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A REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Student’s Name
Course
Professor’s Name
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City (State)
Date
1 Introduction
This a reflective essay about fieldwork which was involved in the exploration of five key areas which are housing and homelessness, criminal justice, social work services, demography and employment and education and all associated issues with each and every aspect within the London borough Hillingdon in England. I am asked to discuss the particular experiences which I gained during this fieldwork and their impacts on me as a social worker. In this essay, I will talk about how each step of this practice influenced me at the core on a professional level as well as personal. I started this fieldwork with immense motivation to get to know how people are surviving while not having permanent shelters on their heads and what they have to face in their lives on a daily basis. Being a human, I was also sacred a little to find about home miseries and their forceful pressures on multiple lives in London. I did not take it as a task instead I assumed it as a constant procedure of wisdom and attainment of solid roots to improve myself.
2 Observations
Our group of nine people was intended to observe about the homelessness with statistic evidence, the resources available to help the homeless. Social housing, houses prices, and rental within the area, the rationale in price differences between the affluent area and the non-affluent area, the impact of the housing association in partnership with social housing. The group explores unemployment rate, youth unemployment, job opportunity, job creation, the benefit of the food bank to people on social benefit and explore how the food bank is funded.
Particularly I was liable to have keen observations regarding the demographic area: talking about political parties, birth and mortality rate, census of the resident within the borough,
the statutory right of the resident and support available from the government. What is the resident stake in Brexit? Any support for people with disability? Student explored the crime rate within the borough, the impact of CCTV and how that had been of use to police, a rehabilitation programme for offenders and activities available for youth to prevent crime, substance misuse facilities within the London borough Hillingdon and programme to rehabilitate the users.
I was also asked to visit the court to observe a proceeding and relate their experiences. The court experience was a drunkard who assaulted the British police and was given community service and a fine due to being a single parent with a daughter. The judged felt if jailed it will be more traumatized for his daughter and more expensive for the state to place the daughter in foster care.
3 Finding
As the whole observation process was related to homelessness at the core, here I will share the findings in the form of a graph.
Figure A1: “Homelessness in London Borough Hillingdon 2018/2019” (Young, 2019).
Criminal Justice is prevailing hugely within the borough but still, it considers the limitations. Social wok services are playing their important role to prevent substance misuse. Demographical areas brought about the rate of disabled people and the government is providing the possible services to them. Employment is given to skilled persons mostly but sometimes, there happens an unfairness.
4 Solving an Issue
An issue came out within our group of observers that some students felt superior over others and undermining foreign student, passing derogatory comment. This seemed very difficult to manage as our passion and dedications were affecting badly with this inner conflict. We tried to manage it by making a rule list in which this kind of obnoxious doings were strictly prohibited.
In case of violation, the report was to be presented to professors who have agreed to apply a heavy penalty to the violator. This is how we managed in lessening the intensity of this bitter conflict, however, slightest effects still remained there.
5 Effects of These Experiences
I believe and realize that all these issues which I observed during this fieldwork, became a source of development in my training and polishing skills as a social worker. Fieldwork which involves the pain of other individuals leaves a strong effect on the observer and spills over into a personal, practical, professional training (Trevithick, 2014). All five key areas gave me a different lesson. Housing and homelessness exploration made me realize that before an apparent issue there exist a large number of other problems. Homelessness is seemingly a single issue but this actually due to other factors like high pricing of houses in Hillingdon Borough. The rental price was also high for unfortunate people to be at least the resident of rented houses. I learnt all this with respect to the social work that to abolish an apparent issue we must cut down all basic reasons which shape it from the core. This experience has made me a reflective practitioner. I started to question myself that to what extent I am and millions of others like me, are obliged to take actions and serve the efforts for improving conditions of homeless individuals within London Borough Hillingdon. I likewise got training on how to be a reflective person about every single aspect of my profession as a social worker. It is immensely important to be a reflective practitioner for a social worker on a professional level as he must think about what he is doing and what more he can do to refine his actions (Shon, 2017). I believe that this reflection which I have gotten from particular fieldwork will help me to become a worker who adheres the values of humanity and also feels deep association while interacting the issues of humans.
I have learnt to showcase the courage to go outside and examine with own eyes the most disturbing insecurities of this massive world. Seeing humans in miseries may construct some kind of patience inside an individual to face own life and its mishaps (Brandom, Callahan and Micalizzi, 2017). For a social worker, it works on bi-ways: to face for themselves, to fight for others. (Wolowic, 2019). Presently, I do not mere keep the courage to see the miseries of my life, in fact, I can handle any stage of observation and exploration from multiple dimensions regarding any issue plus I find the courage to fight for others on my behalf. A social worker finds his foremost duty in the power of going outside, make important participation in the context of a certain issue and tends to make sound decisions which are encompassed by human values (Briskman, 2016). While studying and observing the statutory right of the resident and support available from the government, I learnt to accept the dilemma of being unprotected from officials or just being accomplished by the superficiality of authorities. This revelation has made me a solid mass and raised a sense of responsibility for myself and for others in this world.
“Practical reflection contends makes a practitioner more open to new and different ways of coping with clients and their situations. Social workers also have to be aware of the more rational and theoretical...