after a few months I was transferred to another section to get the basic knowledge about children protection which was one of the major thematic areas of this organization and also how this organization practiced with them. I get more excited because I was in a node of learning another issue. Child protection is one of the growing issues at that time. Child labor, child trafficking, physical harassment, child sexual abuses are major challenges to ensure the protection of child rights in Nepal. As far as my knowledge and belief, children are future heroes of the nation driving the country in a path of development. But after getting to know such ground reality, values within me become stronger to do something quick that impacts positiveness among those affected children. The hunger inside me to be a social worker as a profession gave a new shape after seeing those inhuman conditions of a future star of the nation. Following these scenarios, I made a plan after discussing with my supervisor to make contact with government school for providing full scholarship to children working as a labor of nearby places which was approved. Thus, the hunt for children began. From the role given by Gerhard and Brooks (1993), that workers in various roles working with Child Labor perform the following must be introduced. : Role of researcher (Researcher role) Protective role (Supporting role) Role of Engineers (Counselor role) Role of training provider (Educator role) Role of expert rehabilitation (Rehabilitation role) Role planning (Planning role). As a researcher, we identified and reviewed the problem among those children and families. The most common problem was the low income and poverty as well as minority caste which drag them into miserable working conditions. After identifying the problem, by maximum effort of convincing the children to have a chat with their family we got to know about their economic condition, environment in which they are living and requested the family to send them school for getting knowledge as we have managed to provide them full scholarship with the help of government school which was happily accepted by their family. Gordon Jack (2000) developed the ecological theory in the context of social work with children and families and suggested that the social and physical environment in which families live can be sources of both support and stress. But the condition was altered, most of the children were happy to work as labor to support their family whereas, some decided to school for gaining education. It was a bit different experience for me, plan what you make sitting under the covered room and implementing them in the actual scenario is quite difficult. As social workers, we don't force our clients to do things rather create a change in them. At the same time, we have to respect their values too. Thus, in between some children and us, there was clash in our values and following the principle of social work we didn't hurt them rather gave them some counseling about the drawbacks of early child labor. Defective government policy was also one of the major failures that couldn't address child rights. Therefore, we plan to advocate and force the government to amend the policy. Social work advocacy is the exclusive and mutual representation of clients or a cause in a forum attempting to systematically influence decision making in an unjust or unresponsive system (Schneider and Lester 2001 p65). Social work is not just a profession by thinking yourself but in fact, it's a tough profession surrounded by specific boundaries that you cannot go beyond it but yes you can plan, organize and in some cases pressurize the government too. According to Lorenz (2001), “It is its paradigmatic openness that gives this profession the chance to engage with very specific (and constantly changing) historical and political contexts while at the same time striving for a degree of universality, scientific reliability, professional autonomy, and moral accountability.”

In the transition from university study to the working environment, students need to be able to reflect on their professionalism and professional identity (Lairio et al,  2011). The six months placement with CWISH opened my account in the field of social work practice to reflect my professional identity in an organization after getting theoretical knowledge from the university. The dream which I was after from my childhood began to fulfill and also assisted in the development of personal growth. During that time, I learned there is a vast difference between the personal way of thinking in a professional context. The professional identity and standards of professional integrity inform the complex and difficult situations social workers deal with (Wiles, 2012, Banks, 2010). Likewise, personal values of one's get put aside for professional one which means that anything the practitioner believes about religion, the color of skin, or any other ideas should be kept aside for treating the person we are working with. For instance, by the above practice of working with children, the value in me like every child should have an equal opportunity of education, no one exploits child got aside. We are not allowed to push the client to do the things according to our values but in fact, we as a social worker should respect their values and create a new favorable environment to reduce child exploitation. After completing my tenure, I got opportunities to work with different other organizations as my placement in the area of girls trafficking, school bullying, poverty, and livelihood. More I got experienced in these issues more it broadened up my knowledge and strengthen practice skill as well as assisted me to tackle with various kinds of social injustice.

Again mesmerizing a work back one year, a group of European girls built a small carpet factory for earthquake displaced communities especially for women in Sindhupalchowk district. According to them, it was running smoothly but after some months there was a disparity between some workers and them. They requested me and my friend to go with them and knew the actual scenario and what will be the possible solution. After reaching the place and getting information from the VDC secretary, it was a cultural and ethnic competent case. The displaced community comprised of people from Brahmin and Tamang community. Mostly, the workers were Tamang but the management was under Brahmin and those Brahmin exploited the other workers also gave them a low wage. Because of this, workers were demanding a new person in the management. It was completely a different task. Minority caste of Tamang people was oppressed by called high classed society. Firstly, we decided to talk with the workers keeping our cultural and ethnic knowledge from where we belong to as well as skills by dividing into two parts and come through common consensus cause it was really a high profile task because if anything goes wrong then there will be a violent activity in the name of religion. According to (Krajewski-Jaime, Brown, Ziefert, & Kaufman, 1996), culturally competent practitioners go through a developmental process of shifting from using their own culture as a benchmark for measuring all behavior. Knowledge and values must be integrated with social work skills for culturally competent practice (Manoleas, 1994; Sowers-Hoag &Sandau-Beckler, 1996; Weaver, 1997). Skills must be adapted to meet the needs of diverse clients (Ronnau, 1994). Finally, we came into a desirable solution of keeping one personal form Tamang community in the management team i.e. inclusive one for the effective running of the factory and this was accepted holistically by all the workers.

Professional identity is not banal but is a continuous process in organizational and professional life.  All those values and beliefs in me got shaped by the social nature of the self as constituted by society. Personally, until today, professional experience from the past decade has strongly helped me to grow my identity in the field of social work. In the same way, the forms of oppression among identified individuals and communities got shape in my practice approaches. Finally, I began to think the knowledge within me is not sufficient to shape society and to develop an identity as a social worker. I need more practical as well as theoretical experience from abroad to increase my lifelong identity as a social worker.

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Author Bio

Subesh Panta: Professional Social and Community Development Worker currently working for Aussie Action Abroad in empowering the rural farmers of Nepal for agricultural modernization according to the Landcare model of Australia as well as strengthening informal financial services for rural women to make them economically self-dependent.