Critical Reflection in Social Work

Social work is a people-oriented profession whose practice is therefore very much influenced by who we are as individuals and social people. The profession, as an academic discipline, is based on an understanding of people in social (material, cultural, structural, political, historical, and economic) contexts. It is vital that as individual social workers, we understand who we are as people in our own social contexts in order to appreciate the people we work with in their social contexts, whether or not they appear similar to our own. In this course, you will learn how to critically reflect on your own experience in order to gain a deeper and more detailed understanding of yourself and your identity, particularly in a context of relating to people from varied social backgrounds which may appear to be different, or similar, to your own. This awareness will be crucial in forming the basis for your further reflections on who you are as a social worker (e.g., how does your own personal and social background help form the sort of social worker you become, the skills and knowledge you have, your own theoretical perspectives and the sort of social work you practice). Understanding and accepting who we are socially is an important prerequisite to understanding and accepting other people. This does not necessarily mean agreeing with them, but it does mean learning how to live and work effectively with people who may be vastly different from ourselves. This is probably one of the most important principles of social work, and yet it is probably one of the hardest stances to achieve. In this course the main lector – Assoc. Prof. Kelly Melekis.

To apply knowledge of critical reflection in order to gain a deeper and more detailed understanding of yourself and your identity, particularly in a context of relating to people from varied social backgrounds which may appear to be different, or similar, to your own.