I am proud to be a social worker. It is a difficult, demanding job that requires many different skills and abilities. It is, as originally developed, a job dedicated to assisting others during tough times at the beginning of the 20th century.
It has evolved into many different facets, including therapy and mental health, care for the elderly, care for children and famillies, the work force, the downtrodden, the homeless, the person who is having difficulty right now making ends meet. We work in schools and prisions, shelters for the homeless and victims of dometstic violence. We help people struggling with alcohol, drugs and other afflctions. Hospitals and nursing homes. Housing. Healthcare and medication. Food.
It is an amazing profession. I care and nurture, teach, network, advocate, support, provide therapy, attend life milestones. I help celebrate success and mourn loss. I sometimes advise, and often counsel. I am empathic, but I come home to my own family intact. I create strong boundaries, but I cry with a child who has lost her mother.
I have worked in a school with special needs children, a mental health hospital, in a community service agaency helping adults with mental illness to obtain housing, food and mental health care; a mental health clinic for children and families, and a program working with preschool children whose families are homeless.
I have learned amazing things about each person I meet. My profession is a privledge. It is a responsibilty. And it is one I am proud to identify myself with. I am a social worker!!!
The picture above is from anotepad that I keep at work. A dear friend gave it to me one Christmas, and I just love it.
If you made it through all that, kudos to you!
I am lucky to work in a small elementary school, in a small suburban community. I'll talk more about that tomorrow.
It makes me a bit sad that most people don't know what social workers do. they have visions of children and elderly being removed from their homes, over worked social service caseworkers, etc. Mostly, we are portrayed as overworked, callaused and stingy. I don't get it.
Anyway, just a little public service information that social workers are in many, many places helping many, many, many people.
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