HSSW105: Social Work through the Life Span Intensives – Self Reflection
Monday 26th, August, 2019 – Thursday 29th, August, 2019
This week, as part of my Bachelor of Social Work course in my first semester, it was a requirement to attend an Intensive as part of the face to face contact as per Australian Association of Social Workers education policy outline. The location of this Intensive was held at University of New England, Armidale, led by Professor Jennifer Smith and Professor Bob Lonne (who has recently gone into semi retirement as of this week).
It has been an incredibly challengening week from a personal front as I have questioned my own morals and ethics, what and how I am going to face future challenges, and if I am better off going back to doing my Masters of Information Studies than go down the Social Workers route.
I have questioned whether to take the easy route by going back to doing something I know and kind of love, or contiunue doing something that is hard and uncomfortable in which I have been wanting to do for quite sometime. Over the last two years I had been struggling to find my place in what I wanted to do with my life and I was using words such as belonging, being needed, acceptance, to be heard and wanting to help not only myself, but others too.
Bizarrely, I have been wanting to help other people in the holistic sense and I had found that specialising in Archives and Records Management was not cutting it. I wanted and needed more. It felt like I needed to do more with my life and if you will, a calling. Comparitively speaking, I wanted to do more ground work and actually be in the nitty grittiness and not be just stuck in the four walls of confinement, even though there is some outreach in Archives and a lot in libraries, but it just was not cutting it.
And oddly enough, over the last year or so, there has been an increasing presence of libraries integrating Social Workers into their systems to assist bridging the gap. This is largely due to Librarians and there services unable to cope, manage and assist with providing the particular services for the homeless, mental health, the disabled, and ageing population. Whilst Librarians are able to provide information for the entire community, there is the gap of being unable to give the support that the community needs for accessability and advocacy, and this is where Social Workers steps in.
So with such news coming through, this makes me confused in which hat I should be wearing. As an Archivist/Librarian and currently studying to be a Social Worker, both heavily reliant to provide information and accessability to meet the needs of the community, I am questioning myself, “Am I becoming chicken?” and like what Thomas Edison famously quoted, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work” therefore, am I being a lazy scared chicken that is going to let this opportunity pass me by?!
In many ways, there is self doubt and imposter syndrome due largely to finding it difficult to absorb the more theoretical knowledge of the HSSW Social Work through the Lifespan theories and models and I know in time it will eventlly click. Albeit, I would rather it sooner than later.
Going back to the topic at hand of the Intensive the student cohort were required to chose a case study and apply theories and models to the case studies chosen and to work in a group of four or five. Within this group, we had to work together to provide a speech in how we would assist, assess and advocate for the individuals by applying theories, models and implementing intervention strategies, it was incredibly humbling.
It is not called Intensives lightly. We were literally thrown together and had to establish a pecking order very quickly, and unfortunately, while the groups succeeded, you could see the small holes in the boats where water was leaking in. And there were times it just seemed you could not bucket out the water fast enough so you did not sink. In saying that, come Thursday to do our presentation, it was very much a relief that we survived, albeit not very happy campers.
There were some groups who established amazing friendships that I can see that will be long lasting, and there were groups like mine, where we had to pull our heads our of arses as there were personality clashes, age and experience differences, and egos that just seemed to be deemed as unmanageable.
It was increasingly apparent, that our group was suffering a major blow and you could see the cracks in the vases, when the Professor has turned around on day three or four saying, just ignore what we have said about playing nicely. Yes there will be disagreements or people are just hard to work with and they are not on the same page, but at the end of the day, try your best to get yourelf and your group over the line. This Professor used examples such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, where certain individuals would not talk to each other or so self centred and egotistical, yet they managed to make it together and still produce good work.
So whilst this may sound like I am bitching about my group, yes, I may complain about individuals, however in light of things, it has been very humbling as I have learnt many lessons, I have been brought into line by another great student who brought awareness to the forefront which has re taught me that not everyone is on the same learning path as me, has the same experiences that I do or the knowledge. And yet I have to remember that I too am still learning. So whilst I may not come away with the theoretical knowledge of this intensive, I have come away with a deeper personal learning curve which has shown strengths that I have, weaknesses that I have to work on, opportunities that I can create and grab the ones that are existing now and in the future when they arise, and to plan for any threats when they do arise.
...Cathy Boyd... 