Looking Back:  For this week's blog, please use this space to comment on your year, expectations vs. reality, what you have learned, how coursework and field came together.  We will use this time to begin the process of consolidating what you have learned.  In the next and final blog, we will be "Looking Ahead" to next year.  

Next class we will focus on your ending field for the year.  Briefly share the thoughts and feelings you are having about this ending and how you are addressing these feelings/endings with your clients and co-workers.

Week 11:  – Termination  - April 7

Sweitzer, H. (2004) Traveling the Last Mile: The Culmination Stage. The Successful Internship. Brooks/Cole, Belmont. CA.  pp 263 - 279

Baum, N. (2011) Social Work Students' Feelings and Concerns about the Ending of their Fieldwork Supervision. Social Work Education  30(1), 83-97

Spirituality in Social Work Practice

For our next class, on 3/31, we will focus our discussion on spirituality in Social Work practice. It is a great chance to visit this topic whether this is an area of much meaning to your or a topic in your life that has not received much attention.  Share briefly on something from the article that struck you and how/whether spirituality may or may not be part of your practice.

Hodge, D. & McGrew, C. (2006) Spirituality, Religion, and the Interrelationship: A Nationally Representative Study. Journal of Social Work Education. 42 (3) 637-654

Barker,S. & Floersch, J. (2010) Practitioner’s understanding of spirituality: Implications for social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 46, (3) 357-370

This next week we will continue a focus on self-care as well as consider the compassion we have for others.  Please post, just briefly, on what you take from these articles, and if there are any self-care ideas you have used that you can share with the group.  

Barnett, J. et al (2007) In Pursuit of Wellness: The Self-care Imperative. Professional Psychology, 38 (6) 603-612

Figley, C. & Radley, M. (2007). The Social Psychology of Compassion. Clinical Social Work Journal, 35, (3), 207-214 

This week's focus is on the ideal of mindfulness, and as the Time cover above shows, it is a major idea that has woven/and is weaving into social work practice.  Briefly share your thoughts on the article AND, then consider when mindfulness may or may not be the best intervention/fit with your clients.

Dual Relationships in Social Work Practice and Life!

This week's focus is on dual relationships, the tension between how close and how far from each other we can be and see through our professional obligations to our clients.  Dual relationships come up more often than one would think and affect our ability to solely focus on our client's interests. After reading the articles, share what strikes you, or something you learned, or whether you can relate to any of the situations even prior to starting at UNH in other roles you have had.

The Supervisory Relationship

There is so much more to supervision than one might expect.  This week's articles by Bennet and Miehls introduces the "behind the scenes" action that may be occurring.  After reading the articles, share briefly about how you relate to these ideas within your own supervision.  This exercise will help us all share about this often complex and very personal relationship and then continue the discussion in class.

Career Thoughts and Placements

 Hello Class, although I do enjoy winters and I am looking forward to our snow storm, I wanted to remind everyone that spring will soon be here.  This spring time shot can serve as a metaphor for one's future career as it will certainly be blooming and taking shape over the next couple of years. 

Along those lines, please respond to the following questions within the same post. 

1.  What role(s) in social work do you see yourself doing once you leave UNH?  Perhaps this is not formed and you have a few ideas.  Briefly share along with any questions, hopes, fears, etc. that you have. 

2.  Share how/what you identify with in the Gelman and Lloyd article.  How is your level of anxiety going into second term, or anticipating next year's placement?  

Please post a comment to at least three classmates after reading theirs.  Be sure to include everyone and remember, BREVITY, try to be succinct in your thoughts, as you might be in a classroom discussion.  Sorry to miss everyone tomorrow, but we will be back for next week.  

My thoughts on your comments below. 

First, thanks to all for your thoughtful posts.  The pleasure of working with Social Work graduate students is the level of engagement you all bring to your learning and work. As you all saw, there were a number of themes on the career end from continuing training to reach a focused goal to seeing other possibilities of interest. I think you are all right on as there is no one way of moving through your career.  Someone noted the varied jobs of the faculty.  While I started off with specific goals of working clinically, the policy arena opened up for me as I entered a management position in my late twenties and realized I enjoyed the organizational and macro-level work.  I also did not necessarily see myself as becoming a researcher as well, but that too caught hold.  The one thing that did help along the way was once I had a goal, I researched it and the varied ways of getting there, in other words, I tried to become an expert on the position.  So...what's the take home, allow your interests to drive you and certainly allow for time to discover your interests if you are not sure.  There is no rule for needing to know what you want to do with your whole life (or latter half of life for some of us).  I recently suggested to a student who was graduating to just get any job and to buy more time to make a decision on their early career path.  Times are a changing with employment and many will have multiple careers over the course of their life.  One other thing to know your classmates will be your colleagues and connections for years to come!  

Ahh anxiety.  I love that many of you noted that anxiety is important and that within anxiety is excitement.  It is both a wonderful and at times debilitating experience. I'm glad to hear many are settling in as compared with the first weeks of school and placement.  Anxiety alerts us to novel stimuli and so it is expected at some level whenever we encounter new experiences. We would all be dead without it!  Anxiety is also very personal as we all come into the world with a unique set of genetics predisposed to more or less anxiety and then raised in families that can heighten or lessen our experience of the world.  At the root of a lot of anxiety, at least within the social work field are fears of shame and humiliation, that we will be exposed for all that we don't know.  While it takes time, I suggest working to allow permission for not knowing and getting comfortable acknowledging it.  I am o.k. with saying to clients and students, "I don't know, but I wold really like to figure that out".  It relieves much anxiety and allows the brain more power to reflect rather than getting caught up in hiding one's not knowing.  After all, you can't know what you don't know.  This also models for clients the just feeling of not knowing and seeking help or support.  

O.K., just a few my thoughts.  I hope you are catching a break with the snow storms.  See you all next week!