I would assume that you know the analogy of the boy who walks around throwing starfishes into the sea. This old man comes up to him to ask him what he is doing. The boy replies that he is trying to save the starfishes by returning them into the water. The old man tells the boy that it makes no difference as there are literally hundreds of thousands of starfishes strewn up on the shore. The boy replies, "well, it makes a difference to that starfish", as he throws another starfish into the sea.
In social work, this starfish might well be a large turtle.
Believe me, being a social worker is truly challenging stuff. You have to contend with your own frustrations with the client, as well as being aware of how these frustrations affect your relationship with clients.
(to be continued)
Monday, February 16, 2009
Choosing the profession
The choice of the profession was never a hard one, albeit not straightforward. I mean, how many of us tell our parents we want to be a Stock Analyst, a Production Supervisor or a Social Worker. Dreams and aspirations were always in line with the big six: Teacher, Doctor, Lawyer, Fireman, Policeman, and Pilot. Mine was pilot, until copious amounts of television watching and gaming contributed to the 600 degree eyesight I have today. Then I wanted to be a businessman, like my father. But watching his business endeavours bear little fruition, made me realise that I wanted to be something more. I no longer wanted to bother myself with the temptations of monetary wealth, but was now looking to something amazing.
I would be the champion for the greater good, propagator of social justice, and the impetus for positive change in our good citizens in Singapore. I would go the extra mile to lend a helping hand to those in need. I would help the old lady cross the road, and apprehend the snatch thief targeting an innocent girl. I would also leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Yes, I would be a SUPERHERO!
Shamed as I am to admit it, this was the dream that guided me along to my current profession. I was 11, living at my grandmother’s place, aware of the fact that I was staying there due to the financial problems my family were in. Overcrowded in the midst of my cousins and older brother, feeling left out all the same. I had to watch how much I eat, lest I be called a freeloader. I had to behave well, lest I be an ungrateful tenant.
At least being a Superhero allowed me to retreat to the safe refuge of my own world. It gave me sense of confidence I knew I could never maintain in the face of my current social situation. It put me on a pedestal, where I was the centre of attention, which was probably how every tween viewed herself at that age. I was always the protagonist of my Superhero story of course.
I tried to take this Superhero dream into the real world, with limited results though. I started out as the Superhero for the stray cats in the neighbourhood. I would go around armed with cat food, as well as a first aid kit, to make sure every cat in the neighbourhood would be well fed, and taken care of. Any animal abuse would be dealt with harshly by the Cat Man, and cats in need would be saved. However, limited financial purchasing power only allowed me to have a packet of preserved sweetened chewy cuttlefish sticks to feed our feline friends. Upon reflection, the nutritional effects of such cuisine seem dubious, at the very least. And so began this weekly endeavour to feed cats with preserved cuttlefish at the nearby rubbish collection centre. This interest soon petered out with the continuing monotony of the work, and by the lack of perceived gratitude by the cats that fled as soon as I tried to pet them.
My role as Cat man reached its pinnacle of glory one stormy evening near my block of flats, when I rescued a poor wet black kitten, left alone in the drain which was quickly filling up due to the heavy rain. With nary a regard for my white school uniform, I scrambled into the grimy trench, to grasp the kitten from the approaching fingers of death. I remembered being so proud of myself, as I cuddled this poor kitten home. I named this kitten Blue, after its baby blue eyes that looked up at me lovingly after I saved her. This pride proved short lived however, when my mom came home to witness the mess to my uniform, and of course, a dirty mewing kitten greeting her as she came home.
To cut the long story short, the kitten was given to my Uncle who lived in a semi detached house with 14 other cats. It turned out that Blue also had a spinal problem that needed an operation to remedy, which my uncle arranged with the vet. This information imbued me with a sense of purpose and gladness, for I knew Blue would never have survived if left in that urban wild. I also learnt another thing from my Uncle: cats ALL have blue eyes when they are kittens. Blue has had several other kittens of her own, and has since passed on, though her ashes are buried in my uncle’s yard, testament to a deed which I had been so proud of. This was probably the first act of pure altruism that struck a chord for me.
This dream probably explained why I was into comics and fantasy storybooks, even until now. This hobby of escapism probably made it difficult for me to excel in General Paper during my Junior College days, where general knowledge could never be garnered in your monthly Batman comic. Batman, in fact was the first superhero I idolised, ever since I bought an issue of Detective Comics when I was 9. This was a superhero unlike the campy cartoon I was used to seeing on Television (where characters seem to laugh together for some reason or another at the end of the show).
A prominent Social Worker in Singapore (someone whom I respect a lot), Dr Myrna Blake had once presented her article likening the Social Worker to Batman. This was an individual like anyone of us, who trained hard, both physically and mentally to ensure justice was served, and the citizens of Gotham were protected. He was one who emerged from the difficult memories and experiences of his past, and instead directs himself towards positive change to protect the innocent, gratuitous violence notwithstanding. With the right amount of hard work and determination, I could be Batman!
Comic books were an influential part of my life. Contrary to what my teachers and friends thought, comics were an essential modality from which I learned crucial life skills.
So when I stepped into the room, and greeted the members of the panel, they asked my why I wanted to take up the scholarship and become a social worker?
I replied: “I have always wanted to be a superhero”
I would be the champion for the greater good, propagator of social justice, and the impetus for positive change in our good citizens in Singapore. I would go the extra mile to lend a helping hand to those in need. I would help the old lady cross the road, and apprehend the snatch thief targeting an innocent girl. I would also leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Yes, I would be a SUPERHERO!
Shamed as I am to admit it, this was the dream that guided me along to my current profession. I was 11, living at my grandmother’s place, aware of the fact that I was staying there due to the financial problems my family were in. Overcrowded in the midst of my cousins and older brother, feeling left out all the same. I had to watch how much I eat, lest I be called a freeloader. I had to behave well, lest I be an ungrateful tenant.
At least being a Superhero allowed me to retreat to the safe refuge of my own world. It gave me sense of confidence I knew I could never maintain in the face of my current social situation. It put me on a pedestal, where I was the centre of attention, which was probably how every tween viewed herself at that age. I was always the protagonist of my Superhero story of course.
I tried to take this Superhero dream into the real world, with limited results though. I started out as the Superhero for the stray cats in the neighbourhood. I would go around armed with cat food, as well as a first aid kit, to make sure every cat in the neighbourhood would be well fed, and taken care of. Any animal abuse would be dealt with harshly by the Cat Man, and cats in need would be saved. However, limited financial purchasing power only allowed me to have a packet of preserved sweetened chewy cuttlefish sticks to feed our feline friends. Upon reflection, the nutritional effects of such cuisine seem dubious, at the very least. And so began this weekly endeavour to feed cats with preserved cuttlefish at the nearby rubbish collection centre. This interest soon petered out with the continuing monotony of the work, and by the lack of perceived gratitude by the cats that fled as soon as I tried to pet them.
My role as Cat man reached its pinnacle of glory one stormy evening near my block of flats, when I rescued a poor wet black kitten, left alone in the drain which was quickly filling up due to the heavy rain. With nary a regard for my white school uniform, I scrambled into the grimy trench, to grasp the kitten from the approaching fingers of death. I remembered being so proud of myself, as I cuddled this poor kitten home. I named this kitten Blue, after its baby blue eyes that looked up at me lovingly after I saved her. This pride proved short lived however, when my mom came home to witness the mess to my uniform, and of course, a dirty mewing kitten greeting her as she came home.
To cut the long story short, the kitten was given to my Uncle who lived in a semi detached house with 14 other cats. It turned out that Blue also had a spinal problem that needed an operation to remedy, which my uncle arranged with the vet. This information imbued me with a sense of purpose and gladness, for I knew Blue would never have survived if left in that urban wild. I also learnt another thing from my Uncle: cats ALL have blue eyes when they are kittens. Blue has had several other kittens of her own, and has since passed on, though her ashes are buried in my uncle’s yard, testament to a deed which I had been so proud of. This was probably the first act of pure altruism that struck a chord for me.
This dream probably explained why I was into comics and fantasy storybooks, even until now. This hobby of escapism probably made it difficult for me to excel in General Paper during my Junior College days, where general knowledge could never be garnered in your monthly Batman comic. Batman, in fact was the first superhero I idolised, ever since I bought an issue of Detective Comics when I was 9. This was a superhero unlike the campy cartoon I was used to seeing on Television (where characters seem to laugh together for some reason or another at the end of the show).
A prominent Social Worker in Singapore (someone whom I respect a lot), Dr Myrna Blake had once presented her article likening the Social Worker to Batman. This was an individual like anyone of us, who trained hard, both physically and mentally to ensure justice was served, and the citizens of Gotham were protected. He was one who emerged from the difficult memories and experiences of his past, and instead directs himself towards positive change to protect the innocent, gratuitous violence notwithstanding. With the right amount of hard work and determination, I could be Batman!
Comic books were an influential part of my life. Contrary to what my teachers and friends thought, comics were an essential modality from which I learned crucial life skills.
So when I stepped into the room, and greeted the members of the panel, they asked my why I wanted to take up the scholarship and become a social worker?
I replied: “I have always wanted to be a superhero”
Monday, February 2, 2009
What's the Difference?
What’s the difference?
“So are you a counselor or a therapist?”
“I’m a Social Worker”
“Oh you volunteer, you have a big heart…”
“Oh no, actually I’m paid”
One of the oft posed question when I tell people that I am a social worker (after clarifying that I am not a volunteer, and that I am paid for my services), is what exactly do social workers do? My common answer, which has been rehearsed over the years, after much revision and contemplation, has been summarized as such:
“Oh mainly we do casework management and counselling, basically helping clients-in-need negotiate the demands of the environment. “
“Oh…so you are a counselor!”
“Hmm… Not technically, but we do aspects of counseling and therapy in our work I guess..”
“So what’s the difference?”
This would be the point that I am usually stumped for answers; for the difficulty to put an exact definition on the expansive range of services the profession encompasses is immense. Delicate is the issue of clarifying the differences, for the fear of offending the different factions that make up the helping profession.
Indeed this onerous task of identifying the unique traits of social work has proved the most challenging hurdle towards professionalization of the profession. Doctors, Teachers, Architects, Engineers, all have a specific set of roles and responsibilities that are synonymous with the profession. You can easily assign a verb to each of these professions to facilitate simple understanding when speaking to your 4 year old son:
“Mom, what does a Doctor/Teacher/Architect/Engineer do?”
“A doctor HEALS, a teacher TEACHES, Architects DESIGN, and Engineers BUILD”,
“Well, what about a social worker?”
“Hmmm…. A social worker HELPS I guess..”
“Oh kind of like a volunteer?”
My personal life is riddled with occasions where I undertake great pains to define my profession, a task I have set upon myself for the sake of raising the professional standards of Social Work.
Where else can I be counseling a family where the 12 year old daughter is acting out due to the parents impending divorce at 11 in the morning; and then be at the back of a lorry fetching furniture for my client who has just relocated to a new home? You could be planning a research article on the challenges faced by low income families in one week, and be out in the streets conducting outreach in the other. Social work is a profession you will never be bored in.
It brings us back to the original question, so what makes social workers different from the other helping professions? The general idea that seems to be going on is that Social Workers have that element of case management. To put it simply, is that we get down and dirty with the client, stepping in together with the client to collaborate together, and negotiate the resources with the client. We are the ones who assess that the client has difficulty going down to immigrations to negotiate his or her residential status, and then accompany her to negotiate and mediate her case. We physically conduct home visits to teach the family life skills in managing the care of their children, on top of the working with the family pertaining to their emotional stresses and difficulties in juggling so many tasks and responsibilities at a young age.
We are defined to be working more for the economically disadvantaged, providing services they need, but would not be able to afford in the normative demand-supply model. Counsellors only conduct counseling sessions in the office, and only for cases which just need counseling aspects only, namely emotional, marital and child behavioural issues. Therapists are then one step ahead, highly skilled in psychotherapy techniques, and charge exorbitant prices for their services, catering to the high income market. Psychologists then just analyse how the mind works, but the psychologist can also be a counselor or a psychotherapist. These divisions and definitions fuel the ire of our passion, each profession fighting to be better and more established and recognized over the other. I recall the meeting of two agencies, where social workers and counselors were discussing their helping models when working with their targeted clientele. One could sense the immense tension when discussions were raised regarding the effectiveness of the models utilized.
For a time, I was also pulled into this fiery brand of passion, promoting Social Work avidly against the other professions. This began in university, all the way to my second year in my organization, where a heated argument began with me and a counselor from another agency, where I was busy proselytizing the need for her to do “Social Work” aspects of conducting intensive home visits to better understand the client’s situation at home, before insinuating that the client was unmotivated to work. As I lay in my bed that night, I realized the folly of my argument, in bringing in the differences of our respective professions, where this situation could have instead have been resolved amicably through a discussion of our interests FOR THE CLIENT. In defending our different professions, we not only widened the gulf of collaboration, but also, in our selfish way, put our own personal interests over the client.
For me, the client comes first, professional interests second. After all, we are all helping professionals, and that is how I would like to defend my own Professionalism. Counseling and therapy is part of the package of providing help for the client. If it is assessed that a client may need aspects of case management to negotiate her resources, then it is the responsibility of the professional, be it the counselor, therapist, or social worker, that the client has access to that element of help. The helping professional may do it herself, but may also refer to other professionals, if limited by the scope of her respective organization. It does not matter, as long as the client is helped. Respect and willingness for collaboration is imperative in such a multidisciplinary realm of “Providing Help”.
“So what’s the difference?”
“Well I’m not sure, but tell you what: What matters is that we all strive to make a difference in the lives of our clients. We have our own unique ways, but ultimately we hope to invoke positive change in our clients’ lives.”
“So are you a counselor or a therapist?”
“I’m a Social Worker”
“Oh you volunteer, you have a big heart…”
“Oh no, actually I’m paid”
One of the oft posed question when I tell people that I am a social worker (after clarifying that I am not a volunteer, and that I am paid for my services), is what exactly do social workers do? My common answer, which has been rehearsed over the years, after much revision and contemplation, has been summarized as such:
“Oh mainly we do casework management and counselling, basically helping clients-in-need negotiate the demands of the environment. “
“Oh…so you are a counselor!”
“Hmm… Not technically, but we do aspects of counseling and therapy in our work I guess..”
“So what’s the difference?”
This would be the point that I am usually stumped for answers; for the difficulty to put an exact definition on the expansive range of services the profession encompasses is immense. Delicate is the issue of clarifying the differences, for the fear of offending the different factions that make up the helping profession.
Indeed this onerous task of identifying the unique traits of social work has proved the most challenging hurdle towards professionalization of the profession. Doctors, Teachers, Architects, Engineers, all have a specific set of roles and responsibilities that are synonymous with the profession. You can easily assign a verb to each of these professions to facilitate simple understanding when speaking to your 4 year old son:
“Mom, what does a Doctor/Teacher/Architect/Engineer do?”
“A doctor HEALS, a teacher TEACHES, Architects DESIGN, and Engineers BUILD”,
“Well, what about a social worker?”
“Hmmm…. A social worker HELPS I guess..”
“Oh kind of like a volunteer?”
My personal life is riddled with occasions where I undertake great pains to define my profession, a task I have set upon myself for the sake of raising the professional standards of Social Work.
Where else can I be counseling a family where the 12 year old daughter is acting out due to the parents impending divorce at 11 in the morning; and then be at the back of a lorry fetching furniture for my client who has just relocated to a new home? You could be planning a research article on the challenges faced by low income families in one week, and be out in the streets conducting outreach in the other. Social work is a profession you will never be bored in.
It brings us back to the original question, so what makes social workers different from the other helping professions? The general idea that seems to be going on is that Social Workers have that element of case management. To put it simply, is that we get down and dirty with the client, stepping in together with the client to collaborate together, and negotiate the resources with the client. We are the ones who assess that the client has difficulty going down to immigrations to negotiate his or her residential status, and then accompany her to negotiate and mediate her case. We physically conduct home visits to teach the family life skills in managing the care of their children, on top of the working with the family pertaining to their emotional stresses and difficulties in juggling so many tasks and responsibilities at a young age.
We are defined to be working more for the economically disadvantaged, providing services they need, but would not be able to afford in the normative demand-supply model. Counsellors only conduct counseling sessions in the office, and only for cases which just need counseling aspects only, namely emotional, marital and child behavioural issues. Therapists are then one step ahead, highly skilled in psychotherapy techniques, and charge exorbitant prices for their services, catering to the high income market. Psychologists then just analyse how the mind works, but the psychologist can also be a counselor or a psychotherapist. These divisions and definitions fuel the ire of our passion, each profession fighting to be better and more established and recognized over the other. I recall the meeting of two agencies, where social workers and counselors were discussing their helping models when working with their targeted clientele. One could sense the immense tension when discussions were raised regarding the effectiveness of the models utilized.
For a time, I was also pulled into this fiery brand of passion, promoting Social Work avidly against the other professions. This began in university, all the way to my second year in my organization, where a heated argument began with me and a counselor from another agency, where I was busy proselytizing the need for her to do “Social Work” aspects of conducting intensive home visits to better understand the client’s situation at home, before insinuating that the client was unmotivated to work. As I lay in my bed that night, I realized the folly of my argument, in bringing in the differences of our respective professions, where this situation could have instead have been resolved amicably through a discussion of our interests FOR THE CLIENT. In defending our different professions, we not only widened the gulf of collaboration, but also, in our selfish way, put our own personal interests over the client.
For me, the client comes first, professional interests second. After all, we are all helping professionals, and that is how I would like to defend my own Professionalism. Counseling and therapy is part of the package of providing help for the client. If it is assessed that a client may need aspects of case management to negotiate her resources, then it is the responsibility of the professional, be it the counselor, therapist, or social worker, that the client has access to that element of help. The helping professional may do it herself, but may also refer to other professionals, if limited by the scope of her respective organization. It does not matter, as long as the client is helped. Respect and willingness for collaboration is imperative in such a multidisciplinary realm of “Providing Help”.
“So what’s the difference?”
“Well I’m not sure, but tell you what: What matters is that we all strive to make a difference in the lives of our clients. We have our own unique ways, but ultimately we hope to invoke positive change in our clients’ lives.”
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)