help with disc due in 20 hours

combs

WAL_SOCW6002_02_A_EN.pdf

Home >Education homework help >help with disc due in 20 hours

A Day in the Life

Program Transcript

NICOLE CAVANAGH: One of the great things about a typical life in the social worker is that there is no typical life.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You come into work engaging with vulnerable clients in all levels of need, all levels of unpreparedness to meet the needs that they have in their life. So you are constantly using those critical thinking skills to help manage resources for the client.

ROCIO TERRY: A day in the life for me is actually managing, managing programs, managing staff. In the past, I've opened programs, like a nonprofit urgent care here in San Diego, California. So I've done policy work, lobbying. So those are some of the more nontraditional roles that we often think about or fail to think about when it comes to social work.

EMMETT ROBERTS: A typical day in the life of a social worker is you don't know what's going to happen that day. Because you never know when the phone is going to ring, when somebody is going to walk in your office, and what it is that they're going to need.

ROCIO TERRY: There's forensic social work, psychiatric social work, geriatric social work, medical social work. There's now sports social work. If you're interested in helping athletes, the NFL, the NBA, NCAA at universities, they're hiring social workers to help their student athletes. So I really encourage you, whatever it is that you're interested in, make that your average day in the life of a social worker, because this degree is very, very diverse.

RENATA HEDRINGTON: Things that surprised me and challenges. Those are the mothers who really are good mothers, but they just don't know how to parent. So you're constantly finding resources, and to make sure they get there, you're going to take them, and you're going to participate. Or those kids who've been locked up and have gotten out of the juvenile facility, but you got to acclimate them back into the real world to know that all the structure that they have witnessed or been under, that you could help them transition and become productive and normal.

NICOLE CAVANAGH: I think I was totally unprepared for the level of feelings that I had as a result of engaging with clients, hearing their traumas, hearing their stories. I really thought, oh, I got this. This is not about me. And yet, on some sort of subconscious level, it was all seeping into who I was and collecting.

EMMETT ROBERTS: It was the last day that I was getting ready to terminate with a client. We had done some exceptional work. And my client was a four-year-old, and I'd been working with her, and she had a one-year-old sister, and then her mom.

A Day in the Life

And I got a call that morning that I needed to rush to the hospital. I was prepared for something to be wrong with the grandma, who my client and her mother lived with. In fact, it was the one-year-old baby had died of SIDS. I don't know how to prepare for that, for dealing with a family that's just lost a one-year-old, and a one-year-old that you've been interacting with for several months.

That was probably one of the hardest days that I had as a social worker. So that day, I did a lot of hugging and reassuring myself that the world was an OK place. And again, because of confidentiality, I mean, you really can't tell family and friends the specifics about what you do, but in having your own supportive community, they can just have an idea that all sorts of things can happen to you, and so when you need something, and you have a supportive community who will respond to that, you can't pay for that.

NICOLE CAVANAGH: Don't be afraid to ask questions and don't be afraid to admit you need help. Even today, after so many years and so many clients, I still need help, and I'm OK with that.

RENATA HEDRINGTON: Great days in social work are many so long as you don't measure others by your personal agenda, but you know-- you accept the diversity that we serve, and every day is a good day.

NICOLE CAVANAGH: A good day for me, as a therapist working in mental health, was to be able to be prepared to engage with my clients, to be knowledgeable in those resources.

EMMETT ROBERTS: Working with that client who's really, really been struggling and has that aha moment, that epiphany of, oh, this is what I need to do to get where I want to go. And so when that happens, that is really, really exciting because then you know what you've done is worth it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

A Day in the Life Content Attribution Newman, K. (n.d.). Two Photos of Karlise Newman [Photograph]. Used with permission of Karlise Newman. Terry, R. (n.d.). Various Photographs [Photograph]. Used with permission of Rocio Terry. Street, K. (n.d.). Photo of Kimberly Street [Photograph]. Used with permission of Kimberly Street.

A Day in the Life

Cavanagh, N. (n.d.). Photo of Nicole Cavanagh [Photograph]. Used with permission of Nicole Cavanagh. Hedrington-Jones, R. (n.d.). Photos by Renata Hedrington-Jones [Photograph]. AdobeStockLicense_257997374.jpeg AdobeStockLicense_250483818.jpeg AdobeStockLicense_286988109.jpeg AdobeStockLicense_97370006.jpeg