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Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The Pros and Cons...
hmmm. I realise i was too harsh in my previous entry.. I should really learn to calm down, take a deep breath and think things through before sprouting what is on my mind at the moment.
I decided i shall do a pros-and-cons of my placement at Woodlands Care Corner FSC.
Cons (first, since i have complained so much)
1. It isn't what i had hoped for. Maybe cos i have had wind of other similar agencies, other Care Corner organizations or similar FSCs having a wider range of services.. which involves youth programmes, which is really an area one can create changes in, and which encompasses a large area of social work in Singapore. Even besides Youth programmes, they have a wider range of other programmes involving all sectors from childhood to elderly, which was what Woodlands FSC claimed to have initially. But so far, in the days i been here, all that i have seen really in place is this child's programme, Learning Bees, of which i will be heavily involved in as it's my supervisor's arena. And i had done child's work before in the past.. with helping my cousin then with child's programmes and workshops in her church and her part-time work in the kindergarten in the past.. and having gone through the first workshop they had on Saturday, IT IS NO DIFFERENT. sigh.. and my work next month will comprise of organising another children's workshop and a family day outing for them.
2. The agency's goals are rather limited? Mainly their scope of work has no really real focus as far as i can see. They just handle almost anything. and given the scope of Woodlands, and its large Malay population, most of the cases handled involved financial assistance or plain Information and Referral.. It's alot like admin work, not really what i wanna do... as i would prefer to hone my social work skills, counselling, micro skills etc. Of course, alot of people would say in social work, it really involves all these networking and linking of services to people, but i would much prefer hands-on practice than this cooping up in the office all day. As of date, i hadn't had the chance to get hands-on cases yet. Besides, their 2 main programmes are Learning Bees and a single mums' support group, which i can't be involved in as they require senior social workers. and the HSP programme, which has stringent criteria. yeah, u get the drift, it's mainly just Learning Bees.
3. No youth programmes at all. Or rather the school programme they had, STEP-UP is held only during the school term, meaning no youth or school work now (as it's the holidays). They are looking into setting up a youth programme for this centre, and the research work for this will be dumped on me and Nadeeyah, the other NUS intern. Hmmm. should i say dump? cos it doesn't mean even if after all the research we did, they'll actually implement the programme.
4. Dun even seem to have elderly programmes. like i say, their scope is really limited.
5. Basically now, i'm just doing alot of administrative work on top of reading for enrichment's sake, which is unavoidable in social work. i haven't been able to observe a single case, or home visit or wadsoever as yet. i feel like a clerk.
6. Having read 2 cases so far, it does not seem to me they are doing alot on assessment. and the centre is seriously lacking in micro skills, as the workers expressed yesterday during the clinical supervision session that they wish to learn.
7. I WANNA DO HANDS-ON WORK!!!! am falling asleep in the office...
Pros:
1. Whatever it is, it is a FSC after all. and Care Corner is supposed to be quite established. I may still learn something no matter what. At the very least, i will learn networking and Information & Referral Skills, which is very important too, as my SW lecturers had emphasized before too. To know which appropriate service to link your client to is v important.
2. My intern friend, Nadeeyah, is nice. We share the same grouches about the placement but so far on our teamwork and stuff, we have been working well. This is due to all the projectwork training we had had in NUS.
3. The people at the FSC are pretty nice and friendly. Ok i dun understand their jokes sometimes. But yeah, can get along.
4. Venue. It's blardy near. It's right below my parents' block, i can sleep till 8am, to report for work at 9am. And i definitely need sleep during this period. Also saves me alot on food and transportation. i got to keep almost all the measly $250 NUS is paying us for this placement.
5. They have this clinical supervision whh is a 3-hour learning session every month. I attended my first yesterday, and it's a discussion of real-live cases presented by a worker in the centre, and analysed in depth by this famous family therapist, Benny Bong. He's supposed to be quite acclaimed in social work, having had more than 20 yrs of experience, and operating a centre of his own now. And the stuff he taught during the session was stuff i dun even get to learn in NUS. In short, he's good. and the only bright spot in my placement thus far.
6. Later on in the months ahead, I'll get a hand in doing a youth needs assessment (for the research to be done in setting up a youth programme), agency visits and hopefully some home visits and maybe some cases, which is going to be financial in nature, as i'm told.
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Hmmm... should i feel better already? But i am sad. There's too many screw-ups in procuring this placement le, in the first place. And i am still rather... unsatisfied.
Shu Ling Estrella @ 12:48 PM ~*~ |
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