What I Learned In Social Work

Unlike the majority of my class, I did not complete six hundred hours at my internship. I changed internships half way through the year because I returned home from Chennai, India. My internship in Chennai was extremely different from my internship in the United States. Both internships taught me more about how to be a social worker in diverse ways. I learned how to be a productive social worker in a cultural setting which was different from my own in India. I learned how to work with people who are not trained social workers at the American Red Cross. I learned how to be independent as well as collaborative during my time at the American Red Cross, and the importance of advocating on behalf of my own abilities when the work load seemed unchallenging
I hope to be able to provide the best services for each client whenever possible. In India, it was much harder to provide services to clients and help them fulfill their numerous goals because of obstacles we could not personally help them overcome. Because I almost always can provide services and assistance to our clients in the United States, I have become motivated to work harder to assist them in accomplishing their goals. I learned how to address clients from cultural backgrounds differently. I would not address a client in India the same way I would address clients here in the United States. The needs of the clients in India are expressed differently from Americans. From what I’ve noticed, Americans are less likely to ask for assistance when they need it, unless they feel they are entitled to the assistance. Indians will tell you all of the issues they are experiencing, but they will not expect anything to be done about them. Learning the different between how my clients wanted to be treated took time and
Because the tasks were always calling clients on the phone, it was even more challenging to me because I wanted to be doing more direct work with clients. I found that some of the phone calls were really great because I could talk to the mothers or fathers and learn more about how the Red Cross has already helped the family. Usually, the phone calls are extremely robotic and the families just take the information and are not very chatty – which make the calls awkward for me. The worse phone calls are when the family members never answer, because I do not have any interactions with a person, just voicemails. Knowing my dislike for lack of personal contact will be used often in my future line of work because I will know not to look for jobs where I am strictly doing work in my cubicle all