Linda Poindexter The Field Of Social Work

One small crack does not mean that you are broken; it means that you were put to the test and didn’t fall apart. This quote, by Linda Poindexter, is one that has great meaning to me in my life. You, see the experience that influence my decision to enter the field of Social Work originated from situations that my siblings and I endured in our upbringing. I am from a low-income neighborhood in Chesapeake, Virginia growing up my mother was a single parent of three girls, she did not work and received benefits from the local human services to support us. Although my mother was unemployed and living off government assistance, she was an educated woman. My mother graduated from college with a degree in nursing, but was never able to go forth and
utilize her degree. My mother suffered from severe mental-illness that was onset by the death of her husband. I remember as a child watching my mother experience manic episodes of her disease as it stole her life away. It debilitated her capacity to live the life, that she deserved and be the mother she knew she could be. As a child, I did not understand or could not comprehend the characteristics that made my mother, our family dynamic was set forth by an individual that was mentally ill. So, one can only imagine the structure of home. Due to her diagnosis, our childhood was unbalanced, and irrational. From that encounter, I knew that I wanted to be in a profession that aided individual’s like my mother, to live the best life possible with barriers of various derivations. Aid individuals who somewhere along their journey, stumbled and think that this is what their life will always be, or someone who does not see a way out of their current circumstance. Individual that have been cracked, but are not broken that have been put to the test and are still living their stories. Aiding people to better themselves is something that I find rewarding. The feeling is indescribable knowing that you help to restore, build, or change someone’s circumstances. It is not about what the occupation, itself, it is about the work that is performed, and the outcome that makes the difference.