Applying Gibbs Model Of Reflection In Social Work Practice

Reflection is the action of putting together experiences and knowledge, in order to enhance your personal development (Kathpalia and Hear, 2008). This reflective account will recognise my personal values and how they can impact on my social work practice. It will also outline how the learning from this module has impacted on my personal values. I will apply Gibbs’ model of reflection, in order to identify my thoughts, feelings and action plan (Gibbs, 1988).
Many sessions in this module where interesting, however the session that grabbed my attention was the Forced and Arranged Marriages session, because I never expected that they still existed in the contemporary world. During this lecture we went through a PPT, which mainly included a case
study of Shafilea Ahmed. Having watched a clip on Shafilea’s case, at this point I was thinking what could have been going through the minds of her parents to force her to marry someone she did not want to marry, and what could have been going through their minds to murder their daughter because she refused their marriage proposal to someone they thought was ideal for her.
According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16 (2), the standards of human rights condemn forced marriages and class them as a violation to human rights, as it states that marriage should only proceed with the agreement of both partners (Bbc.co.uk, 2015).
One of my personal values is the Freedom of Choice under the Human Rights Act 1998, it states that every human being should have the right and freedom of choice, as it is a violation of act to make a forceful choice on another person. If such situations occur during my social work practice, it will be my duty to empower and liberate the service user by promoting change, this will then enhance the well-being of the service user (IFSW/IASSW, 2000). Another one of my personal values is respect, as I feel that everyone deserves respect, however I feel that in Shafilea’s case she was not given the respect that she deserved. Although respect is my personal value, it is also one of the professional values, because social work values are based on respect for the dignity and worth of people (BASW 2015). Furthermore, before learning on this module, the Freedom of Choice was not one of my values, but having learnt on this module I’ve learnt that social workers have to comply by the Human Rights Act, in order to protect the service
users.
The forced marriages lecture, had its pros and cons. One of the pros was that it was interesting it was made clear to me that forced marriages is something that still exists in the modern world. The bad experience of this lecture is that it was emotional as it involved death and the fact that Shafilea was not helped out of the situation she was in. Next time I will try to control my emotions for the reason that social workers are required to develop a sense of emotional resilience, in order to overcome some challenging situations (Megele, 2011).
In conclusion I have included my personal values and how they can impact on my social work practice. I have also outlines how the learning from this module has impacted on my personal values, and to complete my reflective account I have used Gibbs model of reflection.