Competency 6: Engage with Individuals, Families, Groups.
Organizations, and Communities
Social work is founded on building human relationships to create positive change in people's lives. Social workers in Competency 6 build trusting relationships with cultural humility and ethical practice with respect and empowerment for everyone as a priority. Throughout my field practicum at the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia (ECNV) and New Hope Housing of VA, I understood that successful engagement entails different strategies for various people because it demands understanding their peculiarities and the ability to form relationships that help them.
These encounters align with the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) 2022 EPAS standards and the NASW Code of Ethics, and allowed me to see that social work is not only the remedying of problems but the development of relationships across all levels of practice. I present my understanding of working with individuals from the diverse populations at the micro, mezzo-soprano, and macro levels and how I managed to work with and assist individuals because of my training at George Mason University (GMU) and field implementations.
Using Trust and Power in Working with Individual Clients at ECNV While interning, I worked with the disabled individuals who were victims of employment discrimination, inaccessible housing, and inadequate transit.
Frankly, the best experience in my internship was assisting a new client with a disability who had some speech difficulties. He was angry when I met him, negative towards life, and did not know what to do with the changes. He complained that he felt isolated and stated that disability made him a loner and think that he lost his independence, rather than attempting solutions at the beginning.
I utilized the education I received at GMU in trauma informed care and motivational interviewing to:
• Hear his concern and reassure him without resolving the issue.
• I utilized strengths-based dialogue, and this enabled him to identify his strength and resources.
• I referred him to peer support groups so that he feels less alone in the situation.
Through this exercise, I learned that relationship building is a great social work tool. Through sitting with the client, listening to him, and showing him his potential, I empowered him to be the master of his story. This is consistent with the NASW Code of Ethics, which calls for the worth and dignity of the individual to always be taken into account. It is not a matter of giving advice or information, but rather a matter of allowing individuals to exercise their autonomy and recover their identity.
Working with Families in Crisis at New Hope Housing:
I also worked at New Hope Housing with families who were homeless or at risk of homelessness. One of the saddest cases was that of a family of five whose home had been evicted for the inability to pay rent. Their mothers both worked full-time and were doing financially well but not in a position to afford market rate for rent, and the kids were being routinely bounced between shelter to shelter.
What I did while doing practice with this family was to apply theory of family-centered intervention that I learned at GMU to:
• I helped them creating stability planning in family sessions.
• I accompanied them during money counseling sessions to equip them with knowledge about consumer rights and rental option options.
• I advocated on their behalf when I went to local housing offices to inquire from them for their application form for a housing voucher.
This experience taught me that families need to address the issue in a holistic manner because it is a housing issue and the emotional, financial, and systemic concerns that impact the entire family.
Working with various families of diverse cultural backgrounds also supported my cultural humility principle. I had to adapt my communication skills, embrace differences in parenting and money management across cultures, and make sure that my practices were culturally responsive.
CSWE 2022 EPAS standards also talk about cultural competency, and what I learned through this experience is that engagement is most effective when it is client-centered and culturally competent.
Group and Community Facilitation at ECNV and New Hope Housing. I also facilitated groups and communities so that they could be empowered and become advocates in their communities.
At ECNV:
I also co-facilitated a family and disabled people's support group, and we:
• Created a supportive atmosphere for the clients to exchange their histories and challenges.
• We spoke about advocacy modes to control work, health care, and social services.
• We encourage visitors to visit and discuss with the client realities of self-advocacy and disability rights.
These members showed me that peer support is one of the most interactive modes of involvement. The patients also felt comforted that they were not alone in their situations, something which reinforced the social work need for community.
With New Hope Housing, I could provide outreach sessions in the community to educate low-income residents about:
• Their tenant rights and laws protecting them from discrimination in housing.
• As far as food security programs and other economic aid opportunities within the community.
• Counseling for mental health for homeless people or those likely to become homeless.
Working with the larger communities also taught me that employment and housing problems are not going to be solved by interventions but by community-level interventions that deal with the underlying issues. These experiences also taught me that social workers need to be flexible, congruent with the people, and cross-culturally sensitive while working with the populations.
Connecting Research, Policy, and Direct Practice ECNV and New Hope Housing have reaffirmed the connection of engagement to research, policy, and advocacy.
• Competency 4 (Practice and research): I employed best practice methods to work with individuals and groups.
• Competency 5 (Policy Practice): I experienced firsthand the impact of housing and disability policies on clients, and I understood the importance of being involved in policy making.
• Competency 3 (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion): I learned about the impact of economic inequality and systemic racism on clients' lives, and I understood the importance of culturally competent practice.
We learned the three practice levels in GMU: Micro, Mezzo, and Macro, and during my fieldwork, these came alive. Whatever it was to help an individual to communicate him/herself, to help a distressed family, to help a group, or to help the community, I could recognize how all levels of social work are related to each other.
