I am doing a Social Worker placement (Masters of Social Work) in Palmerston Regional Hospital (Northern Territory). My placement involves submitting various reports which are Weekly Reports, Mid...

Running Head:DEVELOPING TASKS FOR THE 7 LEARNING AREAS        1
DEVELOPING TASKS FOR THE 7 LEARNING AREAS    16
DEVELOPING TASKS FOR THE 7 LEARNING AREAS
Table of Contents
Week 1 Journal    3
Week 2 Journal    4
Week 3 Journal    5
Week 4 Journal    7
Week 5 Journal    8
Week 6 Journal    10
Week 7 Journal    11
    
.
Week 1 Journal
    Describe Something You have Learned This Week
My week one assessment was to observe how to communicate with the patient, make rapports accordingly, and further the documentation of these reports. In the first week, being new to the entire learning scenario, I learnt the importance of job shadowing and active listening. As a part of the introduction to the working area, I was put under the directions of my seniors, who were introducing me to the rules, regulations, and staffs, of which I was taking note of through active listening. I was also noticing the way my senior was acting, with the staffs and care users, of which I was making a mental note for imitation, as realised the importance of job shadowing.
    1. What is the significance of this learning and the experience gained for you in your social work practice? (e.g., personal impact / reactions / values etc.)
With the learning based on my week one’s experiences, I would mention that fact that with the use of job shadowing and active listening to the stakeholders of the organisation, any employee such as myself would be able to provide better service and assess the needs of the service users, which will benefit them through a consistently high quality care providing system.
    2. How does this relate to any previous practice experience or life experience, and what is the relevance of this to your learning?
The tendency of taking notes and imitating the actions of eminent persons in given contexts have given me the ability to identify points that are required to be noted, which has helped in doing the same at the time of the weekly learning scenario.
    3. How does this learning relate to the AASW Practice Standards? (Identify the standards that apply and briefly comment on the relevance of these standards)
The current learning section is related to the written communication skill development process, mentioned in AASW Practice Standards. Learning the best way to perform is makes providing of service to care users easy.
    4. How does this learning relate to any reading you have done? (Identify the reading and briefly comment on the relevance of this reading)
The learning of active listening and job shadowing has been learnt from the journal Simon (2018), according to who the use of active listening and job shadowing improves care users’ understanding.
Reference: Simon, H. (2018) WORK, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY Berkeley: University of California
    5. What theories or learning/knowledge from other social work units are relevant to this learning and how does this apply to social work practice? (Briefly identify the theory/social work knowledge and briefly comment on the relevance of these)
Active listening is the process, which makes the situation for data observation easy and in workplace, gives a higher scope of understanding the perspective of the users, leading to higher observational aspects.
    6. What are the implications of this learning for your future social work practice?
Active listening and job shadowing make understanding of the care users and care providers perspectives easily, which generates better communication and higher efficacy at workplace.
Week 2 Journal
    Describe Something You have Learned This Week
This week presented certain new challenges for me as I moved a step further from just noting the comments of supervisor. In this week, based on my last week’s job shadowing and active listening, I tried to develop rapport with the care users and learnt about their issues, often noting that they are victims of social and sexual violence, therefore, their identity must be kept confidential. This is because it is necessary to maintain trust factor between the patient and the social worker and this trust factor forms the basic structure of the relation between the patient and the respective social worker.
    1. What is the significance of this learning and the experience gained for you in your social work practice? (e.g., personal impact / reactions / values etc.)
I learnt that data confidentiality is as important as data collection, in the AASW activities, as it safeguards the victims of violence and injustice from unwanted sympathy and pity piling. I realised that keeping the data confidential gives the users of AASW confidence in the staffs, which makes the work execution easy.
    2. How does this relate to any previous practice experience or life experience, and what is the relevance of this to your learning?
7 years ago, I was a part of my locality based health camp, in which I used to work as a record keeper of age, sex, contact number and family income of the participants, which I was asked to keep confidential although I had an easy access to it. That past experience however, was not sufficient to make me aware about the potential risk of data release, however, it had made me understood that data confidentiality is important, in all sections.
    3. How does this learning relate to the AASW Practice Standards? (Identify the standards that apply and briefly comment on the relevance of these standards)
The practice standard 2.2e, which is included under the section of being professional in AASW, has been referred by the users’ data usage.
    4. How does this learning relate to any reading you have done? (Identify the reading and briefly comment on the relevance of this reading)
I learnt valuing the users’ data and their confidentiality from Martin, Paul and Robertson (2018), according to who, the prioritisation of users’ data and keeping them confidential, is capable of generating trust, better understanding, social safeguarding and confidence inspiring for the users of services in Social work activities.
Reference: Martin, J., Paul, L., & Robertson, M. (2018). Continuing professional development for accredited mental health social workers: An evaluative study. Advances in Social Work and Welfare Education, 20(2), 129
    5. What theories or learning/knowledge from other social work units are relevant to this learning and how does this apply to social work practice? (Briefly identify the theory/social work knowledge and briefly comment on the relevance of these)
The norms specified by AASW in terms of managing, respecting and dealing with services users are required to be made aware by staffs engaged in social works in Australia. Abidance of confidentiality emerges as a very ethical aspect of this job that is in accordance to the AASW’s ‘information recording and sharing standards’ and this is also in accordance to the ‘value, ethics and professional practice’ standards. Therefore, it emerges as a major ethical principle, which is expected to be followed by the social worker that the worker will maintain the confidentiality of the documents.
    6. What are the implications of this learning for your future social work practice?
As a social worker, I would retain confidentiality of the tasks, which will make the users gain trust on me, which would turn out to be confidence inspiring, enhancing my skills of data collection.
Week 3 Journal
    Describe Something You have Learned This Week
Taking up the challenge thrown at me by my supervisor, in the current week, I started Interviewing service users, realising how different observing or conducting a mock interview is. While interviewing the care users I realised that effective communication plays effective role. I practiced a little and got relaxed, performing my task accordingly.
    1. What is the significance of this learning and the experience gained for you in your...