Documentation of Previous Learning Experience: Social Worker

Introduction

Experiences in the field help to acquaint individuals with the actual social situation. Field experiences provide opportunities to apply the knowledge learned in classroom settings and to plan, implement, and evaluate these experiences while working with individuals, groups, and communities. Critical self-reflection is a conscious and systematic method to think about experience with the aim of learning and transforming performances. Reflection is a reasoning process to develop a sense of practice, creating a link between experience and course content. This paper discusses previous social work experiences in relation to the theories and practice of social work in Canada. The knowledge, skills, and values employed in previous work settings will also be examined to show the linkages to Canadian social work practice.

Documentation of Previous Learning Experience: Social Worker

I had significant opportunities to work with adults living with addiction issues, and in community-based, micro-enterprise, and clinical social work settings. My first work experience was with an integrated rehabilitation center for addicts in South India as a social worker. Despite having studied the theories of social work in the classroom, I was not confident in working with my first client due to a lack of practical exposure. However, my supervisor motivated and encouraged me to successfully engage with the client. I provided case management support to clients and families dealing with addiction. The dependents were mostly spouses who exhibited co-dependency factors such as low self-esteem, depression, lack of self-care, lack of assertiveness, emotional instability, lack of hope, and suicidal ideation. My work experience revealed that most spouses of addicts were maladjusted in their family situations and not assertive due to societal fears, highlighting the oppression of women in South Indian society, which is patriarchal in nature.

I worked with two different community settings in South Indian villages. One involved income generation initiatives with low-income and rural farming communities. The second experience was with rural communities on a clean drinking water and sanitation project. In the first community, I served as a project coordinator, and in the second as a team leader. During a crisis of farmer suicides in South India due to a recession, my role was to support the farmers and families in crisis. The business lobbies determined the prices for agricultural commodities, and advocating for government intervention in support prices was challenging due to the illegal relationships between government officials, business lobbies, politicians, and the media. However, social work principles and values strengthened me to advocate firmly for the poor farmers' group with the support of my colleagues and superiors, resulting in a successful outcome. I learned that corrupted media is a major threat to social reformation in India.

My most recent experience was in a teaching hospital in South India as a transplant coordinator. The Human Organ and Tissue Transplantation Act of 1994 was a major change in the sector in India. According to the new amendment in 2014, transplant hospitals must appoint a transplant coordinator with a Master of Social Work qualification and transplant coordination training. The act requires medical practitioners to consult with the transplant coordinator before removing an organ or tissue from a client's body. This rule helped elevate the dignity of the social work profession in medical settings. Preventing any financial dealings related to organ donation or transplantation was a major goal of the act. Social workers/transplant coordinators are responsible for confirming altruistic donations.

In the Canadian context, I found that the position of transplant coordinators is often handled by nurses. The physical, psychological, social, spiritual, familial, and economic well-being of clients is examined during addiction interventions. I also completed psychosocial assessments and provided individual and group counseling to clients and their families in both addiction and transplant hospital settings. I facilitated educational and training sessions to promote a better understanding of addiction and organ donation for people from various communities. I primarily practiced conventional social work theories such as the client-centered approach, psycho-social assessment, clinical assessment, casework, family therapies, and ecologically oriented practice.

Clinical and Community Experience

During my clinical experience, I explored the social, personal, housing, and financial needs of clients and referred them to services accordingly. I collaborated with members of a multidisciplinary team to develop care plans, ensuring comprehensive documentation and follow-up services. I analyzed medical data of potential organ donors and transplant recipients, scheduled laboratory tests for recipients and donors, and supervised social work students. In both addiction and hospital settings, I collected and documented informed consent from clients and families for documentation purposes. The important requirement of informed consent is that the risks and benefits of the proposed treatment plan must be communicated to the client.

In community settings, I prepared Community Action Plans (CAP), collected baseline data, conducted resource mapping, and prepared pre-feasibility reports. I monitored and supervised staff, documented program outcomes, and managed budgets. I realized that progressive social work perspectives are relevant to the social contexts in the South Indian community, especially anti-oppressive practices, which are structural in nature. During the water and sanitation project, most clients were indigenous people. The project was associated with the provincial government and the Grama Panchayath (local self-government). Corruption was a major problem I faced during my work. My superiors pressured me to participate in corruption, but I refused. Social work values and principles were my strength, yet a team of politicians and higher officials threatened me. Structural social work was suitable in that setting because indigenous groups were oppressed and marginalized. Structural social work aims to change the social system rather than the individual. It focuses not only on mitigating the ill effects on clients of a manipulative and distancing social order but also on changing the situations and social structures that caused these negative effects.

Value and mission are fundamental to the profession. Deprived of value and mission, there is no social work. Values reflect in the moral challenges of practice; they are not knowledge-based but should differentiate and direct the profession. In my workplaces, I practiced social work values such as confidentiality, professional integrity, service to humanity, social justice, client respect, and competence in professional practice, which I learned during my Master of Social Work in India.

Conclusion

To conclude, even if the theories of social work have similarities worldwide, the praxis differs based on different social contexts. Critical self-reflection based on my previous experiences in addiction, community, and clinical settings, and comparison with Canadian social work practice, resulted in identifying learning gaps. New knowledge, skills, and value acquisition are significant because the status quo is different on the other side of the world. Culturally pertinent practices include questioning societal injustice and structural dissimilarity. In Canada, social work is a regulated profession; therefore, understanding Canadian social contexts, codes of ethics, social work theory, and perspectives are vital for successful practice.

References

• Canadian Association of Social Workers. (2020). Code of Ethics. Retrieved from https://www.casw-acts.ca/en/what-social-work/casw-code-ethics
• Government of India. (1994). Human Organ and Tissue Transplantation Act.
• Smith, J. (2015). Social Work Practice in Canada: An Introduction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.