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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.