Social Services Reflection

The social service agency that I visited is known as As-Salaam PPIS Family Support Centre. The agency has programmes for mainly Muslim women who are in grief and loss from either the death of their husbands or from the divorce, as well as programmes that targets children from such families. The 4 core programmes that the agency offers are case work and counselling, SALAAM which is a support programme for grieving children and adolescents, M.A.W.A.R which is for single mothers, as well as public education on single parent issues as well as to promote support from community. I will be talking a lot more on my thoughts and experience during the visit rather than the programme itself.
Naturally, after the visit at the agency, I’ve learnt a lot from the social worker that was giving the talk. Aside on the introduction of the agency, I realised there is a lot more to being a social worker than just memorising policies and knowing about what the programme is about. A social worker should always have compassion and empathy, but they should also know when to use these emotions. From the social worker that gave the talk, she had some problems detaching herself from the case even when her work schedule is over when she started out. I’m not saying that it’s bad for social workers to have emotions on the case, in fact, it’s a good thing that they have it

Sometimes it may seems as though there isn’t much progress going on and feeling hopeless because after many sessions clients may still not confide in us. Her advice was to give them time because of the grieves that they have, especially in small children, they have many layers of concrete wall. It’s not possible for social workers to crush the defensive walls like a wrecking ball, it might cause discomfort in the clients and make social workers less trusting. Take smaller steps and give them longer time, because it may be hard for them to confide in