Thoughts about Social Work and Social Issues

I graduated from University in 2009. Shortly after graduating I got a job with Child and Family Services as a Child and Family Service Social Worker. After two months of soul searching and defining my role, I decided to leave and join the department of Housing and Community Development instead. I will probably mention the reason why in another article.

Social Housing has changed within the past decade. Although I do not have the statistics to prove that in this article, I will say that it is not rocket science to see that it has changed. Many of the tenants housed belong to the clump of labeled individuals we see on the media having said to be the ones in society causing social issues. I often wonder what kind of an agenda governments in the west have undertaken over it's citizens and why, when compared to eastern societies, where you see folks that don't have shelter, are provided a completely different treatment. In the west people are privileged with resources to better themselves. Although it is easier said than done, many folks often do not cease the opportunities and privileges they have due to circumstances that have undergone them. In eastern societies, where governments are different and have a more archaic view point system on how a society should run, the agenda mostly generates around putting owness back on the person to figure out for themselves what they need to accomplish in life. Less reliance from the government and a sense of fulfillment is reached when one establishes themselves through employment and education, but that is probably just a small percentage of the population that have a strong support system as most eastern societies have pockets of regions that absolutely have scarce resources in terms of food, shelter, employment, and education. Therefore, often what we see as representations of people in these pockets of regions are folks that have disheveled and malnourished attributes. In the west, it is rare to see these representations of these same attributes at all. If anything, if reported as seen, that individual will be looked after by good samaritans who can direct them to resources, and professionals. Often, we also do not see people extremely suffering from scarcity of resources.

I have taken a different perspective on the way I view my clients recently. Like all human beings, I believe that our clients should not be different from having the same wants, needs, hopes, dreams, and aspirations as us. Every person has positive goals in becoming something in life and sometimes it takes some people a little while to get to where they want to be. As a Social Worker, I think that it is within our authority in the helping profession to learn about what happened, why we as human beings have distanced our understanding from folks that have had certain circumstances happen in their life. How can we stay away from thoughts like "us versus them" and/or how can we unite our thoughts altogether?