As Social Workers it is our duty to understand and ensure that every individual has human rights. We must engage in practices that promote social, economic and environmental justice for all individuals. By applying, this we can better understand and represent our clients, as well as help bring awareness to those who have been oppressed or discriminated against.
For competency 3 social workers are to advance human rights and social Economic, and Environmental Justice. Using the Bradley County schools website I used this knowledge to grasp that there were no social emotional learning expectations for the school system. During field practicum, I reached out to the superintendent of Bradley County Schools via email on the importance of social emotional learning skills as foundational skills that should be integrated in the school system (3.1). I practiced the value of integrity to ethically advocate for students whom I am serving as part of the school system. The skills I used to engage with stakeholders included asking open ended questions and educating on relevant information on social emotional learning strategies and its benefits. I created an infographic that was attached to the email.
The course work I contributed towards was creating a sexual health education powerpoint with my classmates in order to advocate for change to implement a holistic sexual education in high schools which includes education on healthy relationships, sexual assertiveness, contraceptives, consent, as well as abstinence (3.1). The affective process used was valuing secondary aged students who would benefit from this policy change. The cognitive process is demonstrated by sharing of relevant knowledge stakeholders need to understand for change. Theoretically, the cognitive model theory asserts that people’s perceptions of situations influence their emotional and behavioral reactions. Distorted beliefs influence their processing of information and give rise to distorted thoughts. In the case of advocacy, stakeholders may hold onto the myth that sexual education gives adolescents permission to engage in sexual activity. Thus, in the advocacy plan our team outlined factual information to emphasize the need for education on this topic for the population.
During my time in field practicum, I designed an 8-week anger management SEL curriculum on google slides (3.2). I implemented anger management regulation strategies to positively impact the students of Goal Academy through psycho educational groups. In my course work, our group created the mission of the organization Mind, Body, and Soul Healing (3.2). This represents social action strategies to reach the homelessness community.