Balancing Act

Yes, I did steal the title of this blog from one of my colleagues, but it is just so perfect for what I have to say this week. I feel like in everything in life, we can always come back to the concept of balance.

In one of my class sessions recently, we talked about Professional Use of Self. This is a very interesting and important topic to think critically about as I start my new role as social worker. It talks about using my authentic self in my social work practice with my clients. Use of my personality, my belief system, my relational dynamics, my anxiety, and my self-disclosure. In every one of these aspects, balance is the most important thing to put into practice. We must learn how to properly and positively use the unique set of ways each of us has engrained in us while making sure the focus is on being helpful to our clients. Sharing personal experiences, especially when methods used had positive outcomes, can allow our clients to feel more comfortable makes it easier to relate to our clients and show credibility. However, talking too much about ourselves and out beliefs will come off as being arrogant. Balance.

I also think it's important to realize that each client and each situation we find ourselves in as social workers is going to be completely different. We have to be able to read our clients and know them very well in order to determine how much of ourself would be appropriate to include in our practice. This is all part of being a social worker. Being adaptable, creative, and thinking critically. That's how we will find balance.

What Can We Do?

Well, this week in one of my classes, we looked at different tools of colonization that have been used and are still used today in our society. The topic that stood out most to me was that of offensive sports teams mascots. As a huge sports fan, this really got me thinking about how I have watched teams like the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins and have thought they needed to be changed but what could I do? Both these professional sports teams are consistently successful and popular money makers so why would the greedy people that run them want to change the mascot and jeopardize this success? I certainly don't have enough power or money to influence a change. So I thought maybe I could try and make people aware of these offensive mascots and see if we could have a chance at strength in numbers. But most people seems to say "what's the big deal" or "it doesn't really matter because it doesn't effect me".  So after becoming somewhat passionate about this topic, I had to end my episode of frustration by saying "what can we do?" How can we make people realize that these mascots are contributors to the drug abuse, violence, and suicide problems that occur on reservations? I guess this is why I am learning to be a social worker...so I can come up with an answer to that question.