Module 3: Understanding Social Work (6 Hours)

Module 3: Understanding Social Work (6 Hours)

/ Training Kit :Personalised Social Support / 2012

Module 3

Activities

Understanding Social Work

List of activities:

Short speech to introduce social work (Ind/do) – 30 minutes

Advocating for the values of social work (Sim) – 1 hour

Planning the future of social work in your country (Sim) – 1 hour

Networking with other NGOs doing social work (Disc) – 30 minutes

Case story using a systemic approach (Disc) – 1 hour

Twin-track of social work (Sim) – 1 hour

Choose the right social work intervention (Ind) – 30 minutes

Meet a social worker (ILec/Do) – 1 hour

Guessing each other’s values (Disc) – 30 minutes

What is quality of life? (Disc) – 30 minutes

Interactive lectures (ILec)– e.g. power point, guest speakers

Learning games (Game)

Discussion (Disc) – e.g. brainstorming, class discussion, roundtable, small group with report back, case story, pairing,

Individual reflection (Ind)– worksheets, surveys

Simulation (Sim) - Role playing, real-life scenario, panel

Learning by doing (Do)– projects, field visits

Activity: Short speech to introduce social work (Ind/do)

Time required: 30 minutes

Learning objectives: To be able to briefly introduce yourself and your work as a social facilitator to others who may not know it. It is important for networking events, for meeting people and their families, and generally for yourself being clear on your role.

Materials: Paper, pen

Method:

  1. The group will be given 5 minutes to write their short speech and can even practice saying it quietly to themselves a few times to be ready.
  2. Each individual will be asked to stand up in front of the group and will get exactly 30 seconds to introduce their work as a social facilitator. The trainer can role-play being a government official welcoming the social facilitator into their office or a person from another NGO who is meeting the social facilitator for the first time.

** Remember there is only 30 seconds and the person must talk for the ENTIRE 30 second period and provide as much information on their role as they can, assuming the trainer knows NOTHING about social work and what a social facilitator does. **

  1. Afterwards, the class discusses which speeches were the most effective and why.

The trainer should advise the group that the goal of their speech is:

  • for the person they are talking to to clearly understand what you do, how you do it and why it is important
  • for the person to be interested enough to want to ask you more questions about your work.

This ability to give a short, interesting speech is a key skill to be able to network effectively with others. Once the person has written a good speech and practiced it several times, it is likely that they will be prepared next time they meet someone important to explain their role to.

Just as an example, a speech can look like this [the trainer is not asked to share this with the class until all speeches have been made]

“Hello my name is Raj and I work as a social facilitator for Handicap International in the inclusive livelihood program. My job involves supporting people with disabilities and their families in identifying livelihood opportunities that match their interest level and that are profitable. I help people and their families find ways to get involved with these livelihood opportunities by deciding together what the best options are. I also help coach people who have difficulty participating in the community and have been isolated for a long time. Another important part of my work is to work with livelihood providers or other NGOs to make them aware of the need to include persons with disabilities.”

Activity: Advocating for the values of social work (Sim)

Time required: 1 hour

Learning objectives: To know the values of social work and be able to advocate them in situations where they are being violated. It is again part of being able to articulate one’s work and what one stands for.

Materials: paper, pen.

Method:

  1. Divide the participants into pairs. Each pair will have 10 minutes to prepare a debate on one of the eight values presented below, in front of the whole group. Either they choose or the trainer can assign. One person will role-play the social facilitator who is advocating on one of the left column values. The other person will be advocating against the value (right side column) stating that it is not true and that they believe society should work in a different way. The pair will get a total of 4 minutes to debate their points. **make sure you have a timekeeper**
  2. Afterwards, the group will discuss the challenges and successes they noticed in advocating for social work values. The group will also discuss why it is important to advocate for these values to others, especially when it is hard and society do not always show these values.

Social facilitator’s argues that: / The opposite person argues that:
  1. Every person has value.
/
  1. People only have value if they contribute to society and are strong.

  1. All people should be treated equally.
/
  1. People who have power and status they should be treated better. We should feel sorry for the disabled who have no power.

  1. Human rights and social justice are important.
/
  1. Productivity and economic advancement are more important than human rights and social justice.

  1. Social work aims for human development.
/
  1. Social work aims to give more to those who are needy.

  1. Each person can take an active role in their life.
/
  1. Less powerful people should get advice from leaders and follow what they say.

  1. Diversity has value.
/
  1. Diversity complicates our society.

  1. There is potential in all communities.
/
  1. Some communities have no resources.

  1. Mutual respect for all and solidarity is important.
/
  1. Respect is given only when deserved.

Activity: Planning the future of social work in your country (Sim)

Time required: 1 hour

Learning objectives: To help social facilitators think at a broader level on what social work could be like in their own country and the forces that decide how social work is offered. Also to help them get a start on advocacy skills for community level programs and decentralizing resources and power.

Materials: paper, pen, flipchart.

Method:

  1. The group will simulate a meeting between different types of social work programs and a large donor. You will need 4 people to volunteer to simulate this meeting.

Volunteer 1: A donor who would like to give a yearly donation to strengthen the social work programs for PWDs in your country for the next 10 years.

Volunteer 2: A social facilitator/worker that represents the government and will be advocating that the donor give more money to have the centralized government level social work programs strengthened to set national standards and to try and set up a social worker training program in the country.

Volunteer 3: A social facilitator that works for a private organization will advocate that the donor invest more in starting the private sector of social work which will be efficient and run well, and sustainable.

Volunteer 4: A social facilitator/worker representing the local NGO sector working in the communities, who will advocate that more services be put in individual regions of the country, so that each community can best decide how it will address the social needs it has. Regional mid-level worker training (not social worker level, but social facilitator level) in partnership with local INGOs will be advocated.

Halfway through the discussion, Volunteer 1 will ask: Is there a way that the government, private and community sector WORK TOGETHER AND SHARE THE WORK LOAD AND RESOURCES?

***See the introduction lecture of this module to find dis/advantages of each of these options (e.g. government, private, community-run)

  1. The 4 volunteers will get 10 minutes to prepare for this role play and can get 1-2 other classmates to help them decide what they will say. Their role is to convince Volunteer 1, that their sector is the most valuable for investing into. The role-play meeting can take up to 20 minutes  with each person getting 2 minutes to introduce their stance, and 10 minutes to have an open discussion, and 2 minutes to summarize who the Volunteer 1 will choose to give his/her money to.
  2. After the role-play meeting, the trainer will get the group to debrief on the challenges/successes in advocating for community-level resources when in competition with the government and private agencies.

Activity: Networking with other NGOs doing social work (Disc)

Time required: 30 minutes

Learning objectives: To learn to collaborate with other NGOs who may be interested in including people with disabilities in their programming.

Materials: Flip-chart, marker pens

Method:

  1. The trainer introduces the following exercise by explaining that: “In many contexts, there are local and international NGOs working informally or formally in the social work sector (e.g. Red Cross/NRC/UNHCR protection officers, psychosocial project officers). You may come across the staff of some of these organizations in your work. They may be interested in working with people with disabilities and not have any experience in doing so. If you come across other social facilitators/workers from other NGOs in your work, how can you network with them?”
  2. The trainer dividesthe group into small groups of 4 persons, and asks them to make a list of things they would do to learn about the work of other social workers/facilitators in their region and how they could share about their work with people with disabilities. Each small group will share their list afterwards as written on a flipchart
  3. The trainer will summarize the common ideas and maybe add a few new ones as per below:

-First, meet with social workers of other NGOs to understand the scope of their work (populations seen, type of interventions used), their training, and the approach they use.

-Explain to them your role, your approach, your training and your scope (focus on people with disabilities and their family).

-If you both think there is common work and things to be learned from each other, can do site visits with one another.

-Discuss difficulties in using social work in your country and possible solutions.

-If they need to learn more about disability, you can offer them some small advice (or look at more formal exchanges if you’re program manager agrees)

Activity: Case story using a systemic approach (Disc)

Time required: 1 hour

Learning objectives: To be able to look at a person’s entire situation, take apart the different systems they belong to and see how those systems may interact to shape the opportunities of the person.

Materials: Flipchart, poster paper, marker pens

Method:

(refer to p. 22 of PSS guide)

The trainer divides the group into smaller groups of 4 people. Each group will work together on the case study below. After having read the case they will draw a diagram of the ecosystem of this person’s life, including at the 5 following systems:

  1. Person’s level: age, gender, capacity, disability (autosystem)
  2. The immediate environment: school, family, work (microsystem)
  3. Community system: the work environment of parents, community infrastructures, support mechanisms, family assistance. (exosystem)
  4. Societal system: all the values, beliefs and ideologies, politics in society (macrosystem)
  5. How the above 4 systems impact each other (mesosystem)

Case study of Ron: Ron is an 18 year old boy who just finished his secondary school education at a regional school for the deaf in another town far from his village. He is now going back to his village to stay with his family, until he can decide what to do next and where to find work. He has not been able to find any vocational training colleges that will accept deaf people or other mainstream colleges/universities that will accept him.

He is very smart and good at many things, such as playing football, he can also teach other children using body language how to play well. He has good carpentry skills with his hands and knows how to do basic electronics wiring that he learned at the school for the deaf from the deaf electrician who worked there.

Back in his village, there are only 2 other deaf people who know sign language that he can communicate with, most other people ignore him unless he can get them to write down what they are saying on the little pad of paper he carries around.

His family is happy to see him but not sure what he will do now and what will happen to him in the village whereas he was feeling so happy in the deaf school around the other children.

In his country, the ministry of social services is trying to create better policies to have PWD more included in vocational training centres, but change will come slowly. He has heard positive news of a state bank hiring a number of deaf people to count the money and do book-keeping for them. He is wondering if he could go visit this bank in the main city and ask about how to get work there or at least get ideas so that he can convince his local bank to do the same thing.

The local people, especially elders, have superstitions that he will bring bad luck and often try not to stand too close to him, others believe he may not be able to work well or hard because he does not understand anything. His country has ratified the UNCRPD, and in his province there is a big move to get more IT industry set up.

Give this BLANK handout to participants and ask them to fill in the sections of each layer based on what they read above to complete the picture of Ron’s ecosystem:


Here is RON’s ECOSYSTEM:


Activity: Twin-track of social work (Sim)

Time required: 1 hour

Learning objectives: To reinforce the need to work both with the individual and his/her environment, through the comparison of two case studies where one needs more focus on the person and the other, more focus on the environment.

Materials: flipchart for small groups, marker pens

Method:

  1. The trainer divides the participants into groups of 4. Each group is asked to review both case studies and fill in the blanks of what to do at the person level and at the environment level.

*Notes for trainer: In the first case, the need for support is much more at the person’s level, whereas the second case requires much more work at the environmental level. The moral of these two stories is that we must ensure to put our energies in the right area, sometimes it will be on the person and their environment equally, sometimes it will be more on the person/family, and sometimes a bit more on the environment!

Caste study 1:

Sara lives in the capital city and uses a wheelchair since a spinal cord injury she had at 16. She is now 22 and managed to complete her secondary school degree after he injury. For the last 3 years, she has been mostly at home spending time with her mother, who is very protective over her and wants to accompany Sara everywhere to make sure she does not have difficulties. Sara is interested in taking computer classes at a local college to become an IT worker, but she is afraid to leave her mom and is also scared of not making friends and not being accepted in the IT school. The IT school is accessible and has also trained 2 people with visual impairments, 1 with a hearing impairment and 2 persons with physical impairments. They welcome students with disabilities as the principal’s wife has a disability, so he wants to be inclusive. Sara is meeting with you because she would like to go to this college but she feels her mother and family are against it and want to provide for her for as long as they can.

*Give participants blank format first, and then as they share with you their ideas, share the diagram below: