Professional Practice in Social Work and Community Development

Introduction

Social work and community development practice includes proper ethics and ethical standard by including professional principles so that the social and community workers can develop effective strategic planning to work as a team and maximise the values for the young people’s, adults and community as a whole (Cournoyer, 2016). It is necessary for the social and community workers to ensure sustainable community development where all the social workers and the citizens need to be collaborative to maximise the common goal of social development which meets the neds and preferences of the young people’s, adults and community (Jackson, D., 2015). The study aims to analyse the professional practice and skills of the social and community workers through which they can develop effective strategic planning for maximising the aims of the sustainable social development. The reflective paper also focuses on the professional development as a social and community workers where it is possible to analyse the theorical practice of the social and community work and professional skill that are required for the social worker. It also helps to identify the challenges to develop professional practice of social and community work at the society as well as recommend some suitable solutions for the social and community workers for enhancing the professional practice of social and community work as well as develop the professional skill of the workers so that they can serve better care and services according to the needs and preferences of the people, loving in the society.

Learning journey

Social and community work practice is one of the major critical job for the social workers where all the team members need to be cooperative for developing an effective strategic planning to serve the social communities with better service so that they can maximise the needs and preferences of the young people’s, adults and community as a whole (Knott and Scragg, 2016). The professional practice in the social community wok is necessary where the workers need to be cooperative and implement the practice of working in partnership so that they can work as a team and maximise the common goal to enhance social development program (Arnold, and Boggs, 2019; Gould and Taylor, 2017). In this regard, I try to develop my skill to manage the workforce in order to develop the social activities and control the work-based practice to deliver resourceful outcome to the society. During the coursework, I try to develop my communication skill which is necessary for the social and community worker to interact with other team members and develop effective practice to serve the young people’s, adults and community. Through communication, I can interact with all the employees under the activities and develop proper strategic planning to work as a team. In addition to these, I try to enhance verbal as well as non-verbal communication to let the employees understand the professional practice during serving the people successfully. It is the key requirement of the social worker to have the ability to interact with others on a regular basis so that proper team can be developed (Lawrence, 2016; Becher, 2018). In this regard, I also try to be clear, concise and transparent about the client’s requirements and communicate the aim of the social development project and activities for the young people’s, adults and community to other employees so that also have clear ideas about the strategic planning to complete the activities within effective time to serve the young people’s, adults and community. Hereby, communication is essential for the colleagues, third party and supervisor through which it is possible to communicate the aim and develop proper strategy to serve the young people’s, adults and community in a suitable manner so that all the members can contribute with their full potential to deliver efficient service within effective time (Vourlekis, 2017).

Apart from that, active listening is another main skill to develop professional practice as a social and community worker where the individual needs to listen other’s feedback and understand the needs and preferences of the social communities as a whole (Noordegraaf, 2016). In this regard, proper listening and understanding the perspective of others is beneficial for me to develop effective professional practice in the organisational context where during my coursework, I try to improve my listening power and increase my patience level to understand other’s perspective after concentrating on the whole speech of others. It would be beneficial for me as a social and community worker to listen other’s perspectives and develop effective planning to fulfil the necessities of the individuals. In this regard, active listening also provides a scope to build internal relationship with other team members and improve trust and loyalty among the team members. The social and community working practice depends on teamwork as it is necessary for the employees to work as a group as it is difficult to serve the young people’s, adults and community without cooperation and integrated working practice (Carey, 2017; Fook, 2016). In such context, I try to improve my skill to listen and gather more knowledge and technical skill through open discussion and communication so that I can increase my capabilities to perform better and serve the young people’s, adults and community successfully within effective team. During the coursework, I try to gather knowledge and understanding as well as technical skill by sharing each other’s views an through open discussion and general meeting where I can develop my understanding to work proficient as a social and community workers so that I can serve the young people’s, adults and community with better service as per their needs and preferences.

Leadership skill is another important professional practice in the social and community work where it is necessary for the social worker to manage the workforce and lad the team members towards achieving success in this regard, proper leadership skill needs to be developed and transactional leadership style would be beneficial in this context to promote equality and enhance the performance of the members as a whole (Howe et al., 2018). Through the transformational leadership style, it is possible to create suitable organisational culture where the leaders can motivate the team members and encourage their innovation and creativity. Proper personal and professional development can also be enhanced through suitable leadership style where the leaders provides a scope to learning and improving performance of the team members (Horne, 2018). In this context, I also try to improve my leadership skill during the coursework to work as a social worker where I can manage the team members with harmony and develop integrated working practice through enhancing cooperation and communication. I also try to improve my skill to improve emotional intelligence to handle the team members where I focuses on showing empathy, understanding the perspectives of the team members and creating proper strategy through empowering the team members in the strategic planning so that they become interested ad it would be beneficial for me to manage the team member and lead them towards achieving success. Time management skill is also effective as a social workers and during my coursework, I also try to manage time through prioritising my jobs and doing it properly within proper time and it would be beneficial for me to manage the people including young people’s, adults and community as a whole within effective time. Empathetic, self-awareness and proper guidance to the team members are also effective to build trust and loyalty where all the member try to be working as a partnership basis and maximise the team objective.

Critical thinking is another important professional practice which is necessary for the social and community workers, where innovation and creativity can be enhanced through critical evaluation of the project and activities to serve the people including young people’s, adults and community and developing proper strategic planning so that the social sustainable development can be achieved proficiently (Parker, 2017). In this context, I try to develop my critical thinking and ascetical skill during the coursework and academic sessions where I try to focus on problem solving skill win which I evaluate the existing problems and understand the needs of the solutions so that I can develop alternative solutions for overcoming the problems. Through this practice I try to develop creative decisions through problem solving skill and decision-making skill where critical analysis and evaluation helps me to develop proper panning to conduct the perfect within proper timeframe. Hereby, it would be beneficial for me to develop proper professional skill through developing critical analysis skill so that I would be able to serve the young people’s, adults and community successfully. In addition to this, intervention process and documentation handling are also necessary for developing professional practice in serving the young people’s, adults and community. During the coursework, I try to develop my abilities to implement the strategies for successful intervention as well as maintain documentation through email, contact list, improving communication and organising the work so that it would be possible for me to develop professional practice in the social and community developmental projects and activities.

The above mentioned skill and knowledge are necessary which links the theories and practice of the social and community work where the skill such as communication, intervention, leadership, emotional intelligence, critical analysis and time management are required to become a successful social worker and develop professional practice in the social and community development projects and activities (Pateman and Vincent, 2016). However, there are some professional issues which can be considered as barriers to become a successful social worker and in this regard the ethical issues and lack of management are major problems in the social work context (Parker, 2017). Lack of management I am building relationship with the team member as well as young people’s, adults and community is one of the major issues which needs to address. Moreover, ethical code of conduct and lack of management of integrity and honesty are other issues which can deteriorate the professional values and practice in the social and community work (Horne, 2018). In addition to these, lack of information sharing and lack of management of privacy setting and managing confidentiality are also serious issues in the social work context where it is necessary for the social worker to mitigate the existing problems for delivering efficient social service (Lawrence, 2016; Becher, 2018). In this regard, I need to improve my capabilities to minimise the issue of lack of management and poor leadership style where I need to improve my knowledge and understanding to maintain privacy and improve information sharing so that it is possible to maintain professional practice in the social and community developmental activities. Moreover, I also need to improve ethical code of conduct including maintaining transparency and accountability as well as improve empathy and emotional intelligence so that I can build strong relationship with my team members, supervisor and third party to serve the community and fulfil the needs and preferences of the young people’s, adults and community as a whole.

Critical evaluation

It is necessary for the social and community workers to gather effective resources, secondary or primary so that they can improve their skill and abilities to provide better service to the whole young people’s, adults and community. During my coursework, I try to gather all the relevant sources for improving my skill and abilities which would be beneficial for me to improve their efficiency to perform better as a social and community worker where I can develop proper decision and strategic planning to complete the social development activities for the benefits of the young people’s, adults and community as a whole. The academic resources are effective for me from which I can gather information about the professional practice and values and ethics need to be maintained as a social worker. Apart from that, I also try to develop my skill by gathering in depth knowledge about the skill which helps me to develop my abilities and improv my proficiency to manage the young people’s, adults and community as a whole. Apart from that, people during my coursework are also efficient where I try to communicate with my supervisor and other senior embers which can share their experience and knowledge with me which would be considered effective resources during the academic course where I can develop my understanding and knowledge to manage the social work with proficiency. I try to attend genera meeting and training program in the academic sessions where the professor and supervisor are cooperating with me to shar ether experience and knowledge so that I can improve understanding about serving the people including young people’s, adults and community, which are effective for me to manage the social work and develop appropriate strategic planning to serve the young people’s, adults and community proficiently.

Challenges

There are several challenges in the social work context where I face different issues like internal conflict, lack of professional values and ethical code of conduct while working with others. It is necessary for me to address the existing issues and develop proper solutions so that I can be a successful social worker. The major issue is lack of communication where lack of proper interaction and non-cooperation becomes problems during the social work where the tm members cannot cooperate with each other. As per the theory of professional values and skill required for social work, it is necessary to communicate openly with honesty and integrity so that it is possible to share each other’s experience and develop proper strategic planning for completing the social and development projects to serve the young people’s, adults and community. In the organisational context, I face the issue of non-cooperation and lack of positive interaction for which I fail to develop working in partnership practice in the social work context. In addition to these, in the placement practice, lack of integrity and honesty as well as poor management of the transparency and accountability are also other problems where I cannot develop an effective team with proper communication and trust. This further hamper trust and loyalty among the team members where the team members are not willing to rely on each other’s strategy and this leads to internal conflict and resistance to change in the organisational context. Additionally, there is lack of trust and honesty as well as lack of fairness that deteriorate the quality of work where I cannot manage the workforce and this further reduce the quality of the social development activities where non-cooperation and sharing each other’s skill and knowledge fail to achieve the target of the soil and community work.

I try to achieve my aim through improving my understanding and improve in depth knowledge about the social and community work. During the coursework, I seek help from the seniors and supervisors for improving my capabilities and gathering real life experiences which are beneficial for me to handle the young people’s, adults and community in future. I also aim to improve my communication and cooperation which I have achieved as I try to be positive and interact openly with others with respect and integrity. I try to raise interest to listen each other’s perspective and gather knowledge to work collaboratively so that all the members can communicate and cooperate with each other to meet the strategic goal of the community developmental activities for the benefit of the young people’s, adults and community as a whole. It would have been better for me to improve my leadership skill so that it can be done in a unique way where I can be able to lead the team member in serving the young people’s, adults and community and create organisational culture that will be helpful for working with internal communication and cooperation. Collaborative working practice and working in partnership practice are the different way through which it is possible to develop professional values and ethics during serving the young people’s, adults and community where it is possible to achieve target collaboratively.

In future, I try to develop my leadership skill and professional value where I try to manage transparency and accountability in the workplace and create values for all the colleagues so that they can feel valued and contribute with their full potential to work as a team and achieve the target of social sustainable development. In addition to these, I try to maintain confidentiality and implement privacy law and regulations to protect the data and information during social work. In addition to these, I aim to improve my critical evaluation skill and emotional intelligence for developing strong relationship with the colleagues and improve trust and loyalty that would be beneficial to achieve success as a social and community worker. For improving professional values, I also try to focus on collaborative working practice and partnership working with proper empowerment of the government, young people’s, adults and community and third party so that I can develop proper strategic planning after acknowledging the actual needs and preferences of the people in the society. Additionally, I aim at enhancing professional development by attending more training and development program so that I can share my experience and knowledge as well as gather other’s perspective for improving my skill in the field of social and community work. Moreover, I try to develop my skill in intervention process so that I can manage the social work and develop effective strategic planning to complete it successfully by implementing the professional values, showing respect and empathy and developing integrated workplace to meet the common team goal by working as a partnership basis. I also try to improve social perceptiveness and self-awareness where I can gather the information from the society so that I can develop proper decision according to the needs and preferences of the young people’s, adults and community which would be beneficial for me to enhance social sustainable development. I also improve the activities such as ability to set professional boundaries, facilitate to cooperate, critical thinking skill and understanding human psychology to serve the young people’s, adults and community as well as improve my professional skill to become a proficient social and community worker.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that, the reflective assessment is effective for me to discuss my understanding during the coursework through which I can improve my knowledge and capabilities in the social and community work. The coursework is effective as I gather more sources of information to improve my knowledge and in depth skill to perform better as a social and community worker as well as I get support from the supervisor and seniors to gather real life experience where I aim at improving my leadership skills, communication practice, ethical code of conduct during social work, showing respect and empathy, understanding human psychology and facilitate cooperation to serve the young people’s, adults and community successfully.

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