Answer

Introduction

Working at the kids’ center has impacted my professional life. I have grown socially, professionally, intellectually and personally. For two years, I have been providing tutoring and literacy services to homeless children at a local children center, twice a week for 2 to 3 hours. Besides, I have been attending outside training and events. As a caregiver, working with children has enabled me to have adequate insight and experience on how to deal with homeless people and children at large. I have learned that I made the right choice of working with homeless children because they require an in-depth understanding that I can effectively provide. Although working at the children’s center is not easy and very rewarding, it provides a rich professional experience to caregivers and other social work professionals. I have noted that sometimes, social work does not provide rewards to professionals for working and going through difficulties, but makes individuals grow in different perspectives. Homeless children go through a lot in life. Ranging from lack of parental support, living separate from their families, traumatizing street experiences, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and psychological instabilities, and working with homeless children enabled me to understand that the world we live in is problematic. However, people must live. Throughout my social work practice, I have applied several theories that have enabled me to deal with various cases affecting homeless children’s kids. This paper presents a personal reflection on different theories that have I have applied in my profession and graphic design of the theories.

Reflection on Theoretical perspectives

One of the most essential things that I have learned at the children’s center is the ability to understand an individual’s cognitive behavior. Cognitive behavior connects how individuals perceive, experience and interpret events into their emotions, psychology, and behavior (Leeman, 2020). Like I mentioned earlier, homeless children go through a lot in life. The majority of the children that I have dealt with have gone through negative, obsessive, and distorting experiences that make them develop thoughts and behavior that can cause severe physiological and psychological stress. This makes them behave weirdly. Therefore, understanding their emotional instability is core towards ensuring that they are living a good life. Treating children who have gone through bad experiences is notoriously difficult. For example, children who ran from their homes due to physical and sexual abuse develop an intractable psychiatric condition that can torment them forever (Lub, 2018). Therefore, providing cognitive behavior therapy for them is one the best way to help them heal from negative past experiences.

Through cognitive behavior therapy, I will change the perceptions of the children from being homeless to feeling part and parcel of the kid’s center. My main goal as a social work professional is to correct the negative thinking of children who have undergone emotional distress by making them feel loved. As indicated in my graphic design, the cognitive behavior theory enables social workers to understand individuals’ problems associated with negative problems and find effective solutions. Although finding home like the kid’s center is a solution to homelessness, it is not enough. But, finding home and living happily at home is my main goal. Therefore, this theory has been an essential tool throughout my practice. My personal development was impacted because I realized the need for applying theoretical perspectives in my practice.  I have also learned that being blessed with resources and opportunities is great, but using the opportunities to make others happy and contented is a blessing. I have learned to put before myself and provide a solution to their problems. Cognitive behavior theory will also help understand the emotional stress that Hispanics go through and come up with proper strategies and solutions for their problems. 

In the kid’s center, children live like a family. We have made them learn the need for loving and caring for each other. Just like a family set, I am always required to provide parental assistance. Wherever am not in charge, someone else must be available to ensure the children get the emotional, physical and material support they require. As my graphic design outlines, I will apply the concepts outlined in the family theories to make kids in the center live as a cohesive emotional unit. According to concepts theory, members are intensely connected emotionally (Devlin, 2018). This is one thing that I have learned in the center. Although I am not biologically connected to any of the children, I feel that am a mother to all. I always blossom when I hear the children in the center referring to me as their mum, what connectivity! The theory outlines that family functions like a complete system where each individual plays specific roles and follow certain rules. The children at the center follow specific rules that guide them on their day to day operations. For example, our system does not give room for fighting. Indeed we have made them understand or any other related thing is evil and should not be allowed in society. Even when some children felt that they were missing their biological families, I applied the theory to drive out their emotions and actions by making them feel they were home. Indeed, I have widely applied the concepts of this family system theory to us together as one unit. A change in the emotions of a single kid, makes me feel that they are disconnected in one way or the other. Therefore, as a unit, I must ensure that every member of the family feels happy. Hispanic families and children require equal attention. And the family-based theories will help me work with them while finding the right solutions for their problems.

Dealing with emotionally stressed children requires strong heart and life examples. Therefore, I find strength-based theories to be very useful. Most children are from families with parenting issues that affect their self-esteem. Having been abusive relationships, I know what children go through from the abusers. Therefore, applying strength-based theories in my work helps in modeling each child into becoming a better person. Each time a visit the kid’s center I reflect on my relationship problem and I believe that strength-based theories will impart the right mentality and good behavior in the kids.

Girls make a bigger percentage of kids in the center. Most of them have gone through traumatizing experiences such as physical abuse, neglect and sexual abuse. Girls develop stigma and this can affect their entire life. As a woman, I feel that feminist theory will put me into a better position of understanding the emotional problems girls have.  The feminist theory will enable me to understand the experiences of girls, especially those that have undergone sexual assault. Further, the theory will help me come up with proper pieces of advice that I can offer to girls who have undergone such bad experiences. Further, the theory will help me when working with the Hispanic population because it emphasizes the negative outcome of oppression (Payne, 2014). Hispanic families have no better forums that can address their problems. However, the children in the Hispanic children in the center will have their needs addressed through the right channels.

The kid’s center had children from different cultures and religious practices. Therefore, I acquired the art of being culturally sensitive and appreciating one another’s cultural perspective. The foods, clothes and religious practice in the kid’s center were not different. Although kids had different cultural backgrounds, I managed to make them learn and appreciated each other despite the differences in skin color and religion. These were the major issues that caused problems in our organization. Making children with different cultural backgrounds live together as a unit, requires a lot of multicultural sensitivity. 

In my entire social work practice, I have learned that the idea behind cultural sensitivity is very straightforward. By definition, cultural sensitivity refers to a set of skills that enable individuals to learn and understand people from different backgrounds (Kim, 2015). Multicultural sensitivity models stress the need of social workers to be multicultural including understanding different kinds of languages to attend to different clients.  Multicultural diversity has enabled me to operate with the awareness that there a cultural difference between myself and the people I meet without undermining their values. Hispanics have their own believes and practices and prefer approaching those with similar cultures as them. Therefore, I will be culturally sensitive including learning their language to win their hearts so that as to share their experiences with me and find a solution. Besides, I have my being caregiver at kid’ center has enabled me to learn that being culturally sensitive does not require individuals to be experts, but to develop in-depth understanding and appreciation for each other. This will develop an honest understanding and demonstrate empathy to every individual despite our differences. Being culturally sensitive will help me understand and give equal attention to Hispanic families.

Conclusion

In short, a successful social work practice calls for an understanding of various theories and models since they play essential role in deconstructing various social work problems. These theories are important and will apply throughout my social work career.