Post on 29-Mar-2023
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Kaylyn Fragel
Professor Cray Mulder
SW 601
5 September 2014
Photovoice Project #1
Social Work
The picture that I took to represent social work is a
figurine of a person sitting on a stack of books. Some of the
books on the shelf are text books, and others are novels or other
books that I have read. The books are stacked roughly by size,
with the smallest being at the top and the largest being at the
bottom of the stack. The spine of each of the books is facing out
and the title of each of the book is showing in the picture. The
books in the stack are not stacked evenly; some are crooked and
facing the front at a slight angle.
The picture that I took represents social work to me. It
represents that social work is a combination of knowledge of
people and of social theories. These two bodies of knowledge make
up what is important when practicing social work. A person’s
knowledge of people comes from both their personal experience and
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the narratives that they have heard, read, or observed. This is
what the novels in the stack of books represent. The textbooks
represent the knowledge of theory. We obtain this knowledge
through studying and going to class, as well as through our own
exploration of academic literature.
This picture means a lot to me. Combining knowledge of
people and ideas is something that I really want to do, and it is
something I did not really feel like I had the opportunity to do
in my sociology undergraduate program. I felt like I did so much
with theory there was no room for looking at what people really
needed. I am eager to explore applying the knowledge of people to
the body of theory knowledge, and expanding on both of them in
this program.
Community
I took a picture of an interlocking circle of paper clips to
represent community. The paperclips that I chose to use are all
different colors, but are otherwise identical. They are held
together by the loop at the end of the paper clip, so they are
not tightly linked. Even so, they can withstand a lot of movement
and relocation without falling apart very much. There are four
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different colors, and because there are more than four paper
clips, each of the paper clips matches some of the other paper
clips. At the same time, it is different from others.
This represents community because all of the paper clips are
interconnected, just like the people in any community. The paper
clips form a circle, and they rely on each other in order to form
that circle. People in a community rely on each other in order
for the community to do the things that make the community
function and provide for the people in the community. The
different color paper clips represent how we are similar and how
we are different. Just like the color of the paper clips, there
are some ways that we are similar to some members of the
community more than others. At the same time as there are
differences between the paper clips (color), all of the paper
clips are shaped the same. As members of a community, we are all
made up of the same things and are all needed to complete the
circle that is our community.
To me, this representation of community means that community
expands to a greater group of people than just the people in our
neighborhood. It means that even people who are different to us
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are part of our community. We need the people in our school and
in our city who we do not regularly interact with as much as we
need our neighbors. I grew up in a neighborhood that has a
reputation for being “close-knit”, but I did not feel close to
the people in that community. I understood that they were part of
my community, but at the same time I felt like my community
expanded far beyond the boundaries of my neighborhood.
Cultural Competence
I chose to take a picture of a map to represent cultural
competence. The map that I took a picture of is from a world
history text book. The map is of Europe. There was no specific
reason that I chose Europe. The map is in color and is covering
the entire page of the book. The colors are mainly greens and
blues. The map is divided by country, has many of the major
cities marked. It also show topographical features too, and the
distinct shape of the land mass. The map looks really busy, but
has a very standard system when it comes to how it is to be used.
It uses a similar scale and key to any map of its kind.
One part of the map that makes it a good metaphor for
cultural competence is that there are many intricacies to a map
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that make it different than a map from any other location, or
from a different map from the same area that comes from a
different company. This is similar to how the culture of one
group is very different from any other, and even different from
another person living in the same area. Also, no matter how long
someone looks at a map, they will never fully understand that
place unless they actually spend time living there and experience
the location. The person can become competent when it comes to
cross-streets and bus lines, but they do not know what it feels
like being there. Cultural competence is being able to navigate
someone else’s culture using a map, even though I will never be
able to fully understand another person’s culture.
I try really hard to have competence of other cultures. I
did not grow up in a very diverse environment, but when I moved
away from home to college I was exposed to a lot of different
culture with which I had never interacted before. I began to make
friends with new people, and I had to learn to accept that I will
never fully understand other people’s culture. I knew I could be
tolerant and respectful, and I could learn about their traditions
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and cultural attributes, but I would not know what it feels like
to have grown up in anyone else’s culture.
Social Problem
To demonstrate the concept of a social problem, I took a
picture of some cords from electronic devices tangled together
and plugged into a power strip. The power strip is not turned on.
The cords come from a variety of devices, including a lamp, an
alarm clock, my cell phone charger, and my computer. The cords
are all plugged in, but they are tangled together and the power
cord is turned off. Even though all of the devices are plugged
in, there is not any power going to them, so they remain off.
This is a good representation of a social problem because of
the way that it demonstrates that there is often a series of
smaller problems covering up the main social problem. When first
looking at the picture, one might think that the reason that the
power strip is not working is that there are too many cords
plugged into it. Another reason might be because the cords that
are plugged in are tangled. Once one looks past the layers of
smaller problems, it is visible that there is a central problem:
the power strip is switched off. This situation represents the
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smaller problems that a community might have, and how these
problems may not actually be problems, or that there is a more
central societal problems that may actually be what is preventing
success with a community or an individual.
To me this means that there is a lot more to fixing a social
problem than what there may seem to be on the surface. It means
that, sometimes, there is more work for me, as a social worker,
to do to help solve social problems. I need to learn how to
decide which program is the most important and which problem is
the root of the problem. This is takes a lot, because I need to
learn what social problems come with which communities. Right
now, I only have a limited knowledge of the needs of many
populations. I need to learn these things before I am able to
solve the layers of social problems affecting individuals and
communities.
Strength-based perspective
I chose to use a Swiss army knife to represent strength
based perspective in social work. The Swiss army knife that I
chose to use has some interesting properties to it in and of
itself, aside from the properties that a tool like this usually
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has. In this picture I positioned the knife with most of the
tools out; the tools that I did not position out are the tools
that are not functional. Those tools not being functional is one
of the things that make this specific Swiss army knife unique.
In my picture, the Swiss army knife has certain strengths
and certain weaknesses. In the picture, I have focused on the
strengths of the knife. These strengths are things that I can use
to approach the problems that I have to confront. In the
strength-based perspective, you should take the focus off of the
problems that a community or population has and place the focus
on the strengths of that community. The fact that I have the
working tools in use does not mean I am not aware of the problems
of this Swiss army knife. The broken tools are still there, I am
just using to working tools to make up for them.
To me, strength-based perspective means that each community
has both strengths and weaknesses. This picture really
illustrates that for me. I know that the community in which I
grew up definitely had its strengths and its problems. While
there was a strong presence of community leaders and lots of
financial resources among the families in the neighborhood where
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I grew up, the community experienced a lot of problems with the
adolescent population using substances. If social work
professionals focused on the strengths in the community in order
to solve the problem, there would be success in solving this
problem. It is really important for communities to apply the
strength-based perspective because all of the communities have
strengths.
Population-at-risk
To represent “population-at-risk”, I took a picture of a
boot next to a small flower. The boot is very close to the small
flower, so close it is almost touching it. The flower is red and
about two inches long, with small green leaves springing from the
base. The boot is large and black, much bigger than the flower.
If the boot were to land on the flower, it would surely smash it.
The potential harm that the boot can do to the flower is what
makes this set-up a good representation of a population at risk.
I chose this arrangement to represent the idea of population
at risk for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is what the
flower means. The flower is naturally delicate and can easily be
harmed by the things in its environment. A population-at-risk
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exists in a situation where the things in its environment put it
at risk. Those things can be elements of the social structure in
which the population exists. These elements often include things
like domestic violence, homelessness, and poverty. In the picture
for this prompt, the shoe represents these risks and how close
they are to the delicate population. While the boot may damage
the flower, with some assistance or protection from other parts
of its environment, the flower can withstand some of the damage
that the boot may inflict.
This picture means to me that even though the populations at
risk are the same as other populations in a lot of ways—they are
unique, delicate, and beautiful—they have certain dangers that
they are facing that other populations are not facing. The
problems that they are faced with put them at risk for suffering
and danger that populations with more resources, more support,
and less hardship do not suffer from. It is going to be my job as
a social worker to understand what makes populations-at-risk
stand out and how I can help them with their unique challenges.
How do I envision myself as a social worker?
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The best way to represent how I envision myself as a social
worker is through an image a blank notebook and a pen. I took a
picture of a fresh page of notebook paper in a spiral bound
notebook. With this notebook there is an ink pen. The most
important part of this image is that the paper is blank, but the
pen is ready to write in the notebook. It is also very important
to note that the notebook paper has lines. These lines are there
to guide the writing that will fill the blank page
This image represents how I represents that I think that is
it is important for me to have an ethical code to guide me as a
look at each client and professional situation individually
without the influence of other situations. The lines on the
notebook paper represent the ethical standards that I value when
I begin social work practice. The notebook represents the idea
that I will have other clients and other professional situations
in the past, but I will have turned the page and will be starting
anew. Even though I am starting over, the indentations on from
the pen on the prior page will still show on the new page. This
image is a good metaphor because I desire to minimize bias, while
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understanding it is still there and is an important factor in how
I will practice.
This picture and subsequent meaning probably mean more to me
than any of the other pictures and meanings that went along with
them. I really have a strong desire to help people, but I do not
want my personal biases to get in the way of me doing that.
Ideally, I would only take with me from each case and each
situations the things that would help me with the next. I know
that that is not always going to be the case. Sometimes, I will
have to work through the bad feeling a client has left me with,
or a predisposition to expect a certain thing from a certain type
of person. This is why the shadows from the writing on the page
before (which you can barely see in the picture) are so
important. They show that regardless of what I am trying to do, I
will never be truly objective in my efforts.
When is the last time you felt inspired?
For me, my apron from my current job represents the last
time that I felt inspired. I work at a coffee shop and the apron
that I wear signifies that I am a barista. The apron is green and
has the company logo in the center. The last time I was truly
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inspired was when I was hired early in the summer, shortly after
I graduated from my undergraduate school. I had never really had
a normal job before; I had done some tutoring in college, but
that was about all. Even though the barista job is not in my
field, I felt inspired.
Getting this job inspired me because it made me realize that
there are people who trust me enough to hire me, which is
something about which I was not very confident. Also, it
represented me entering a new segment of my life. While I am
still in school, I am no longer just a student. Starting this job
represented my adulthood. Not only was I inspired by that trust,
I also inspired by the new possibilities that were emerging. I
like having opportunities to learn new skills and meet new
people. Having this job is the start of an adventure.
This picture is very hard for me to come to terms with when
it comes to meaning. At the same time as the job that the apron
represents points to a new beginning and makes me feel
optimistic, it also represents what I do not want for myself. I
like working where I do now—at the coffee shop—but I do not want
to work there the rest of my life. I am excited to have the
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opportunity to go to graduate school, but I also know that it is
going to be very difficult to balance school and my job. With
that concern, this apron also represents the challenges that I
will face in the next two or three years and represents the
struggles that I will go through to get my degree.
Photovoice Project #2
How do you “connect” with people you are different from, in terms
of culture, race, age, gender?
In order to connect with people who are different from me in
terms of culture, race, age, gender, or any other way, I would
find something that I have in common with those people. Also, I
have found that sharing your interests with other people is a
good way to connect. This could be something that I am interested
in, like a hobby, or it could be something that we have in
common. I took a picture of some things from my kitchen that I
cook with on a regular basis. This represents all three of the
ways that I would connect with other people.
First, cooking is something that is a hobby for me. I do it
to relax, as well as to get the excitement of trying something
new. This is something that I can get other people involved with
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and it can help me connect because it allows for cooperation and
bonding between me and other people. Cooking is also something
that is important to a lot of different groups of people. While
most groups have their own variety of cooking, it is an important
value. When you look at it as something that is a shared value,
rather than a difference, it makes it easier to connect to
people. Also, cooking is a fairly common hobby, so it is
something that I can use to connect to a lot of different people.
In social work practice, it will be important to find
commonalities with people in order to make connections with them.
I can use things that I have in common with people, both
culturally and personally, in order to build a bond with them.
Even people who are completely different and come from different
cultural and demographic backgrounds will have some in common. It
is important for me to be able to use these tools to connect with
clients and populations that I am working with, and for me,
finding these commonalities is going to be the key to doing this.
When have you not connected with someone?
I have to admit, I often have problems connecting with
people. Usually it is not people in professional or academic
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situations. It is more often in casual social settings and in my
family life. I feel fine in situations where I am expected to
follow certain protocol or processes, but when I have to let my
guard down and show emotion, I have trouble.
The picture that I took to represent when I have not
connected to someone is of the kitchen table in the house where I
live with me family. I have a particularly hard time connecting
with my family. I live with my mom and my teenage sister, and I
feel out of place at home. My family does not understand the
things that are happening in my life right now, and they
sometimes lack empathy. I feel like their expectations for me are
teetering somewhere between child and adult. But, at the same
time, I do not understand them. There is a drastic difference in
personality between my sister and me. I feel this most
significantly when I am sitting at the kitchen table with them,
having dinner. I feel the gap.
I do not think that I will have much of a problem with
professional and client relationships when I am practicing social
work in the future. Even though I will have to connect to people,
I will not have to divulge everything about myself, and it will
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not (usually) be as casual as the social settings in which I have
trouble.
What would you/ do you think you would tell clients about
yourself (self-disclose)?
When it comes to the particular field of social work in
which I am interested, I feel a personal connection. I am
interested in domestic violence and women’s issues, and I am
interested in these areas because of some of the things that I
have experienced in my own life. While my personal experience is
significant in the way that I connect to the field, it would be
inappropriate to tell every client every detail of all of my
personal experiences. This is why deciding on an appropriate (and
comfortable) level of self-disclosure is important when I am a
practicing social worker.
To demonstrate the level of self-disclosure which wish to
engage in, I am using an onion. Like the onion, self-disclosure
has many layers. With different clients and different groups, the
amount of self-disclosure I may wish to engage in may differ.
Sometimes it may hurt the professional relationship between my
clients and me for me to disclose certain things about myself,
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and other times it might be important for clients to know some
things about me in order to show that I am empathetic and
understanding.
Identify a bias that you have.
When I think of what a bias is, I tend to think that it is a
personal preference of one thing over others that is evident in
opinion and decision making. Everyone has a variety of biases,
some that have more of an impact on their decision making than
others. Biases are shaped by the things that people learn as they
go through their education and their life. While biases are not
inherently bad, as they can aid in decision making, sometimes
that can cause a person to make inaccurate judgments.
One of the most prominent biases that I have has to do with
gender. I tend to believe women over men, and I tend to give them
preference when it comes to making decisions about what actions
to take. This is mainly because I have it cemented in my brain
from my education and personal experience that women are often
overlooked and do not get a fair chance when it comes to a lot of
opportunities. Sometimes people do not know the reasons that they
hold the biases that they do. Fortunately, I try very hard to be
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self-aware and make a point to identify what my biases are and
try to figure out why I have them.
The picture that I took for this prompt is of a figurine
that is visibly a girl. At the same time as you can see that this
figurine is female, it is also hard to tell anything else about
the figurine, as there is a shadow over it in the picture. The
shadow is very important because it represents that I am not
always taking into account other factors when I am acting on the
biases. I do not consider the race, age, class, or any other
factors of the situation just the gender.
Although the situation that I am representing in the picture
has to do with me focusing on one bias, it is important to note
that biases often interact and come together to help a person
make a decision. As a social work professional, it will be
important to become aware of my biases and take them into
consideration when I am making decisions. While biases can help
you weigh options in hard situations and often inform snap
judgments, when dealing with diverse populations and people and
situations you might be biased against, it is important to not
let biases completely run your decision making process.
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What is the role of humor in social work practice?
Humor is a very important tool when it comes to social work
practice. It creates a lens by which you and your client can look
at the conflicts and situations that you are handling. Some
people look at all situations with the lens of humor. While this
can keep a person with a positive attitude, sometimes finding
humor in things can be inappropriate depending on the situation.
To represent the “lens” of humor, I took a picture of sun
glasses. These represent the role of humor really well because it
shows that they are something that you can apply, or not apply,
based on the situation. Like humor, there are situations that sun
glasses that help and situations that they hinder. You would not
want to wear sunglasses while it is dark and rainy, and you would
not want to apply humor when someone is confiding their deepest
secrets with you.
In social work practice, it will be very important for me to
learn when to use the lens of humor and when to remain serious.
Also, it will be important for me to help clients to learn to use
humor in their lives. I firmly believe that humor can really help
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people deal with things. At the same time, when humor is used
inappropriately it can negatively affect the situation.
How do you learn from supervisor(s)?
The process of learning from your supervisor is made up of a
few essential parts. The first part of the process is observing.
Even if your supervisor is not doing similar things to what you
are assigned to do, and they often will not be, by observing them
you can often notice traits or skills that you may be able to
apply to your job. One of the things that it is important to
observe is the elements of professionalism and how they are
applied to your field. The next step to this process is making
note of the traits, or “recording” them. This requires you to
keep a mental note of the things that you are observing. The
final part of the process is reproducing the things that you have
learned from your supervisor. When you have observed and recorded
their traits, you become able to act them out in your own career
and build on them. This is important because it makes you better
at handling professional situations and helps you grow as a
professional.
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To represent how I can learn from a supervisor, I took a
picture of a camera. The camera does all of the things that I
included in the steps above: observe, record, and reproduce. The
particular camera that I took a picture of is portable; it allows
you to bring this process with you wherever you go. Like the
camera, it is important for social work professionals to learn
from each supervisor they have, at each place they work.
How did your friends/ family respond to your decision to pursue
the MSW?
Overall, my family and friends were very happy for me when I
finally decided to pursue an MSW. My parents saw it as a future.
There was not a lot that I could do with the undergraduate degree
that I have (sociology), at least there were not a lot of things
that I was interested in. I knew that I had to go to graduate
school. Some of the people in my family were very surprised that
I chose the path that I did. At the same time, they were very
happy that I was going into a field where I would be able to get
a job.
The picture that I took was of a calendar. The calendar is
not set at the current month, but in the near future instead. It
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represents what my family and friends see when they look at me
pursuing an MSW. They see me being happy and successful in the
near future. The only person who is not on board with my decision
is my dad. I know my dad wishes that I would have gone down a
different path, and he still sees this degree as a future for me.
I hope he sees that this is what is going to make me happy.
What brought you to the field of social work?
When I was first applying to graduate schools, I applied to
a few programs in different fields, mainly social work and
library science. Being in my final year of my undergraduate
program, I was overwhelmed with school. I was not spending a lot
of time thinking about the programs to which I applied. I had
thought a lot about social work and was very interested in the
program. I knew that I was really interested in studying domestic
violence and families, so it seemed like a fit. Letters started
to come in gradually, and I started to think about other
opportunities that I had. A few weeks after I graduated college I
got my acceptance letter to GVSU. I was about to commit to a
library science program because I thought that I was not going to
be accepted to GVSU. When I go the letter I was ecstatic. I felt
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really lucky. If the letter had come later, I would have not
ended up pursuing an MSW.
To represent this prompt, I took a picture of lottery
tickets. They represent the element of luck and chance that
factors into me being where I am right now. But they actually
represent much more than that. They represent the power of
letting things in my life fall into place, allowing the natural
order to happen. The idea of things falling into place is
something that means a lot to me. I know that my life would have
been completely different if the letter had arrived one day
later, or if I had not been accepted.
What does this degree mean to you?
This degree means that I have opportunities, but I do not
know what they are yet. I am really excited about all of the
things that I am going to learn and how I am going to learn how
to apply those things. It means that there is something on the
others side of my education, other than just a piece of paper
with my name on it.
To represent this, I took a picture of a door. The door is
closed, but is unlocked and easily opened. I feel like this
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degree is the same way. I really enjoyed my undergraduate
program, but I do not feel like it gave me many opportunities. I
am really curious to find out what is on the other side of the
door. I do not know what is on the other side of the door, but as
I open it I will become more familiar with it. As I move further
into the degree program, I will learn what is on the other side
of that door.
Photovoice #3
Service:
I have always looked at service as something that you do for
not only the people around you, but also for the greater
community. Doing things that help out your friends and family are
important, but I feel like those things are expected of people as
they are part of a family or close with friends. I think that it
is something different when you do things to help out people in
your community who are not otherwise connected to you. When you
help out people in your community you are doing good that not
only affects the people you are helping, but also your community
as a whole. When you do service you are reaching out to the
people around you. As a social worker, the work that I will be
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doing is service. Whether I am working with groups or
individuals, my work is going to effect the entire community that
I am helping.
To represent service, I have chosen to photograph a trash
can and some recycling bins. These represent things that people
do for the community that have an impact on everyone. I chose to
put my trash and empty bottles in a container like these instead
of throwing them on in my yard. But going beyond my own yard, I
have the choice whether or not I want to pick up the trash on the
side walk, or in other people’s yards. When I do pick up the
trash in other spaces, I am not only making that yard better, but
I am making the whole neighborhood better for everyone. In social
work, I am choosing to make my neighborhood better for everyone
who lives there.
Dignity of the person:
The biggest part of dignity of a person is to make sure that
when you are serving a population, you are understanding their
individual needs, and fulfilling them. As well as fulfilling
their needs, though, you must also respect what they want for
themselves, and what their vision is for their future. Caring
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about this makes you remember that the people you are helping
are, in a lot of ways, just like you. In social work, it is easy
to overlook the dignity of the people that you are helping and
just make sure that they are getting the same, equal treatment
that everyone else is getting. The best way that I can think of
to remember to look at their individual needs is to think of
giving them the kind of attention that you would want if you were
in their situation.
I took a picture of my favorite coat and favorite shoes to
represent the dignity of the person in social work. I would want
everyone to have a pair of shoes and a coat as warm and
comfortable as my own favorites. The aspect of dignity behind
this is that, as social workers we need to look at everyone as
individuals in order to maintain their dignity. It is important
to remember that everyone has a favorite coat and pair of shoes
and it entitled to those just as much as we are to ours.
Integrity:
Integrity is about holding oneself accountable for the
things that one does. It is very important to have a set of
standards to which we hold ourselves, even if no one else is
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holding us to that standard. In social work practice, we are held
to the NASW Code of Ethics, but also to our own personal code of
ethics. Following these codes of ethics helps us to maintain
integrity to our clients and to ourselves. We are not going to be
effective in our practice if we cannot be trusted to be ethical
and trust worthy. For me, privacy and confidentiality will be
really important to working with clients. How else could I
guarantee that I am trustworthy? There may be other things that
stand out to me that I will pay special attention to, but the
bottom line is that we need to check ourselves to see if we are
having integrity.
The picture that I chose to demonstrate my idea of integrity
is a mirror. To make sure that I am having integrity, I need to
look in the mirror. When I look in the mirror, I will ask myself
whether or not I am upholding the ethical code of the NASW and
the code that I have created for myself. By checking myself this
way, I will be helping myself fulfill the promise of integrity
that I have made to myself and my clients.
Social Justice:
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The purpose of social justice is to repair the social
problems in our society. The problems that social justice repairs
have to do with inequality, prejudice, and discrimination. Social
justice brings people to the same level and shows our society
that we are all equal. This is very important because, especially
the way different groups of people treat each other now, there
are not many people who are doing this. Social workers play a
huge part in social justice efforts. They work as to repair the
damage that we have done to one another. I am passionate about
repairing society and bringing everyone to equal footing.
The picture that I chose to represent social justice is a
first aid kit. Social workers play the role in social justice
that a first aid kit plays with injury. Social justice cannot fix
the inequalities in society completely on its own, but it can
help the process of healing. I wish that I could solve some of
the problems that I see with the organizations I have worked with
in the past, especially when it comes to equality with women’s
and LGBTQ issues, but I have to accept that I cannot simply fix
things. It takes lots of work from lots of people to solve them
problems that I see. At the same time, I cannot become
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discouraged as a social worker, simply because the role that I am
playing with social justice is not curing everything that is
wrong with society.
In what field(s) of practice do you hope to work? :
I would like to work with women who have experienced
domestic violence. I am very interested in how domestic violence
has an impact on divorce and how it effects the other people in
the family. Not only do I want to work with women who have
experienced domestic violence, but I want to study why these
situations happen the way that they do, and what we can do about
preventing this kind of violence. This field has had an impact on
my life and the lives of the people in my family, and I know that
there are resources out there, but people need to be made aware
of them. I feel passionate about raising awareness about domestic
violence and contributing to the research being done on it.
I took a picture of the Minnesota Domestic Violence Wheel to
show which field I want to go into. I thought this would be a
good thing to take a picture of because it represents the
synthesis between research and practice in this field. It took
both practice and research to develop the knowledge that was
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needed to come up with the domestic violence wheel. I think that
it is just as important to want to learn more about the field and
the population that you are working with as it is to want to help
them.
What does/will challenge you in the field of social work? :
Communication is always something that I have struggled
with. I often do not know how to talk to people about how I feel.
I am able to communicate in a dry, unemotional way for the most
part, but once feelings come into the picture I am kind of lost.
I know that being as social worker is going to require me to talk
about other people’s feeling—as well as my own—but I have a
really hard time seeing myself getting comfortable with this
quickly. Sometime it is also difficult to connect with people.
Again, when the conversation is professional or neutral, it is
not so bad. These are both things that are essential for me to be
a good social worker, but I know that they will be difficult for
me.
I chose a telephone to represent the difficulty that I will
have with communication in social work practice. With the
telephone, there is a barrier to communication. The barrier for
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communication with the telephone is the distance between the two
people talking. The barrier that exists between me and other
people is the anxiety that I have when it comes to sharing how I
feel about things. The barrier between the two people goes away
once they got off the phone and connect with each other face to
face. My barrier can also go away once I start to relax and feel
comfortable with my role.
What motivates you in the field of social work? :
Seeing people’s lives get better and return back to normal
after a hard time or crisis is what motivates me to be a social
worker and makes me want to work in the area of social work that
I desire to. I know firsthand that domestic violence can set
everyone in the family off balance and does not only causes
problems for the people directly involved, but also for the
children and other family members who witness the violence. Bring
people back to a good place and into a good routine is something
that it is going to be very satisfying to me, especially if I can
watch them stay in that place.
To represent seeing clients in a content, normal place after
emerging from a crisis, I took a picture of the chalkboard in my
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kitchen where I write out my schedule every week. This represents
what that content, normal place looks like for me. Being able to
write out all the things that are going to be happening during
the week tells me that there are not going to be any emergencies
and that everything that is planned is going to happen. Of
course, there are always things that happen in anyone’s life that
are not planned, but with the chalk board, there is room to write
new things into the weekly plan. This is a good representation on
how any weekly plan should look like, but it is not necessarily
saying that all content, normal places should look the same.
How have you experienced the group processes in this class? :
The group processes in this class, when it comes to
photovoice, has been uncomfortable for a number of reasons.
First, small groups are generally very difficult for me. I have
already said that. In addition to feeling that way, I also feel
like there are people in our photovoice groups who do not really
like my ideas when it comes to what I have taken pictures of. My
pictures have been a little bit different from everyone else’s,
but I do not think they were so different that they did not make
sense. Somehow whenever I am in a small group like this, I feel
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like I stand out as being weird or simply do not fit with the
rest of the people in the group. I am pretty sure that this is
not rational, but it is something that I have to work through.
I chose to photograph a cactus for this prompt. The whole
small group situation for the photovoice class is uncomfortable,
prickly I guess, and I see cactuses as something that both does
not really fit into a group (how I feel) and prickly. Like the
cactus in the picture, my uncomfortable feeling in the photovoice
group has been tamed. I understand that I do not stand out that
much when it comes to my group. There really is not anyone who
genuinely does not like me. The cactus is tamed because it is in
a small pot on the shelf in my house. This is not a normal place
for a cactus to be in the wild.
Photovoice Summary
I tried to approach the photovoice project a number of
different ways though out the semester. The first way that I
approached it was as art. I thought that if I approached
expressing my thoughts and feelings through the pictures, I would
be able to better engage myself in the project. I like doing art,
but I usually do not do anything with photography. Looking at
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photovoice as art did not work; I had a really hard time thinking
of a school assignment as art work. Usually when I do art, it is
not something that I have to do. It is usually something that I
want to do. I could not imagine something that I was going to
have graded to be a creative outlet.
Not knowing how to look at the photovoice project made it
really difficult because it made it hard for me to determine what
to take pictures of. For the first assignment, I took pictures of
different things that I thought represented the prompts from the
assignment, but I ended up coming up with ideas that were way to
abstract. Looking back at the pictures that I chose, I feel like
I would have done better on the assignment, and fulfilled the
requirements more completely, if I had been a little less
abstract.
After getting back to first assignment, I feel like I had a
better idea of how to do the projects in the future. I knew that
taking the pictures that I did was not the problem with my
assignment, but rather that I was not clear in the narratives
that I wrote for the assignment. The second time that I did the
assignment, I made sure that I wrote very complete descriptions
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and made sure that my narratives answered all of the questions
that I did not answer in the first set of pictures.
I ended up doing better on the second assignment, but I
still do not feel like I am learning anything from the project. I
am having trouble connecting the concepts in the prompts to
social work. Photovoice seems really distant from the other
things that talk about in SW 601. I do not feel like we are
discussing the concepts in the prompts to our discussions, or in
any other part of the class. It would really help me if there was
more discussion of what the terms and concepts that we are taking
picture of meant. I do not have a background in social work, so a
lot of these things are new to me. I have spent a lot of time
looking at various social work dictionaries and glossaries, and
while they have helped, I feel like I would have a better grasp
of what these things are if we discussed them more as a class.
Working in the small groups to share our photovoice projects
has also been really uncomfortable. I have a lot of trouble
talking in small groups, especially when it comes to sharing my
feelings. If I am discussing an project or something for work
that is not related to my personal reaction to things, it is very
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difficult to working in groups. I like hearing the responses of
the other people in the group, but I am still not comfortable
sharing my own.
I feel like it our class is too small for me to feel
comfortable sharing my feelings with the people in the class. I
guess I have this subtle fear that the people in the class are
going to laugh at me or question my feelings about the reason why
I have answered the prompts the way I did. I think that if I was
speaking in front of a larger group about my pictures I might
feel more comfortable. I usually do not have any problem with
large groups.
This class would be a lot easier to me if there was more
discussion, in general. I do not feel like I am learning anything
in the separate section classes. I feel this way because all that
we do is split into our groups. I really like classes where there
is both lecture and group work. I get the most out of this kind
of class because I am able to apply the lecture to the other
assignments in the class.
Despite my dissatisfaction with the photovoice project, I do
think that it has expanded my self-awareness during the semester.
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A lot of the prompts are things that I had not thought of before.
Even though I am not sure exactly what some of the things that we
are taking pictures of actually are, the questions in the second
set of prompts really made me more aware of why I decided to
enter the MSW program. Overall, even though I did not have the
best experience doing the photovioce project, I have gained self-
awareness and come to terms with why I decided to enter the MSW
program at Grand Valley State University.