As a single mother who has confronted issues like poverty, financial hardships, homelessness, and single parenting, I am committed to helping individuals achieve personal growth and I am determined to enhance the well-being of individuals from diverse backgrounds, such as the homeless, disabled, elderly, single mothers, and those with a mental illness. As a result of my own personal experiences, I am familiar with the constant despair and frustration to those struggling to survive. I am convinced that increasing our own sense of empowerment can make the difference between a future of despondency or one filled with hope. I am applying for the Master’s in Social Work because I am dedicated to pursuing my life mission: helping others in embracing their inner potential to make a positive life transition. Preparation for my personal goal began while I worked at Harbor View Adolescent Center as a Youth Counselor. My primary work responsibility involved my serving as a positive role model for adolescents, ranging from ages twelve to eighteen. The adolescents encountered issues such as physical and sexual abuse, abandonment, drug and alcohol abuse, bulimia, depression, and severe behavioral problems. At times, the position was extremely stressful: however, I discovered that I had the ability to connect with the adolescents and develop strong emotional ties. While working with them, I focused on several areas of treatment, including social skills, vocational skills, and independent living skills. My main ambition was to help build their self-esteem and improve their sense of security. I am especially interested in doing graduate work in the area of helping children and families. I especially see these groups as oppressed and vulnerable and I believe that I can serve the public effectively. As a youth counselor and case manager, I have gained valuable experience in listening to people and improving the quality of lives for others. My career goals specifically targets the vulnerable , oppressed, and poverty stricken individuals who will benefit from improvement in their quality of live. I want to ensure that these groups of individuals have the opportunity for services, resources, and much needed guidance.
Personal strengths: There are several aspects of my personal strengths that I can bring to the field of social work. Some of my personal strengths include that I am highly caring, in regards to other individual needs and feelings. I also speak Spanish fluently. I believe that I can bring my language ability of being bi-lingual to the field of social work in that I will be able to help meet the needs of Spanish speaking clients from culturally diverse populations.
Academic Strengths: As far as my administration abilities, I am very efficient with reports, quarterlies, and paperwork.
Social workers are guided by a professional code of ethics on advocating for social justice, change, equality, human rights, and well-being of all individuals. This includes, but is not limited to, the disadvantaged, poor, vulnerable, and oppressed individuals ; the most helpless in our society. Our roles as social workers is to empower these individuals function more effectively , to help them develop the necessary skills to effectively cope with the complex issues in their everyday lives. Therefore, I am committed to helping build a society that functions to treat all individuals with respect and equality. All individuals have a fundamental right to live with human decency, but society is structured such that not all individuals have equal access to such necessities such as food, housing, education, safety, and employment. As social workers, it is our responsibility to ensure that individual needs are met so that they can be self-sufficient and able to make the best possible choices for themselves.
Diversity means different things to different people. For me, diversity is and never was a bad thing. Diversity is the differences in the decisions that we make, the way we think, act, behave, and choose to live our lives. For this reason, I respect every individual for who they are regardless of our differences. Some people make excuses to discriminate based on differences such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Instead of discriminating each other, we need to be involved in celebrating diversity and differences. We can do this through being open to learning from individuals, from other cultures, and through understanding value of diversity itself.
For instance, I feel that my cultural background helped me to be better relate to the clients that came from the same background and different backgrounds as well. I am biracial. My mother is Mexican and my father is African American. I was raised in a community in which the population was mostly Spanish. From that aspect, I learned how to speak fluent Spanish from my own culture and also by my family. I am culturally competent in my language ability to speak Spanish. This helps me to be
