Social Worker Activism Essay

To be a social worker is to be an activist. Just about everything a social worker does in their career to help others, could almost be considered a form of activism. Social workers tend to do so much for the world, to help improve the lives of the less fortunate, and that just during the work day. Outside of the work force, there are many different forms of activism which can be done by social workers. One thing that social workers can do outside the office to be activist is work volunteering with the elderly. When I was volunteering at Jefferson Area Board for Aging or JABA in Charlottesville, one of my supervisors who we’ll call Kimberly, was very passionate about working with the elderly. She had a very close relationship with her grandparents who had a huge impact on her life. JABA worked primarily with the elderly, so she would volunteer in the Adult Care Center which caters to the elderly who cannot be home alone anymore, and the mentally disable, on some of her days off. She would sit with them, or help serve lunch for them, and she would help run activities for them. Not a lot of people feel really comfortable with working the elderly or mentally disabled myself including,

We know about the different struggles that our personal communities have, and we can fight to fix them. A co-worker of mine we’ll call Abby at JABA, believed that we had a huge issue with affordable housing in Charlottesville. She decided to take action and started to go to town hall meetings to hear about discuss the issues facing the poor and elderly facing housing issues. My co-worker took it a step farther and signed up to speak at one of the meetings, to see what the city council’s plans were. She also started a petition to present to the city council with 300 signatures, of people who agreed with her. It is still an ongoing issue right now, but she took the initiative to try to make a