From experience, I recognize that the process of becoming an effective helper in the helping profession has many advantages as well as various challenges. Becoming a social service worker has enabled me to satisfy my various personal needs and wishes of humanity, including changing the lives of needy people. It is relieving and satisfying for me to recognize that I can make a change in the lives of people, especially by giving them hope and making them have faith in themselves. My desire to become a helper is a product of various motivations and needs. Some of the needs include the need to make a difference, the need to return the favor, the need to care for other people, the need for money, the need for prestige and status, the need to provide answers, the need for self-help, the need to be needed, the need for control, and the need for variety and flexibility. The essay aims at developing awareness regarding the motivations and needs influencing their decision to become a social service worker.
The two typical needs that are most relevant for me and have influenced my decision to become a social service worker include the need to return a favor and the need to be needed. The need to return a favor relates to the need for engaging in the virtue of helping people as an imitation of an earlier favor received from a role model or an influential figure in the life of a worker (Corey & Corey, 1993). In essence, this type of need involves reciprocating a good act from an influential figure in a person’s life by doing good to other people. Many social workers are driven by the need to return a favor to the society that had impacted their lives in a positive manner. Basically, the major role of social workers is to improve the living conditions of the society that is largely responsible for their very existence. After my program, I am planning to work in shelters and with people that need support because my mother and I have lived in women's shelters in the past when we were facing financial difficulties, thus, the need to return the favor. I would like to see the conditions of people living in shelters improve just like other social workers who committed their time and time to make my life better. My drive to improve the conditions of people living in shelters emanates from the fact that they sheltered me and hope when we had nowhere else to turn to stay. The major challenge associated with the need to return the favor relates to the fact that social workers may be choosy and only offer help in those situations that allow them to reciprocate a previous favor. Social work should be conducted out of own volition without any pre-conditions related to the need to repay a previous favor or debts.
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The need to be needed offers a psychological reward to social workers since it is always relieving to realize that someone is happy because of your actions. Importantly, the clients that the social worker helps are likely to express their gratitude for the favor given to them. Taking care of other people’s needs and feeling needed makes the social worker gain value and satisfaction from their work (Corey & Corey, 1993). This need is one of the most relatable needs for me as a social service worker since it is captivating and motivating to hear clients appreciate my efforts. Since my childhood, the events around me have always influenced me to feel needed. For instance, my mother always needed my assistance, especially with the payment of bills since she was a single parent. She always needed my help in assisting her in coping with changes in Canada, since while I adapted quickly to societal changes in Canada, my mother did not adapt to them fast enough. I am also needed by my brother for emotional support as well as my friends that require my counsel and driving them because most of them do not know how to drive. However, the urge to feel needed may cloud the essence of social work such that people might be tempted to engage in social work for fame instead of humanity. The need may create problems when the client is not appreciative of the worker, making them feel worthless. The social worker may also be tempted to favor clients that show appreciation compared to those that do not, resulting in bias and favoritism. The need to be needed can distract us from addressing personal concerns, and we might forget to address what is important to us while gunning to be received praise from the people that we assist.
The need to make an impact relates to my situation since I plan to make a significant impact on my situation involving taking care of people living in shelters. In essence, I always have a need to know that I am impacting the lives of people in a positive manner. The need to make an impact also drives my decision to fight all forms of discrimination that my clients face, e.g., social class discrimination. I endeavor to impact all clients and society in general positively by empowering people at the individual and group levels. Getting to know the client personally will be critical in understanding their challenges and effective solutions for addressing the challenges that they face. Understanding their needs and identifying whether or not they require help is essential in evading any future frustrations that may arise from the client’s refusal to be helped. Help cannot be properly administered unless the recipients are ready and willing to be helped. However, the need to create an impact may frustrate the social worker if they fail to achieve the expected changes. The disappointment would be highly magnified if the social worker is desperately focused on making change. In essence, while the social worker is endeavoring to make an impact in the lives of clients, there is a need to explore other needs as well in case one of them fails.
The need to take care of other people directed my drive to cater to people living in shelters. Catering for the needs of other people is a passion that I developed since my childhood as we used to look after each other with my mother. I also enrolled in the program to help other people that need social assistance. Unfortunately, many workers tend to ignore their welfare since they are normally focused on catering to the needs of other people (Corey & Corey, 1993). This makes them neglect their needs while laying most of the focus on the needs of other people. Additionally, the self-esteem of the social worker may be affected if they depend on the client’s response or satisfaction to feel worthy. Consequently, teaching clients to depend too much on social workers is likely to foster dependency.
The need for self-help originates from the need to deal with personal struggles (Corey & Corey, 1993). I have struggled with most of the problems that clients come to me with, meaning that I can identify and empathize with them. For instance, living in shelters is one of the problems that I struggled with. Therefore, the help that I give is conditioned on what I would have wanted years ago when my situation was similar. In fact, such a perspective can allow me to share with my clients how I overcame the challenge. Receiving accolades from the various beneficiaries of social work in women’s shelters encourages me to deal with my personal struggles and improve the scope and the quality of services that I offer. However, the need is likely to create challenges for social service workers who are intent on addressing their struggles while forgetting that while the challenges may be similar, the conditions are different for clients.
The need to make money is one of the motives that drive every social service worker. We all need money and nobody should feel guilty about wanting to make more money and earn a good living (Corey & Corey, 1993). This is especially relieving when you value what you are doing. Workers are likely to hate what they do if they continue offering services while they struggle to make ends meet. However, financial rewards should not override the spirit of social service work. Otherwise, the worker may develop bias and fail to help when financial compensation is not part of the deal or may offer unnecessary services that are not in the best interest of the client just to get more money.
Social service work increases the need for variety and flexibility since the worker interacts with many culturally diverse groups and individuals. In essence, the helping profession provides workers with different ways of deriving meaning from what they do (Corey & Corey, 1993). The conditions also expose the worker to different environments and situations that allow them to identify different and effective ways of handling issues. Many options in this field of work such as working with the homeless, children and troubled teens provide flexibility, in that, the worker has more than one option in case one place is too boring or too challenging. However, it is imperative that the option that the worker chooses is the most suitable for them and enables them to deliver reliable services to workers.
Social service workers may be driven by the need for a high level of prestige or increased income to attain certain status. Unfortunately, many of the clients that workers come across in the helping profession are normally economically disadvantaged. In my case, the need for prestige and status does not apply since the clients that I help are economically challenged. Becoming a social service worker with such a mindset is a recipe for disappointment and frustration. Therefore, workers should be content with the status attached to the respect accorded by clients and fellow employees.
The need to provide answers stems from the strong need for social service workers to provide the right answers. The need does not relate to my situation as a helper working with people living in shelters. Sometimes, workers become overly fixated on offering help and answers to problems facing other people to the extent that they forget to ask for help. From my experience, assuming that you can provide all the necessary answers to clients may be disappointing since clients do not always benefit from a straight answer, while what may be right for you may not align with the client’s values. Additionally, the social service worker may never know what is best for another person but can guide them to realize what is best for them and that they may expect answers each time that might not be forthcoming other times. The need to provide advice and answers leads to the need to control other people. The need to exert control over people does relate to my situation since I believe that among many things that a person can control in life, human beings are not part of those things.
One of the characteristics of an ideal helper that I feel best fits me relates to the fact that I genuinely care for the people that I help. I express this care by doing what is in their best interest, not just what suits me. This allows me to satisfy their needs by gaining a deeper understanding of their needs and feelings. Another characteristic that I feel best fits me is my increased curiosity and the increased interest to learn. I realized that social work is a continuous learning process and I find myself learning new things every day. The new knowledge assists me in offering better services to my clients. The characteristic that I feel that I need professional growth and development in is the establishment of meaningful relationships with more significant people. While I have already formed fruitful relationships with different people in my line of work, I still have a long way to go in forming lasting bonds with all stakeholders in the field. Such relationships will assist me in offering holistic help to clients and consulting where necessary.
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