2.8 Practice
Journal Prompt
- What are you noticing about your placement? What surprised you about the agency, the work, or your own role? How is DEI addressed at your agency?
Self-Care Activity
- As mentioned at the end of Chapter 1, we will give suggestions for journal prompts and self-care activities at the end of each chapter of the text. For this chapter, we want to point out that using your journal for self-reflection can also be a self-care activity. If you perceive the journal entries as homework or a chore to get through, you will lose some of the most important learning that can come from journaling. Keeping a fieldwork journal gives you a chance to really think about your experiences and begin to understand your work and your place in the field. You can address the prompts as they pertain to your experiences, but you can also journal about other issues related to your placement—for example, a particularly difficult interaction with a client. Journaling about experiences when they happen can give you insight if you are faced with a similar situation later. The journal is meant to be a tool for you to reflect on and use in the future.
Class Discussion Topics
- While interacting with a client, they begin to ask questions that you are uncomfortable answering. The questions could be about your family, your school, or even where you are from. You are not comfortable sharing these details about your personal life. You want to respond without being too rude or too revealing.
There are four courses of action you can take. Divide into groups and discuss the advantages and risks of each choice:
- Kindly let the client know that you do not feel comfortable answering those questions.
- Ask the client why those questions are important to them.
- Share what you are comfortable with (without oversharing) if it will benefit the helper-client relationship.
- Talk with your supervisor about the interaction.
Practice Licenses and Attributions
“Class Discussion Topics” is adapted from “Getting Started at the Site” in Succeeding at Your Internship: A Handbook Written for and with Students by Christopher J. Mruk and John C. Moor, Bowling Green State University Libraries. This work is licensed under CC BY NC SA 4.0.
“Journal Prompt” and “Self-Care Activity” by Sally Guyer MSW and Yvonne M. Smith LCSW are licensed under CC BY 4.0.
any activity you participate in whose function is to nourish you either physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
time taken to review your experience and process what you learned.
(or internship/practicum) experiential learning contained within human services programs. For the purposes of this text, fieldwork, internship, and practicum will be used interchangeably.