Reflective Essay on Social Work: Importance of Ethics, Professional Boundaries and Collaboration

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Reflective Essay
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1REFLECTIVE ESSAY
The modules covered during the semester has helped me to widen up my knowledge and
helped me realised the importance of a degree in social work from the career’s perspective.
Social work is an occupation which deals with different societal issues (McFadden, Campbell
and Taylor 2014). For example, sometimes it is required to deal with those affected by natural
disasters such as an earthquake. On the other hand, a social worker may also work for an NGO
dedicated especially to improve the living experience of underprivileged children.
It is important for social workers to do regular reflective coverage of actions they took in
different circumstances. The reflection being done this way will put forward both positive and
negative aspects of actions. Hence, such information could be utilised for further improvements
as a social worker. The Gibb’s reflective model is a cyclic perspective of a reflection (Paterson
and Chapman 2013). I found the model very supportive while doing a reflective writing on my
experience of the first semester. The model has five different stages such as ‘Description’,
‘Feelings’, ‘Evaluation’, ‘Conclusions’ and ‘Action’.
Description: The semester helped me to learn the ethicalities involved in social works.
Things related to ethicalities were being explained with the help of the British Association of
Social Workers (BASW)'s expectations of social workers. There can be ethical dilemmas;
however, I am being taught to take reference from the HCPC guidance to remain ethical in such
dilemmas. I also had the opportunity to learn about professional boundaries. According to Bogo
(2015), professional boundaries are important in social works to understand the set of guidelines,
rules and expectations. This guides to the kind of relationship that social workers can establish
with their clients. The semester helped me to understand that I must avoid ‘Diversity’ and ‘Anti-
Oppressive/Discriminatory’ practices to become an effective social worker. It was being taught