As I begin my field placement, I feel that my
initial challenges are around setting aside my personal experiences in order to
develop a new understanding of Hospice services from a service provider’s
perspective, and being aware of appropriate boundaries in our small rural
community which I have called home for almost twenty five years. On one hand my personal experiences as a
consumer of Hospice services, as well as a long time community member I feel
are assets, I can relate to clients’ experiences, and in conversation with
almost any individual, I usually discover we have similar friends/acquaintances
in common, which can assist in establishing a sense of trustworthiness in
certain situations. However, as a professional
social worker, I need to set aside my lens of personal experience, and
understand what each individual client is going through. I also think in most cases it will be helpful
for clients to feel I am an anonymous neutral person they can talk to, who is
outside of their normal community interactions.
I attended a grief support group on my first
orientation day at Hospice, and quickly realized I should have asked more
questions about what my role was before the group started. Initially it was unclear to me what the
‘rules’ were for the group, or the group leaders. I noticed two individuals with staff
identification tags, and so I tried to follow their lead regarding modeling
behaviors. Upon reflection, I think I
was confused if the entire group, including the facilitators, were supposed to
be participating in sharing or if only the clients were supposed to be
sharing. This was uncomfortable to
realize I was in this situation, with new people, and I did not want to appear
to be withholding if I was supposed to be sharing, yet I also was trying to
determine if I was really supposed to be sharing or not. I did share that I was an intern, and how my
week was going with starting classes, and my internship. After the group ended
I was thankful to have some time to debrief with a supervisor about the experience.
As I analyze why I feel conflicted about what to
share and what not to share, I realized that my own experiences in support
group or social work environment settings have been with parent groups
primarily, where everyone, including the facilitator, shared information from
personal experience. As I learn more about Hospice clients and agency
expectations, I will feel more comfortable about what the parameters are
regarding sharing personal information.
It is sometimes hard to enter a new setting and to not know the rules. Working in a small town does lead to professional and personal boundaries blurring on occasion just because the two world collide.
ReplyDeleteI am interested to hear how your internship progresses. It is an interesting setting and a field of social work that I have only experienced from a personal side, never profession interactions.
Hey Shawn,
ReplyDeleteCongrats on getting right in there on the first day of your internship! I think I can relate because of the work I used to do with teens Corps programs was very different compared to one in a therapeutic setting. Confidentiality and personal sharing were both very big deals. Confidentiality had very clear rules but personal sharing was very vague. It was also subjective. A director would tell a personal story as a lesson for the kids but if a staff member did, they were chastised for sharing a personal story. I know this dynamic was specific to this particular institution and not like your situation at all...but I can say that I was very confused about if and when I was able to speak freely. It is good to have training wheels while learning to balance between professionalism and personalizing our work with clients. I think it's great that you are very aware and sensitive of this Shawn!