Documentation of Previous Learning Experience: Social Worker

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

I had great 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. Even if I studied the theories of social work in the classroom, I was not confident to work with the first client due to lack of practical exposure, but my supervisor motivated and encouraged me to work with the client successfully. I provided case management support to clients and families dealing with addiction. The dependents were mostly spouses and they have co-dependency factors such as low self-esteem, depression, lack of self-care, lack of assertiveness, emotional instability, lack of hope and suicidal ideation. In my work experience, I observed that most of the spouses of the addicts are maladjusted in their family situation and they are not assertive due to fear of society, and this reveals that the women are oppressed in South India society and the society is patriarchal in nature. I worked with two different community settings in South Indian villages. One is income generation initiatives with low income and rural farming communities.

The second community experience was with rural communities providing clean drinking water and sanitation project. In the first community, I designated as a project coordinator and second as Team leader. The first experience in the community was during farmers suicide happened in South India because of recession, my role was to support the farmers and family in crisis. The business lobbies decided the price for the agricultural commodities. Advocacy for government intervention in the support prices was a challenge due to the illegal relationship between the government officials, business lobbies, politicians and media, but the social work principles and values strengthen me to firmly advocate for the poor farmer's group with the support of my colleagues and the superior and as a result, the attempt was successful. I learned that corrupted media is a major treat for 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 1994 was a major change in the entire sector in India. According to the new amendment 2014, the transplant hospitals must be appointed a transplant coordinator with a qualification of Master of Social Work and transplant coordination training. According to the act, a medical practitioner must consult with the transplant coordinator before the removal of an organ or tissue from the body of a client. This rule helped to increase the dignity of the social work profession in medical settings. The prevention of any sort of financial dealing in relation with an organ donation or transplantation was the major goal of the act. The social workers/transplant coordinators are responsible to confirm the altruistic donation.

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

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

When I worked in the community setting, I prepared the Community Action Plan (CAP), collected baseline data, conducted resource mapping and prepared pre-feasibility reports. I monitored and supervised staff, documented program outcomes and managed the budget. I realized that progressive social work perspectives are relevant to the social contexts in the South Indian community especially anti-oppressive practice which is structural in nature. During the water and sanitation project, most of the clients were indigenous people. The project was associated with the provincial government and the Grama Panchayath (Local self-government). Corruption was the major problem which I faced during my work. My superiors forced me to take part in corruption, but I refused. Social work values and principles were my strength. Consequently, a team of politicians and higher officials threaten me. The structural social work was suitable in that setting because the indigenous groups were oppressed and marginalized. Structural social work pursues changing the social system than the individual. The structural social work not only focusing to mitigate the ill effects on the client of a manipulative and distancing social order but also it changes the situations and the social structure that caused these negative effect.

Value and mission are fundamental to the profession. Deprived of the value and mission there is no social work. The values reflect in the moral challenges of practice, it is not the knowledge-based, but it should differentiate and direct the profession. In the 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 in Master of Social Work in India.

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