Employability & Professional Growth: LC 580 Career Action Plan

This report outlines a detailed career development action plan focused on achieving the goal of becoming a social worker. It includes strategies for obtaining the necessary education and field experience, along with a personal SWOT analysis to identify strengths for enhancement and weaknesses for mitigation. The plan addresses the importance of time management, empathy, cultural competence, and active listening skills, with specific actions to improve in these areas. The ultimate aim is to become a competent social worker capable of positively impacting communities while adhering to ethical practices and client well-being. Desklib offers a wealth of study resources, including similar solved assignments and past papers, to support students in their academic and professional journeys.

LC 580 Employability and
Professional development
CW1 Career
Development Action Plan

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Work related goals and strategies to achieve them............................................................1
Personal SWOT analysis.........................................................................................................1
Personal strength enhancement.............................................................................................2
Personal weakness mitigation................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................2
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION
This report will consist of a detailed action plan which will be aimed at forming
objectives connected to doing social work along with strategies to achieve the same.
The report will also involve a personal analysis in order to develop plans to enhance the
identified strengths and mitigate the major weaknesses.
MAIN BODY
Work related goals and strategies to achieve them
One of my most important personal ambitions is to become a social worker as this job
profession is one of the novel ways in which one can impact their society and
surroundings in a positive manner. A social worker is someone who works closely with
people and local communities for their overall betterment and tackling societal and
personal injustices (Coulshed and Orme, 2018)
In order to become a social worker, I will use a standard strategy involving first
pursuing my bachelor’s degree in social work, get on field experience by getting
involved with local communities and working towards achieving my social work license.
The strategy which I will use to become a competent social worker will mainly involve
using study materials and on field experience with communities (Pincus and Minahan,
2021).
Personal SWOT analysis
Strengths
 I possess the ability to empathize
with others
 I possess strong time management
skills
Weaknesses
 I lack active listening skills
 My cultural competence also needs
considerable improvement
Opportunities
 Developing ways to deal with client
trauma
Threats
 Social work always carries the risk
of worsening a client’s already
deteriorating mental health
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 Learning about advanced social
work software’s
 Client stigmatisation and privacy
invasion
Personal strength enhancement
Strong time management, empathy and learning to relate with the problems of the
clients during social work will also be an agenda of this action plan. Both these
strengths will be boosted using time management exercises, engaging in online courses
and undergoing simulation training for developing empathy (Allan, 2020).
Personal weakness mitigation
There are many identified weaknesses such as my lack of active listening skills
which are needed to not only study social work but to understand the problems of the
communities in the field (Denov and C. Shevell, 2019). Not having a keen
understanding of culture is also a major weakness as the communities and clients
involved in social work come from diverse backgrounds and knowing and respecting
their traditions will be key for my strategy which relies on practical experience. Both
these strategies will be overcome with the help of undertaking special courses, interning
with social work groups and NGO’s and doing field work with diverse communities over
time and learning new languages (Doel and Shardlow, 2019).
CONCLUSION
The action plan which has been developed herein involved the identification of a
clear strategy to become a social worker which involved attaining degrees and gaining
on-field experience. The action plan measured personal strengths and weaknesses to
overcome difficulties to the proposed strategy such as lack of cultural competence and
active listening skills which are major values in social work (Horne, 2018). The action
plan has been concluded to be effective as it contains detailed measures to follow the
chosen strategy with measures to overcome potential barriers.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Allan, J., 2020. Theorising new developments in critical social work. In Critical social
work (pp. 30-44). Routledge.
Coulshed, V. and Orme, J., 2018. Social work practice. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Denov, M. and C. Shevell, M., 2019. Social work practice with war-affected children and
families: the importance of family, culture, arts, and participatory approaches.
Journal of family social work, 22(1), pp.1-16.
Doel, M. and Shardlow, S., 2019. The new social work practice: Exercises and activities
for training and developing social workers. Routledge.
Horne, M., 2018. Values in social work. Routledge.
Payne, M., 2020. The origins of social work: Continuity and change. Bloomsbury
Publishing.
Pincus, A. and Minahan, A., 2021. A model for social work practice. In Integrating social
work methods (pp. 73-106). Routledge.
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