https://socialworkstatement.com/Your title hereVivitiCMS2019-09-27T02:22:00-07:00Your title heretag:socialworkstatement.com,2019-09-27:/entries/2330460MSW Statement of Purpose Sample, Children, Trauma2019-09-27T02:22:00-07:002019-09-27T02:39:34-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/498369/340;228;13d39640017d5053653de11e78e669f3f4999bad.jpg" style="border:none; float:left">A young woman from Serbia, I have been making New York my home since 2014, and working towards a new professional career here in the USA. My life experiences have convinced me to pursue a career in Social Work in order to fulfill my enduring dream of giving my life to helping others, especially vulnerable children. I hope to earn the MSW at XXXX University, my first choice among MSW programs for a variety of reasons. I have been learning about the excellence of Rutgers’ reputation for some time now as a result of having friends and co-workers that have graduated from XXXX. I have invested a lot of time researching graduate programs in Social Work and I am especially drawn to and feel strongly that I am a good fit with XXXX’ mission in Social Work – especially with respect to diversity and the development of global perspective. I am also most impressed by the field-work opportunities that exist for graduate students in your MSW program.</p>
<p>My greatest asset as a candidate for admission to the MSW Program at XXXX is that I have a lot of experience helping vulnerable young people to cope with the difficulties that they are facing. A very hard worker, I am determined to succeed academically and professionally, earning the MSW at Rutgers will enable me to make my maximum lifetime contribution to helping people in need – especially children.</p>
<p>I see my choice of Social Work as a career as deeply rooted in my own personal history, dating back to my early childhood when my mother would always take me with her to bring food to older, needy neighbors who were alone without anyone to care for them. The happy smiles on their faces will always be with me. During our civil war in what was then Yugoslavia, many of the schools where I lived became refugee centers and my mom and I were active in bringing clothes, toys, and food to the refugees. I got to know some of the children and many had such sad stories; I came face-to-face with many traumatized children, myself still a child. This motivated me towards a special, lifelong interest in the wellbeing of children, protecting them from physical, mental, and sexual abuse.</p>
<p>I look forward to spending the balance of my professional life helping children recover from trauma, loss, or abuse. I have confirmed through my volunteer work here in America that Social Work is my calling and that empathy is my greatest resource. Not long after my first trip to the USA, I served as an assistant to a blind girl. I lived with her for one year and we remain close friends. I was much more than an employee of her parents; I was her roommate, her friend, becoming very much like her sister. By the end of the year, she was making good grades and became much more self-sufficient; I will always savor the memories of our time together. I experienced profound joy in this position, confirming my dedication to give the balance of my life to the helping professions as a social worker.</p>
<p>I completed my undergraduate studies in Serbia in the area of Civil and Environmental Protection. I enjoyed studying about natural disasters and emergency services, ways of helping the community. I learned about how to respond to crises, the importance of staying calm and focusing on one’s task at hand. I also learned a lot about the psychological effects of traumatic experiences and the extensive support that is needed by victims. The bulk of my work as a volunteer in Serbia was as a member of an association dedicated to decreasing levels of juvenile delinquency in the capital city, Belgrade. I worked extensively at our local level with drug-related issues, robberies, assaults, and abuse and bullying in schools. I learned a lot about how to cope with delinquency and what the best strategies are to confront the issue. I learned how to support the families of offenders and point them in the right direction in terms of useful resources and strategies. I matured and gained increasing confidence, becoming more creative and independent thinking. During this time I also developed a deep and abiding interest in Roma (Gypses) in Serbia and throughout Europe. These individuals are singular in terms of their vulnerabilities and I learned a great deal about them and the complex factors that serve to account for their substandard living situations in Serbia.</p>
<p>I first came to the USA in 2013 as a participant in a cultural exchange program sponsored by the US State Department and I had the great pleasure to live for 5 months on Cape Cod where I worked in a variety of jobs and met people from all over the world. This early immersion experience helped me to fast-track my improvement in English. In 2014, I was accepted to another cultural exchange program known as "Au Pair", living with an American family and also was attending Boston academy of English for the first year and in the second year I attended LIU. I was always fully prepared for my classes although I had to work full time to support myself. I started studying Spanish and have continued to make constant progress. Currently preparing for the DELE exam at the Servantes Institute in New York City. Japanese was my major in my High School and I also plan to continue to make progress in this language as I hope to use Japanese as well as my Spanish as integral facets of my social work career. My studies have convinced me that communication skills are an important aspect of excellence for social-work-related jobs and I want to excel in this area as a multilingual social worker in a multilingual society.</p>
<p>In Massachusetts I was a member of a volleyball team in the small town of Mansfield and this also helped me to socialize and achieve total fluency in English. Reading is my major passion and this has helped me to excel. I continue to read widely in the areas of juvenile delinquency, drugs and abuse, and bullying. I have now been working with young people in the USA for two years, attending school meetings, learning about problematic issues from their parents and families as well.</p>
<p>I currently study at the American Language Communication Center in NYC which I very much admire for its racial and cultural diversity where I have learned a great deal from faculty from all over the world. which I attend now. I am a model student, most diligent and highly organized. My brother is also here in the USA so I have the support of family close by. After I graduate, I would love to go back to my country Serbia, and implement the knowledge and skills that I learn to improve conditions in our country, organizing communities to invest more in the care of vulnerable children in particular and social work in general.</p>
<p>Perhaps my most adventurous long term goal in social work is to unite social workers throughout Eastern Europe to help each other along the path towards excellency, sharing strategies, challenges, solidarity in the face of similar struggles. In what was once Yugoslavia, in particular, the civil war has left many deep scars that remain today, with traumatic experience continuing to have an impact across generations. Teenagers coming from families destroyed by the war are in special need of help. Whole families have spent many years moving about from place to place, often looking for missing members, and they have lost their compass and flounder in a semi-permanent, up-rooted state.</p>
<p>As a graduate of social work from Rutgers and an MSW professional in Serbia, I look forward to putting my state-of-the-art knowledge and strategies to work inspiring young people, empowering them to follow their hearts and develop their passions so that they can realize their dreams as the result of a lot of hard work and diligent attention to their educations. I want to have a share in directing destinies towards happy endings.</p>
<p>I played volleyball very competitively for 12 years and my team won many competitions on a national level. I also neared the top in table tennis in my country by playing intensively for 3 years. I have won awards for literacy in middle and poetry in high school. When I am not reading I am usually watching a documentary movie. I also enjoy kayaking, hiking and travelling. Probably my single biggest passion, however, is visiting museums.</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to Social Work at XXXX.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2019-09-25:/entries/2328151PHD Social Work, Social Discrimination China2019-09-25T00:03:00-07:002019-09-25T00:27:17-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/498136/248;197;c33c6f52d511f3094c0cdbcafccd69bcb4b5a075.png" style="border:none; float:left">The PHD Program in Social Work with a focus on Social Policy and Administration at XXXX University is my first choice because I feel that I am the best fit with XXXX. I live and work in XXXX and your program is the most international and interdisciplinary Social Work doctoral program in the city if not the world. I look forward to contributing to the diversity of the Social Work community as a young Uyghur woman raised in a small village in China.</p>
<p>The Uyghur are one of the most oppressed ethnic minority groups in the world, exacerbated by the fact that they are China’s only major ethnic group that is mostly Muslim. This has to do with the fact that we have much in common in our ethnic and linguistic heritage with peoples of Central Asia. This is why in addition to Uyghur, English, and Mandarin Chinese, I am also a near-native speaker of Uzbek. My special area of interest is my profound concern for the human rights and well being of Uyghur girls, suffering under layers of oppression rooted in our history and greatly exacerbated by the oppression that comes from top down, as a result of having been conquered and ruled by China until today.</p>
<p>As a Social Work professional, I want very much to contribute to improving social and educational support systems for disadvantaged children, adding new resources and creating new opportunities for disadvantaged children, especially for girls in the Xinjang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China, where most Uyghur people live. As a PHD student in Columbia’s Social Work Program, I would be especially eager for the fullest immersion experience possible in the area of quantitative research methods, as I see this as especially crucial to my future research. I would benefit greatly from the Proseminar as I strive to better understand the complexities of socioeconomic inequality. I have read the work of Dr. XXXXl and it would be a special honor to study under her guidance with respect to the complex relationships between child and family well-being, on the one hand, and poverty and inequality on the other. Receiving instruction and guidance from Dr. Qin Gao would also help me enormously. I have studied research methods and statistics intensively, enough so far to be confident that this is the area in which I want to make my professional mark. I can think of no better way to become an expert on social policy than by completing XXXX’s Doctoral Program in Social Work.</p>
<p>I was born and raised in a small village in the Xinjang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwestern China. When I was fifteen years old, having done well on an exam, I was uprooted and, with little preparation, sent to the other side of the country to attend a high school in a city in southeast China, as part of a special education program for gifted minority students. The spacious classrooms all contained big-screen computers, and I asked myself why our government didn’t provide similarly large and well-equipped classrooms for my village so I would not have had to leave my family? If we were to have similar classrooms in my village, I would not have had to spend 72 hours – the cost of airfare prohibitive - on a train to go to high school.</p>
<p>I want to dedicated my life to militancy for the right to an adequate and equal education worldwide, especially in China and particularly for my people, the Uyghurs. My burning desire to help my oppressed people led me to earn my Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work while still in China. Next, I came to the USA and earned my MPA Degree at XXXX University. Throughout the course of my MPA studies, especially when I delved into issues of ethnic diversity and economic inequality, I found myself thinking about the children that I had grown up with in my village, most particularly those who dropped out of school because they couldn’t pay the book fee.</p>
<p>My current position, as a Care Coordinator at NYC Health & Hospitals, provides me with the privilege of collaborating daily with residents, representatives of community organizations, students, parents, school staff, unions, and other public and private agencies. At the same time, I participate in the planning, organization, and implementation of programs to increase community participation in our programs. Most of my efforts are geared to the support of low-income families of many different races and ethnicities. I have learned a great deal about how social policies play out on the ground; and I have been able to apply much of the knowledge I acquired and cultivated at CMU. Since I have been at my job, I have participated in a variety of training sessions and programs and have become certified in several areas including Mental Health First Aid. Now, I am still starving for more education and extremely excited about the prospect of studying toward the doctoral degree in Social Work at Columbia. I am convinced that China has much to learn from America, particularly with respect to the great value of student-centered educational systems.</p>
<p>Student-centered pedagogy is needed in China in order to cultivate critical and independent thinking, the foundation of future success at every level, intellectual and cultural as well as economic. I also see this as having great potential for the mitigation of gender inequalities, grounded in the empowerment of girls. I was raised in great part by my grandmother who I was especially close to; she never had a chance to go to school, which grieved her for the rest of her life. My grandma always keeps telling me to keep studying until I got the highest degree, and, in particular, to educate girls because they are discriminated against.</p>
<p>I have been challenged by many obstacles during the course of my pursuit of the optimal education, and each hurdle has left me even more highly motivated than before to earn my PHD in Social Work. Leaving home when I was fifteen years old and returning for only one month each year was terrifying and heart-rending, and detrimental to my academic success. I was fortified by the suffering, however, and became more independent as time wore on. Most importantly, this experience left me hungry to do research in the area of child education and public policies. I witnessed numerous cases of chronic depression among my classmates because they missed their families. At some point, I look forward to publishing on the way in which this burden is especially difficult for children of minority communities like me. The lack of family support for children provokes mental health issues. Personally, I also had a very hard time upon occasion, especially when I got a lower score than I had hoped for some of my classes, and my mom was not there to hug and encourage me.</p>
<p>During my Master’s program, I focused on developing research skills that would help me with policy and administration, assisting several professors by collecting data from the World Bank and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and by searching for relevant scholarly articles. These professors taught me many valuable research methods, including how to analyze data with SPSS software, how to design survey questions, and how to interview participants. To improve my teaching and communication skills, I participated in an eighteen-month teaching assistance program in the Political Science and Public Administration Department, working with Dr. Thomas Greitens, Dr. XXXX and Dr. XXXX. I helped them grade papers, proctor exams, guide class discussions, and hold office hours. I was a teaching assistant for the courses “Nonprofit Management” and “Introduction to Empirical Methods of Political Research.” I also covered a Research Methodology class when my professor went to a conference, teaching the students how to use SPSS to analyze data. Many students came to my office to ask me questions, and I strengthened my ability to convey information clearly through those conversations.</p>
<p>My Master’s Thesis, which necessitated extensive quantitative research, examined motivation and job performance among public service workers, based on data from both the public and private sectors regarding employee injury and illness. I demonstrated that employees in public sectors have a higher risk of getting injured than employees in private sectors. In order to make sure that employees can work safely in public sectors, improved policies for safeguarding their health and safety must be implemented. For my doctorate, I hope to use the skills and knowledge I have gained in both my Master’s program and my current professional position to examine China’s social policies regarding minority children. Over the years, I have visited several regions in China and have witnessed firsthand the vast economic inequalities between different areas, especially between Xinjiang in the northwest, China’s largest administrative region, and other regions of China. Xinjiang lags far behind these other regions in terms of both prosperity and education, despite the fact that it holds vast natural resources. Its population includes forty-seven different minorities, and the Chinese government pays little to no attention to our educational system.</p>
<p>My primary research aims are to assess and find improvements for the democratic governance of Xinjiang and other minority communities in China, with respect to education as well as more generally speaking. Most specifically, I hope to analyze the range of social policies needed to guarantee education for poor children and to decrease economic inequality between cities and villages. Thus far, I have devised a cultural competency plan for my hometown and analyzed its democratic governance. I have also conducted a case analysis on transparency and accountability in public sectors, and I have delved into the literature on democratic governance, seeking more information about policies focusing on child education, family well-being, poverty, and economic inequality.</p>
<p>My short-term goal is use my experience and skillset at XXXX University, and improve my research skills. My long-term goal is become a university professor. Thank you very much for your consideration of my application.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2018-04-19:/entries/2009902MSW Social Work, Alzheimer’s, Armenian2018-04-19T08:37:00-07:002018-04-19T08:50:08-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/429100/546;223;80c7d8a62da6adff3e722d1079681b0aba750016.png" style="float:left">For me the social work profession and its core values all surround the principle of helping the weakest and most vulnerable members of our community. I incorporate these values in my work with the elderly afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease as well as veterans returning from war, in each case helping people to feel that they have attachment to their community. My compassion and warmth is probably the great strength or attribute that I bring to the Social Work profession, along with my unbridled enthusiasm for our field.</p>
<p>Moving to America from our native Armenia when I was 12 years old and building a new life in Los Angeles was a great adjustment which required that I learn many new skills. Knowing almost no English at all upon arrival, school was at first a great challenge to which I quickly adapted. Thus, being accepted to and completing your MSW program at UXX with a focus on Adults and Healthy Aging will be my crowning achievement here in America and make my assimilation and fruition as a professional complete. My adjustment to America began right at the beginning of my adolescent years and the inherent challenges of this period of life. I struggled to adopt Western culture as rapidly as possible, to fit in with the community and especially at my school with the other students. With the help of my family, I was able to achieve my goals and make rapid progress in school and at mastering my English. Thus, I feel strongly that I am a solid candidate for your program so that I can advance professionally into a lifetime of service to the vulnerable who most need my support, especially the elderly.</p>
<p>I am fluent in Armenian and Russian and look forward to using these languages as well as an MSW professional. I want to learn as much as I can by completing your program at UXX about all aspects of social work and the needs of individuals at every life stage, especially adolescents through seniors. After I earn the degree, my goal is to work with the elderly that suffer from dementia and/or as an addiction specialist, crisis counselor, or wellness coach, helping people to learn to better manage stress, assist them with behavior modification and help them to make positive, enduring, and sustainable changes in their lives.</p>
<p>The UXX School of Social Work is my first choice because it is the online leader in Social Work with the most advanced curriculum. I also very much appreciate your emphasis on the importance of creating social change. In addition to my special focus on dementia, me and other family members bhave suffered from the alcohol abuse of my father and grandfather, and I have felt very sad for a long time that I was unable to defend them from this abuse, that I did not have the chance to stand up for them and help them. Drinking in excess is quite accepted generally speaking in Armenian culture; at the same time, women have very limited power and authority in the culture to set rules and boundaries that protect them from abuse. My education towards the cutting-edge of social work in the area of addictions and substance abuse stands as an important tribute to my mother and grandmother as well. Both were of central importance to my social and moral development that provided me with a foundation upon which to build, a cause for which to struggle. My grandmother now has Alzheimer’s disease, resulting in my great professional passion for helping those who suffer from this affliction as well, especially supporting their caregivers.</p>
<p>For more than a year now, I have been volunteering with the TimeOut Program dedicated to supporting individuals with Alzheimer’s. Our goal is to educate people about Alzheimer’s disease so that they can better prepare themselves for facing the effects of this disease in the future. With the number of Americans with Alzheimer’s disease radically increasing, more and more people are succumbing to the memory loss that erases the precious moments of one’s life. A fading memory not only makes individuals lonely and secluded, but also dependent on others to perform daily tasks. Their caretakers have to stay by their side every minute of every day, resulting in physical and emotional fatigue for the caretakers and limited social interaction for the seniors. At TimeOut, I was paired with a senior who has Alzheimer’s and spent time with them three hours every week at the OPICA Adult day Care and Caregiver Support Center. Together, we participated in various activities that helped us to build a strong, lasting relationship. Not only does our program help seniors to overcome their loneliness without any financial cost, but we also provide them with exciting experiences, spend time with them and gave caregivers a break to run errands or just to relax. Meeting every week and sharing stories allowsus to form strong bond with the seniors. The TimeOut Program is just one of the many ways we show support in our community for individuals with Alzheimer’s.</p>
<p>I also worked with veterans who have returned from war at the Wellness Works Program in XXXX. This is an organization through which our community can create, support, and be part of providing a space for veterans to heal from the stress and wounds of military service. As we promote the loving reintegration of veterans back into the surrounding community and honor their service, we strengthen our bonds as a community. Our work is sustained by community investments of time, service and money. I decided to volunteer here so as to have the opportunity of a helping to better integrate veterans who are struggling with many different psychological disorders related to their deployment.</p>
<p>As an undergraduate student, I worked with student government at UXXX helping to meet the needs of students transferring into our school from different community colleges. We offered quarterly information-based workshops to support students’ success towards completing their academic, professional, and personal goals. I provided guidance through accessible and dedicated student leaders, partnering with a variety of UXXX departments to facilitate student transfers. I helped to increase the visibility of our services and worked with a broad variety of social and academic groups.</p>
<p>It has been a special privilege to use my Russian language skills while serving with Wellness Works, helping Russian-American veterans and their families in particular to provide a solid support base for the returning soldier for his or her transition to civilian life. Working in support of the intake coordinators we help workshops concerning family therapy/counseling and trauma resiliency training. I led a Russian-speaking group. I also assisted with acupuncture, cranial sacral therapy, and self-empowerment/wellness exercises.</p>
<p>I am now completing my Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the University of XXXX, Los Angeles and have done so in only two years by studying year-round. At the center of my world stand clinical practice and policy, substance abuse and recovery, behavioral health care, and especially the mental health care of the elderly members of our community. I served on the board of a non-profit organization at UXXX called,<em> The Youth Movement Against Alzheimer’s</em>; we promoted awareness and understanding of Alzheimer’s Disease by providing high school and college-age students with opportunities for volunteering, becoming involved in clinical research, and fundraising, with the ultimate goal of spreading compassion and empathy for the elderly. I have also volunteered at homeless shelters.</p>
<p>My greatest contribution as a social worker will probably be helping the increasing number of Americans with Alzheimer’s, more and more people are succumbing to the memory loss that erases the precious moments of one’s life. A fading memory not only makes individuals lonely and secluded, but also dependent on others to perform daily tasks. Their caretakers have to stay by their side every minute of every day, resulting in physical and emotional fatigue for the caretakers and limited social interaction for the seniors. Working with the TimeOut Program, I was paired with a senior who has Alzheimer’s and spent time with them three hours every week at the XXXX Adult Day Care and Caregiver Support Center. We participated in various activities to enjoy ourselves and build strong, lasting relationships. Not only does this help the seniors overcome their loneliness without any charge, but it also provided me an amazing experience to spend time with them and gave caregivers a break to run other errands or just to relax. Meeting every week and sharing stories allowed us to form strong bond with the seniors. The TimeOut Program is just one of the many ways we show support for individuals with Alzheimer’s.</p>
<p>My hobbies include: meditation, fitness training, running, and reading books with emphasis on human behavior and change, all of which will help me to become the finest MSW professional possible.</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to Social Work at UXX.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2018-01-19:/entries/1991809MSW, Domestic Violence, Women's Issues2018-01-19T02:33:00-08:002018-01-19T02:39:49-08:00<p><img alt="" class="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/414401/275;183;4dbde6da109802b9a61ef4c457286eca7a927e04.jpg" style="float:left; height:242px; width:364px">I hope to be accepted into the Masters of Social Work in Mental Health online program at the University of XXXX so that I might have the privilege of spending my professional life caring for women and children in need. I look forward to an intense immersion experience at UXX studying the full gambit of social work issues: particularly domestic violence, pregnant women - especially teens - and the broad variety of special mental health issues that they face.</p>
<p>I look forward to a professional lifetime as a licensed social worker, providing help, counseling, and a safe environment for victims of domestic violence, pregnant women, and new mothers that are in need of the support of our community. In addition to the sheer excellence of your MSW Program at UXX, I appreciate the fact that is online since I need and want very much to continue to work and study at the same time. I have now almost completed all of my undergraduate studies online and I know that this is something that I can do. I have been managing school, work, and volunteering many hours of my time while maintaining a GPA of 3.7. I do plan to begin studying part time for the first year and then transition to full time in my second year, another option that I very much appreciate about the program at UXX.</p>
<p>For me Social Work practice will entail providing a safe haven and a helping hand to children of alcoholic families – somewhere for them to turn for support and guidance – usually along with their mother. The facility or institution where I will engage and make my mark as an MSW professional will have prenatal classes, postpartum interventions, and 24/7 care for women in need. I am particularly concerned with the way in which pregnant women of lower-income groups are underserved by our mental health resources, since many tend not to seek help for their psychological symptoms out of fear of the system and possible repercussions. Women who do not seek help and experience emotional and behavioral problems will in turn affect the mental health of their children, even for many years to come. I have seen how vulnerable women are during and after birth to a range of emotional health problems so I want to create better follow up care for these women after they leave the hospital. I want women to have the resources without feeling scared or worried that the system might take their children away. I very much look forward to getting licensed to council and eventually getting my PHD as well. I love learning and helping people and I feel strongly that mental health is an area where more people are needed who have a dedicated heart and a wiliness to work very hard to make a difference.</p>
<p>If I were accepted into your MSW Program at UXX, I will have the opportunity to acquire the tools and resources to make very significant improvements in the lives of many people who suffer. I want to be that critical voice for so many children who have little or no say in the outcome of their future. I told a doctor last week that I wanted to get into the MSW program at UXX and he asked me “why, they don’t make any money and they work so hard?” That does not matter to me, however, because this is what I love. I spend much of my free time watching TED talks, listening to influential speakers on education, science, and creativity. I want to engage in social change and improve the world we live in. I can relate to those who are in the system and I want the opportunity to share my gifts with those in need. My mother and father divorced and it only took a few years for my mother to lose everything; soon we were living in a shelter. I am concerned by the fact that far too many children grow up in a home of alcoholic parents and they never receive the attention they need. I want to know at the end of the day, each and every day for the balance of my life, that I did something that had meaning. I could never be satisfied with a high paying job that gave me no purpose. Social work feeds my soul.</p>
<p>I strongly believe happiness comes from being in the service of others; when I am helping other people, I feel the most alive. When I am in the hospital for nearly 30 hours straight helping a women fight through the pain of labor, I know I am a part of something beautiful. But labor is only half the battle. Once the mom gets home she has a whole plate of new challenges awaiting her. I want to build long term relationships with families, make them feel that I am their friend and do everything that I can to support them. I have antennas for spotting the signs of alcohol neglect or abuse. But I also know that the solution is not the same for everyone and finding the right solution does not always mean simply following a protocol.</p>
<p>I could count the number of days my mother was sober in any given month on one hand while I was growing up. Lucky for us both I still have five fingers. My early experiences as a child are what have motivated me over the years to become someone with a purpose and be that significant figure in the lives of others who are confronted with similar, devastating life circumstances. I strongly believe that each and every one of us is put on this earth for a reason and the things that happen in our lives are in some way destined to be. Every single being has the power for greatness within them because we all possess a special gift that is meant to be shared with the world. Neither of my parents attended college; nor did they ever talk to me about going. Soon after turning eighteen I packed up my little red Honda and moved all on my own from my hometown, Spokane, WA to Los Angeles. This was the beginning of my journey in self-discovery. Moving away from home and living on my own has taught me so many valuable life lessons that I can use to help other people. I now see my childhood as a gift that has guided me to find my own strength and determination to discover my own place in the world. School has kept me focused and I have always made it my first priority. </p>
<p>While I was working as a medical assistant for three years I loved knowing that I was helping people. At the same time, I realized the patient’s physical health was only part of the whole picture, I wanted to do more. It soon became clear that I was fascinated with understanding how the mind controlled every aspect of our lives. I was increasingly interested in the mental aspects of healing the body and mind. While doing research on many topics in my psychology classes I realized just how many children under the age of 18 are on psychostimulants and/or other medications for behavioral problems and the numbers disturbed me greatly.</p>
<p>I currently volunteer at the XXXX hospital in XXXX as a doula. So I have seen how important it is to have that psychological support during pregnancy. I choose certain shift days that run for a 12’hour period generally speaking but if I go in I am with the mom until she has the baby. I do not leave for any reason other than restroom and snack breaks, providing continuous labor support for an empowering birth experience which I find enormously inspiring. When I look a mom in her eyes to tell her she can do this, I am here for her until this baby comes, she feels safe and supported and at the same time this gives my life meaning and value knowing I can be there for her during this most important time in her life. Many women come into the hospital experiencing psychosocial issues such as anxiety, depression, and other mental disorders. I want to learn the skills that will allow me to give these women the best care possible. My heart is here to serve all women, children, and fathers from every population, if I had the training and expertise being taught through UXX’s Social Work program, I could impact the world much more. What draws me into social work is the fact that I will have the ability to get to the root of many social problems and find solutions in the system to better address families in the community.</p>
<p>As a social worker I will be able to assist underprivileged youth and help families overcome what is preventing them from living happy meaningful lives. Anger stems from deep emotional, unresolved issues so if parents have never taken the time to heal these wounds the children suffer too. Adding a busy work schedule or unemployment burdens can create a lot of unintended consequences. I want to be able to give families and children the tools they need to help them be who they were meant to be.</p>
<p>I am most animated and engaged with women’s health issues, before, during, and following their pregnancies, paying a lot of attention to the growing amount of data suggesting that women frequently suffer a variety of emotional issues that can have long term effects on the child. I also study the role of community mental health clinics in the well-being of women. I am saddened that my country, the United States, does not mandate maternity leave as is done in other wealthy countries and I want to join in the struggle to change this.</p>
<p>Long fascinated by diversity and hungry for constant multicultural experience, while I confess that I am still a beginner, I am working hard at my Spanish and I hope to be approaching an intermediate level at least by the time I graduate with my MSW at UXX. Nothing interests me more than the way in which many minority women, Latinas in particular, have a much harder time seeking help for anxiety or depression after childbirth because of the fear of what child services will do. Stigmas continue, especially in Latino communities, and particularly for those who do not have immigration papers since they fear deportation.</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to the finest MSW program in the world at UXX.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2018-01-19:/entries/1991798Military Social Work MSW, Marine Corp2018-01-19T01:48:00-08:002019-07-18T11:59:19-07:00<p><img alt="" class="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/414396/618;250;9e4cdffe1512d281682e43ce5980158fe3124ed4.jpg" style="float:left; height:196px; width:485px">The University of XXXX is my first choice to earn the MSW Degree for several reasons, most of all your focus on military social work, my chosen career path, especially helping veterans with PTSD. Currently a full-time student at the University of Utah, I will be graduating with my BS in Health Promotion and Education this coming August of 2016 - with an emphasis on Emergency Medical Services and Wilderness First Response. I have a cumulative GPA of 3.8 and have been on the Dean’s List every semester.</p>
<p>I spent 8 years in the United States Marine Corps, 3 in the reserves and 5 active, assuming many leadership roles, serving as a mentor and role model, traveling the world, risking my life, and coming close to death myself on several occasions. I have extensive experience working as an Emergency Room Technician and National Ski Patrol Outdoor Emergency Care First Responder, in addition to my military experience and later working in Presidential Security, fulfilling leadership roles in the protection of the President of the United States, in the White House and abroad. I was fortunate to help mold and influence many young Marines, proving my ability as an adaptive leader and someone who I would like to think has with an innate capacity for caring and compassion</p>
<p>From December of 2010 through July of 2012, I served as a Supervisor of Presidential Security and Support for the White House in Washington D.C., coordinating work assignments, evaluating performance, and mentoring teams assigned to a broad range of activities involved in the protection of the President of the United States not only in the White House but during travel abroad as well, coordinating plans of action with the White House Military Office.</p>
<p>While working in Presidential Security, I was not fully aware that I suffered from PTSD. That position is so sensitive that I did not see it as the right time for me to explore my own mental health challenges. Since that position ended in July of 2012, however, and I have been a full time student, I have had the opportunity to do some healing, to explore my own condition; and, for the most part, to overcome it. As a result of the security clearance that I held until only recently, I am legally prohibited from disclosing information about my deployments and activities outside of the United States; but I did visit and spend time in combat zones on several occasions throughout the course of my period of active duty with the United States Marine Corp.</p>
<p>My original intention when I choose my undergraduate major was to become a Physician Assistant. My goal has changed, however, largely as result of my own successful sojourn in learning how to deal effectively with my own PTSD. Now, I want to dedicate myself to a lifetime of healing, helping returning veterans to cope with their experiences and the all-too-frequently difficult challenges of reinsertion into civilian society. I want to help minimize the damage to their families as well.</p>
<p>At the center of my world stands the prevention of veteran suicide. Once I earn the MSW from UXX, I will be well positioned in light of my previous experience to assume leadership roles in this great struggle. Nothing seems worse to me than the situation that we find ourselves in today, with many more veterans taking their own life than those falling in combat. Something must be done and, as a soldier, I stand up and volunteer for active duty again, this time preventing suicides. This will be the true battle of my life, a war in which I plan to engage for the next half century or so.</p>
<p>I am an individual who has taken an interest in and dealt successfully with mental health issues throughout the course of my entire lifetime friends, family and myself, as well as my colleagues in the military. I count myself fortunate to know exactly how it feels and how difficult it can be to suffer from mental illness. Whether it's a family member, a colleague, friend or oneself, I have learned first-hand and up close the barriers to and difficulties associate with seeking help, navigating complex social, structural, and organizational systems that often prevent people who need help from finding it.</p>
<p>When I reached out to the VA, I was quickly reminded of the hurry up and wait mentality that I saw so much of in the military. I felt like once again I was a number not a person. I was forced to jump through endless hoops and when I finally got somewhere, I was placed in group counseling that was more of a gripe session than therapy. The treatment I received at the VA was without a doubt worse than I could have possibly imagined prior to seeking help. The "therapists" seemed uninterested, distracted, even inconvenienced by what they were doing. </p>
<p>As a social worker, I hope to address the often overlooked and all-too-frequently stigmatized mental health issues that plague our veterans, who come from all ethnic groups and walks of life. As a sufferer of PTSD, it took me years of getting prescribed medication after medication, all of little-to-no benefit; all while suffering with the many very unpleasant side effects. In desperation, I decided to seek help from a counselor. This decision was the pivotal turning point in my life and the reason why I am so dedicated to becoming a social work professional.</p>
<p>The individual was a LCSW, and, after only a couple of sessions, I began to see a faint light at the end of the tunnel--something I was afraid I would never see again. Instead of prescribing medications to mask my symptoms, my counselor helped me to understand the roots of my problems. She taught me skills and helped me recognize and accept my issues that I had until then refused to believe were my own. During my time with this LCSW, I began to appreciate more and more the extremely critical role that she played. I began thinking more and more about how important this was not only for me but for my colleagues in the military and veterans in particular, who I knew were continuing to suffer. I pondered this with such frequency that I soon made the decision to pursue a career in social work myself.</p>
<p>The more I learn about mental illness and how it is or has been dealt with, the more I become convinced that we live in an era of over-utilization of medication – psychotropic medication in particular – which I tend to see as more of a band aid than a solution since medication fails to address the root cause of many problems. In addition to this issue, I also look forward to an exhaustive exposure to the study of how mental health, and seeking help for mental health challenges, have been stigmatized to the point that many, like myself, simply refused to recognize the problem, or put off asking for help, continuing to suffer in the silence of anonymity, which can be truly frightening, often leading to suicide.</p>
<p>I want to save lives and help turn nightmares into livable realities. Every day when I look at myself in the mirror I want to see myself smiling about the difference I have made in the lives of veterans returning home and rebuilding their lives, in the lives of their families, especially their children.</p>
<p>In fact, I have had a very keen interest in mental health policy in the United States for some time, much of this having to do with the fact that my brother is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. Since his struggle began, I have suffered with him the bureaucratic red tape. Instead of receiving the help he needs, he is generally seen as an outcast and burden to society. Mental health problems plague so many in our country, and gaining the skills to help identify and treat these problems has become my central goal in life, in honor of my country, my comrades in arms, and my brother.</p>
<p>I have studied Health Promotion and Education with an emphasis in Emergency Medical Services and Wilderness Remote Rescue as an undergraduate student because I intended to study medicine and become a Physician Assistant. I believed this path would allow me to do what I love the most, helping those in need. As time passed, however, and I have gained increasing knowledge and experience of medicine, I have come to the realization that medicine is not the way that I want to devote my life to helping my fellowman. For my part, I want to address the underlying issues that give rise to mental health issues, particularly PTSD.</p>
<p>I am sensitive to the fact that I am a white man who wants to provide focused and individual attention to all of our veterans, with a special focus on minority groups, Latinos in particular. My Spanish is improving rapidly and I use it at every opportunity. I see this as immensely important and look forward in the future to providing bilingual therapy to our Latino soldiers who are most comfortable speaking Spanish.</p>
<p>Among a broad variety of volunteer efforts that I have been engaged, one stands as a watershed experience that provided me with great direction, an acute sense of purpose, and great joy to be alive and to have a mission. This was my work with Project Healing Waters where I served as a Vet Mentor/Advocate, helping with the physical and emotional rehabilitation of combat wounded military personnel and vets – mainly through fly fishing activities. My focus was socialization and camaraderie within groups.</p>
<p>My long term objectives are to continuing to learn in order to gain the skills necessary to make as great a difference as I can. I see myself working in a clinical setting, hopefully for the VA, helping treat our service members who struggle with the effects of war, helping them to reintegrate into the civilian world. I also hope to continue to work with programs aimed at getting Vets involved and teaching them skills to help overcome the effects of PTSD.</p>
<p>I hope to publish in the future on the subject of PTSD. </p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to UXX.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2018-01-03:/entries/1989572DSW, Armed Forces Issues, Cancer Survivor2018-01-03T09:31:00-08:002018-01-03T09:41:19-08:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/412298/405;228;5079da8845b92c218532f0cc89f499a7792478f3.jpg" style="float:left">XXXX University is my first choice among graduate programs for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the University of XXXX has become well established as a world leader in the Social Work area, as well as being one of the leading forces in the development of online education, especially in the area of Social Work. Finally, I earned my MSW Degree at UXX and I feel at home there, and very much inspired by the Social Work faculty in your program.</p>
<p>I have a wonderful husband who has long been a central force in my life, my best friend and soul mate, for decades we have shared everything. In addition to being a very sensitive and inspiring man who is well read and engaged with social issues, my husband is also a disabled veteran who served in the US military for more than 20 years. His journey in the Armed Forces has been my journey as well in many ways, listening to his stories over the years, I became increasingly engaged myself in Armed Forces issues, especially from the perspective of my own chosen field, Social Work. This is yet another reason why I feel strongly that UXX is the optimal location for me to earn the DSW Degree in Social Work, because of your leadership role in the area of military social work. My central interest is in the area of sexual assault in the military, why it occurs, what can be done to prevent it, and most of all how to adequately support the victims. This was also my area of greatest focus and engagement as an MSW student at UXX and I look forward to continuing to study basically where I left off, continuing to build a lifetime specialty primarily in the area of sexual assault in the military. I find myself overwhelmingly attracted to the state-of-the-art character of Social Work at the University of XXXX, video instruction, participation in veteran conferences and the presence of outreach programs to military sexual trauma (survivors). Earning the DSW in this area will prepare me for decades of additional work to come serving as an advocate, helping survivors to find justice and peace in their lives, and to recover to the fullest extent possible.</p>
<p>For more than a year, I have been employed as a Social Worker providing direct medical case management services to individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS. In this capacity I have learned a great deal about families in crisis, individuals and families most of whom have had very hard lives with their children often at risk of suffering from the bad choices that have all too often been made by their parents. I have continued to learn more and more about sexuality and identity, perhaps especially sexual issues in minority communities, since many if not most of my clients are members of historically marginalized groups, African-Americans and Latinos in particular. I have also become a master of processing paperwork: intake, assessments, service plan development and implementation, referral and resource development. I also maintain patient EMR documentation in AIDS Regional Information and Evaluation System (ARIES) and Sunrise, documenting emotional reactions and through various stages of the disease process.</p>
<p>I aspire to become a Social Work administrator. I seek professional advancement and I feel strongly that I have the right talent, passion, dedication, and skills to excel as a DSW professional. As a military spouse of over 20 years, I have reveled in the opportunity and variety inherent to military life; I have increasingly come to appreciate the way that military culture and experience come with unique demands and challenges. I am a strong, independent, and resilient woman, with an optimistic, out-going personality, and I have gained much from the diversity and challenge I encountered as a military spouse.</p>
<p>At the age of 26 I was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and I was pregnant at that time. However, I am a person of courage, perseverance, and great personal strength, and I continued undeterred to deliver a healthy, robust, and beautiful son. Although I was to discover later that I had been misdiagnosed, I felt no anger or rancor when I received this news. Rather, I viewed this life experience as a unique opportunity to learn and grow in deeply personal and reflective ways. Forgiveness and gratitude come easily to me, whereas blame and retribution do not. These are the attitudes and life lessons I bring to a future in social work, along with a substantial degree of empathy and compassion for the failures, inadequacies, and struggles encountered by others.</p>
<p>A number of life experiences led me to select social work as a future career. Perhaps the most deeply moving and motivational of these experiences was my volunteer work with the San Antonio Rape Crisis Center. I worked as a victim advocate at this center for five months in 2006, meeting with rape survivors at local hospitals, assisting with the gathering and recording of details of alleged attacks, and ensuring that survivors receive appropriate support and counseling in the ensuing months. This work was at once tragic and rewarding. Although many of these women were angry, alienated, and afraid, I discovered that I had an innate ability to interact in trusting and open ways with them. It was then that I knew with certainty that my future lay in the care and service of those most vulnerable or defeated among us, and it was then that I determined I would one day pursue the DSW Degree, becoming a Social Work leader so as to make my maximum contribution to my society in this way. The following year I volunteered at the San Antonio Food Bank, where I organized and packed food supplies. There, I encountered a number of displaced survivors of Hurricane Katrina, many of whom were homeless, destitute, and emotionally distraught. I was once again overwhelmed not only by an intense drive to assist and support those in need, working across socio-cultural barriers and forming meaningful bonds with my clients. As a military spouse I have enjoyed not only exposure to varied geographical locations in Europe and the U.S., but also contact with a wide range of people of diverse ethnicities and socio-cultural backgrounds. I abhor prejudice and embrace inclusion. I believe two of the greatest strengths that I hope to bring to your DSW Program at UXX are my tolerance and respect of human diversity and my ability to communicate well with people from all backgrounds and walks of life.</p>
<p>My two-year experience as a substitute teacher at the XXXX School in XXXX also strengthened my commitment to a future in Social work. It was during these two years that I grew to understand, in concrete and palpable ways, the pain and isolation endured by children whose appearance, mental impairment, or social maladjustment results in their becoming objects of derision or exclusion. One child in particular springs to mind. He was autistic, socially inept, and frequently bullied. I worked hard both to address and redirect the bullying behavior, and to promote a mutually supportive, tolerant, and inclusive learning environment. I learned then that I have a natural penchant for the design and management of group-therapy interventions designed to promote collaborative, team-oriented, and socially cohesive communities.</p>
<p>I am deeply concerned with and engaged in the issues of mental illness that are related to military life, especially PTSD. Veteran suicide rates have skyrocketed in recent years, and the correlation between incidents of domestic violence and perpetrators’ involvement in overseas conflict is now well documented. The problem continues to get worse as new waves of veterans return from ongoing combat engagements overseas. I find it deeply disturbing that veterans are more than twice as likely as members of the general population to commit suicide. I look forward to addressing these issues not only in clinical, hands-on practice, but also as a researcher. Ultimately, I hope that such research may bring this issue into the full light of public scrutiny, with a view to pressuring state and federal governmental agencies to implement policies designed to support mentally ill veterans in tangible and truly empathic ways.</p>
<p>Veterans suffering from PTSD are two to three times more likely than the general population to engage in acts of domestic violence. However, interventions designed to address domestic violence differ considerably from those designed to treat PTSD. I am interested in social work that seeks to combine these two approaches in one highly specified, multi-organizational, and community-based approach. I am also dedicated to clinical practice that is firmly grounded in evidence-based psychological treatments as equally as it is focused in domestic-violence rehabilitation programs. I envisage such work as coordinated by the collaborative efforts of multiple care providers, including law enforcement officers, judicial-system personnel, community activists, school counselors, and social workers.</p>
<p>Finally, I see drug addiction and substance abuse among veterans as part of the overall problem of military-personnel mental illness. Veterans diagnosed with PTSD report hallucinations, psychosis, and severe social alienation when such drugs are heavily imbibed or over prescribed. I feel strongly that medication and sedation are not the solutions to the pain and terror of PTSD. Rather, I want to help veterans by providing empirically based psychological therapy and ongoing care and counseling.</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to the most comprehensive DSW program in the world: UXX. </p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2017-12-26:/entries/1988796MSW, Military Social Work, Latino2017-12-26T03:52:00-08:002017-12-26T04:48:18-08:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/411302/398;271;ac65bf24c57d1e72e3f3b5898eed2289bb3c56fa.jpg" style="float:left">My understanding of the social work profession and its core values, at least the part on which I focus, is helping the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society to cope, surmount challenges, and overcome diversity in sustainable ways that build bridges to healthier social interactions and lifestyles. My own principal focus is on the military and I am applying to the University of XXXX to earn my MSW primarily because of your well-developed specialty in Social Work; and the fact that you are a well established leader in the area of social work education online.</p>
<p>The social work profession to me is a very professional and respectable profession. Social workers assist people on everyday life issues that people need assistance or can’t cope with. Many people turn to social workers for diagnosis or treatment. The core values of social work to me are selfless service, integrity, and competence. Throughout my military and law enforcement career, I have lived those core values. I have placed my life in danger so that the people who cannot adequately defend themselves or protect their own interests.</p>
<p>I see a vast continuity between my military service on the one hand, and my goals in social work on the other, both as an MSW student at UXX and beyond as a Social Work professional gradually assuming increasingly levels of responsibility after having an opportunity to prove myself in the years that follow my graduate education. My self-understanding as a soldier, the role to which I have always aspired in the military has been that of a champion of the weak and vulnerable, those unable to adequately defend or care for themselves. And this is very similar to the understanding of self that I have in mind for my future in social work. It is the nature of the need itself that inspires and defines the mission.</p>
<p>Both an Iraq veteran and a Police Officer patrolling an urban area with higher- than-average concentrations of homeless people, I have become increasingly concerned for the well-being of our mentally ill population in general, and our mentally ill homeless veterans on the other. In Law Enforcement, I have dealt with many people suffering from one or more mental illness. As a police officer, I have personally taken scores of mentally ill people to a hospital. Often, I see the person out on the street the next day; and I am concerned that little to nothing is being done to provide care and assistance for this individual who is in desperate need of help.</p>
<p>The fact that this need tends to have a very heavy focus among our veteran population underscores the urgency of the issue and its importance for our very understanding of who we are as a society, if we are unable to care for those who put their lives on the line for our common security. It pains me deeply to see these needy people simply turned out the door with little to no help at all. After having returned home from military service, they are not provided with the resources that are necessary for them to cope and heal from the wounds of war. The plight of our homeless veterans is as much an economic as a political issue, and I look forward to a long lifetime of advocacy and in fact militancy on behalf of our homeless, mentally ill veterans who need our support.</p>
<p>Frankly, I feel strongly that our system fails many if not most of our mentally ill veterans and I want to devote the balance of my life to social work with an active engagement in the area of homeless veterans. One central problem is the fact that there are simply not enough social workers to conduct follow up appointment to make sure the patients are taking their medication or are receiving treatment. I try to go that extra mile in my law enforcement profession as frequently as possible to stay in touch with mentally ill veterans and to check up to see if they are making their mental health appointments, even though this is not, strictly speaking, part of my job description. The reality is that I am a police officer who wants very much to achieve a successful career change to social work. I see PTSD as especially debilitating for veterans and I hope to develop a lifetime focus in this area as a social worker as well, staying abreast and hopefully someday contributing to the literature about PTSD and homelessness.</p>
<p>My professional record speaks to my lifetime ethic of public service. As I have matured as a professional, especially these last few years as a police officer, I have come to see with ever greater clarity, to feel in my heart a calling, a vocation, and a mission on behalf of the mentally ill; not as a psychologist but as a social worker.</p>
<p>A veteran of combat scenarios myself, I understand PTSD through up close and sustained contact with those afflicted and I can relate to soldiers who return from combat action. I too know what it is like to put in one’s time in a place like Iraq, as an infantryman, with explosive devices blowing off limbs all around me and a sense of moral quandary dogged by unavoidable scrutiny of the question of why we were even in Iraq.</p>
<p>I learned a lot about diversity, sacrifice, discipline, and opportunity as a result of spending 12 years in the California Army National Guard which included a lengthy deployment to Iraq as an infantry sergeant. My experience in Iraq will always be with me; and I consider myself fortunate to not have suffered personally from the acute mental health symptoms that have been manifest in so many of my peers, and many of my own comrades, following our re-insertion into civilian life.</p>
<p>My undergraduate studies in the area of Criminal Justice Management will also be very helpful at propelling me forward to become a highly effective social worker and advocate for my clients, all too many of whom have long histories of interaction with law enforcement, in and out of jail, always living on the cusp of freedom. What I find most singularly important is the way in which the USC School of Social Work is dedicated to providing excellence in graduate education for people who are destined to serve on the front lines of progressive social change.</p>
<p>My special interests lie in the cross-over between mental health issues on the one hand, and social problems on the other, especially as concerns our veterans. Challenges related to alcoholism and substance abuse, perhaps especially illegal drugs, also tend to be way over represented among our veterans, and this continues to be the case as they age. There will be soldiers, marines, seamen, and airmen who suffer from PTSD in our foreseeable future, as a result of combat experiences overseas. The complex relationship between drug abuse and military service stands at the core of the area in which I seek to excel as an MSW student at UXX.</p>
<p>I also fully intend to continue and even cultivate my ties with the law enforcement community as a social work professional; serving as a Reserve Police Officer so that I can dedicate myself full time to social work. I feel strongly that this crossover of a law enforcement professional to a career in social work is healthy in several important ways, helping to foster and encourage a dialogue between law enforcement and social work characterized by a sharing of concerns and brainstorming together with respect to solutions to common problems.</p>
<p>I feel that I am an especially good fit for the UXX School of Social Work because of my military experience and my special concern for homeless veterans. Pursuing the MSW online will enable me to continue in my present position as a police officer at the same time that I make progress towards earning my MSW. Thus, I will be able to provide for my family financially and pursue my education in social work at the same time.</p>
<p>Finally, America in general and California in particular are rapidly becoming fully bilingual polities. Thus, since my father is from Panama and my mother from Peru, I feel that I have much to contribute in terms of diversity towards caring for and honoring our veterans who gave so much and suffer as a result of their sacrifice. I could not feel more strongly that we owe them more and I want to serve in this struggle to care for and honor my fellow soldiers who have served, and those that will continue to serve in the wars of tomorrow, for the balance of my professional lifetime.</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2017-12-26:/entries/1988795MSW, Jewish, New York City2017-12-26T03:44:00-08:002017-12-26T03:50:38-08:00<p><img alt="" class="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/411297/238;211;08e9f3b41ef63b9dbe26574777eef5f87884b3a6.jpg" style="float:left; height:253px; width:287px">A woman from Israel who very much loves and admires New York City for a host of reasons, XXXX University is my first choice for earning my MSW Degree. I deeply admire XXXX as the oldest and finest Jewish University in the city and very much long to become part of your academic community.</p>
<p>I seek a full immersion in social work foundations, theory, and practice in a very rigorous program such as your MSW Program at XXXX and I hope to excel especially in my area of special interest: everything having to do with childhood trauma from a multi-disciplinary perspective. I was myself abandoned by my mother as a child and went through my own trauma and my own recovery period - and have been fully whole for some time. Frankly, I have completely moved on from my own experience of trauma and no longer dwell on it. Rather, I fill my life and spend my energy in a search to better understand how and why childhood abuse and trauma occur, so as to be able to devote the balance of my professional lifetime working to prevent it to the extent to which it is possible to do so, and laboring to help the victims heal when it cannot be prevented.</p>
<p>Another reason why I feel that I am a good fit with an MSW program in NYC is the way in which NYC was the victim of a horrific terrorist attack that left the entire city traumatized to a certain extent. NYC is an excellent place to study trauma generally speaking; and the trauma that results from terrorist attack in particular. As an Israeli, and someone who looks forward to a long lifetime caring for the vulnerable and those who are victims in my own country, Israel, I am concerned for the safety of our people, especially our children, since we too are frequently victims of terrorist attack with rockets falling indiscriminately on schools as well as hospitals, and apartment buildings as well as vacant lots. Israeli children are subjected to traumatic circumstances for the same reasons as children around the world, in addition to political violence and terrorism, all of which I want to study in depth.</p>
<p>I originally started out my career in hi-tech, working in the computer world. After almost 8 years I came to feel less and less fulfilled and I quit my job and began to study towards my BSW, beginning a rich process of self-discovery and the appreciation of counseling as a most rewarding journey. I have found that most people come to counseling because they want to be happier and counseling becomes an exploration of what is getting in the way of happiness. I am extremely excited about the way that these factors which interfere with and prevent us from being happy can be successfully dealt with through counseling so that the individual is able to achieve much higher levels of fulfillment and satisfaction in life through the exercise of self judgment, removing over time the obstacles to happiness.</p>
<p>I find myself very much drawn to a client-centered philosophy and a counseling environment where an alliance is developed that facilitates personal growth. I have always been intrigued by psychological issues, and have done a great deal of reading in this area for many years, increasingly about childhood issues. My ultimate goal is to become part of a group private practice providing psychotherapy to clients as a social worker.</p>
<p>I am currently taking a course for certification as a sexual abuse therapist here in Israel. Thus, I am already developing a solid foundation in the way in which sexual abuse affects family and interpersonal relationships resulting in emotional and behavioral disorders, acting out, sometimes even suicide. I look forward to learning as much as I can at Yeshivah concerning eating disorders, self-harm, addiction, prostitution, re-traumatization, vicarious traumatization, and transference/counter transference as therapeutic tools.</p>
<p>Whilst working in a detox center, I cared for a 15-year-old Ethiopian client who had moved to Israel at a very young age. Her parents divorced and her mother died. She was brought up by her grandmother and until recently thought her to be her mother. She had very limited contact with her father who remarried and had another family. She was very suspicious of the social services and of social workers in general. In the past they would put her into institutions and boarding schools against her will and take her away from her grandmother. While I did enjoy some success at helping this client, I realized after the fact that I could have I learned more about social interactions in Ethiopian culture because the way they interact with one another is very different than in Western cultures such as Israel. I could have learned that they don’t trust outsiders and there are a lot of secrets kept within the family and from one another within the family. I could have read up concerning keeping secrets in Ethiopian culture. The way in which this girl continues to pop into my mind speaks to my profound hunger for learning to think about social work issues in multicultural ways so as to be able to provide more effective and targeted, culturally appropriate services, especially as a social worker in such diverse locations as New York City and Israel.</p>
<p>I thank you for your consideration of my application to XXXX.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2017-09-20:/entries/1944087MSW, Addictions, Loss of Family in Death2017-09-20T05:10:00-07:002017-09-20T05:16:56-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/396299/396;260;a9326771f78ff78ddcd8b7ce42cb921ffac4a45a.jpg" style="float:left"><strong>Why Social Work:</strong> I lost my husband unexpectedly 3 years ago when I was 3 months pregnant; he was 36 years old. In a horrific turn of events, my mother passed away exactly one month later. I was left terrified and alone. These events radically changed the course of my life. I remember thinking while driving up to Massachusetts to spend the Christmas holiday with my husband’s family how truly wonderful life was and how blessed I felt. I was crazy about him and finally pregnant. Not long after our arrival, my husband was upstairs resting from the drive while I was showing my in-laws the amazing sonogram pictures of their first grandchild taken the day before. When I went upstairs to wake him up for dinner, I found him dead - apparently from a complex condition that we knew nothing about.</p>
<p>My old life died with my husband that day. Now a widow and a few months later a single mom, I stayed with my parents for a while after my husband passed away as I was not able to go back to the house that I shared with him. I crawled in bed with my mom and stayed there in complete disbelief and excruciating heartache for days until she fell ill. She stopped caring for me and I started caring for her, as she became sicker and sicker with each passing day. Mom had a history of heart failure and refusal to go to the doctor because she did not want to be hospitalized. When she became sick with the flu, she passed away in her sleep.</p>
<p>I spent the remainder of my pregnancy in a severe depression and unbelievable pain. My belly grew bigger and I was absolutely terrified of being a mother alone with no one to help me or even share the experience. From that point on, I slowly, gradually, sought inner strength and peace within me, healing, growing, maturing and reaching out in new directions in search of understanding and spiritual growth. I have made enormous progress. My losses have prepared me to help others who have lost, those struggling to recover from personal tragedy, especially the loss of loved ones. Most importantly, perhaps, I feel confident that I have much to give to the Social Work profession in terms of coming to a better understanding of the relationship between trauma and loss, on the one hand, and substance abuse and addictions on the other. My familiarity with this area is reinforced by the fact that my family members have addiction problems – with the exception of my mother who is no longer with me.</p>
<p><strong>Why Now/Expectations:</strong> As a result of my own great personal loss, I have increasingly come to appreciate how life can change in a moment, the blink of an eye. I have known great hardship and tragedy and that is what drives me to a career in Social Work. My special interest in preparing myself for cutting-edge practice in the area of recovery from addiction has also been inspired for some time now by my father, brother, and sister who all suffer from addiction to pain killers.</p>
<p>In my search for answers, I have read a great deal about addiction, trauma, healing, and recovery and I hope to have the privilege of counseling those who suffer from trauma and/or addictions in the future as an MSW professional. I feel strongly that this is the right time for me to go to graduate school to prepare myself for making my maximum social contribution and I have my heart set on XXU not only because of the sheer excellence of your program and my profound respect for your mission and direction, but also the vast social resources of New York City. I crave a full immersion experience in diversity and exposure to and wrestling with issues of inequality and social justice; thus, XXU and NYC are perfect, particularly with respect to field practice opportunities in addictions counseling.</p>
<p>I have also been inspired by my current volunteer position at the XXXX Addiction Treatment Center, working with individuals who are currently living with addiction. I have watched people walk in off the street, terrified, isolated, and completely frustrated with their disease and what it has taken from their lives. It has been a great experience for me to welcome these people in with open arms and a welcoming smile. XXXX is a safe, warm environment for people struggling from addiction. </p>
<p>Despite the fact that my career heretofore has been in the area of business and marketing, I now hope to be admitted to study towards a Masters of Social Work at XXXX University so that I can achieve the ultimate preparation for a new career as an addictions counselor, helping people to free themselves from these vicious chains that destroy not just the lives of individuals but also entire families. I addition to Hazelden, I have done some volunteer work in other areas related to social work, with New York Cares, for example, making collages with elderly people suffering from dementia. One woman stands out in my mind; miserable when she walked in, she didn't want to do anything. After we had spent some time together, however, we were laughing and she was smiling as well. She told me I had made her day. We made each other’s day.</p>
<p><strong>Attribute Development: </strong>I see my strongest and most valuable attributes, in addition to compassion and empathy, to be determination, strength, a very high level of motivation, and a tenacious desire to help everyone who I come into contact with that is suffering, in a professional or volunteer capacity, to the extent to which I am able to do so. Furthermore, I look forward to continuing to cultivate these attributes throughout the course of my professional lifetime. I have been raising our child as a single mom now for the past 2 1/2 years. I was working in sales when I lost my husband, selling engagement rings and wedding bands, which became very painful after the loss of Justin. Thus, my pursuit of new career directions began almost immediately and with urgency – after taking a few weeks to mourn and heal a bit. Getting my act together quickly was especially important since I had also lost my principal source of economic security for myself and my baby. I also learned to be strong and resilient growing up with a father who lived for many years as a functioning addict until a car accident almost cost him his life. I loved and respected him because he always tried to be a good father. So, it was a special privilege to organize and execute the intervention that finally sent my dad off to rehab at 71 years old. This experience also made me stronger and I learned a great deal as well that will help me to excel in addictions counseling.</p>
<p>My brother is doing well in recovery and this has also inspired me, since I have witnessed up-close how rehabilitation and the fellowship of AA and NA have the power to help and heal, because they have saved my brother as well as my father. This leaves me with a very keen desire to engage professionally in the area of addiction recovery. My sister has been in and out of rehab for years, never achieving anything close to a definitive recovery. The case of my sister leaves me especially curious and anxious to immerse myself in the literature concerning why some are able to recover and not others. I want to help people free themselves from the disease of addiction, as many as possible.</p>
<p>I began seeing a grief counselor shortly after losing my mother and husband because I needed professional guidance myself. Speaking with her has helped me to find strength within that I never knew I had. It has taken some time, but she has helped me come back to life, find a new purpose, and now create new life. Her impact on me has guided me to want to help others who have experienced trauma and grief, to help people create new lives for themselves the way that my grief counselor has helped me to recreate my own. I have a deep compassion and understanding of people who are going through difficult times. I understand pain and I hope to use that to have a lasting impact on people in need. I increasingly find myself intrigued with and delving into the highly negative and complex symbiosis that exists between trauma and addictions, strategies for interrupting the downward spiral. </p>
<p><strong>Social Issue: </strong>I want to study the many ways in which poverty itself can lead people to a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness that results in addiction and self harm, dropping out of school, risky behavior, crime, and other negative coping mechanisms. As a social worker I hope to promote positive change by helping people find the financial, health, and social assistance that they made need. In particular, I want to help people who suffer from addiction and/or or trauma get to the root of the problem and access the resources that they need to recover.</p>
<p><strong>Career Goals</strong>: Most of all, I have my heart set on attending XXU because of your strong focus on clinical work. I am interested in direct practice, counseling individuals and XXU provides students with an excellent opportunity to do that, with a lot of clinical social work electives. I very much appreciate the wide variety of field placement opportunities at XXU so that I can get precisely the real life experience that is the best fit for my interests. I am so excited to begin, putting my knowledge from the classroom to work almost immediately, preparing for field practice and bringing our experience back to the classroom for discussion. Finally, I very much appreciate the fact that the Social Work Professors at XXU are not just fantastic teachers, but also outstanding members of the community that are engaged with progressive social change and can share unlimited real life experiences in the classroom.</p>
<p>Now 36 years old and the mother of a perfect child in good health, I count myself fortunate in many ways. Happy, healthy, adjusted, and full of energy, it is my time to prepare myself for cutting-edge performance in research as well as practice. Fully dedicated to lifelong learning, I look forward to many decades to come giving my all to the study of the complex and gruesomely negative symbiosis that exists between trauma and addiction, searching for strategies to interrupt what is all too often a downward spiral.</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to XXU.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2017-09-20:/entries/1943962MSW, PTSD, Veterans, VA Hospital2017-09-20T01:46:00-07:002017-09-20T01:52:08-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/396274/302;166;f9444c461fbad8017d015c00321f791757afbca1.jpg" style="float:left"><strong>1: Life Experiences:</strong> Growing up with an abusive and alcoholic father is probably the single most important reason why I have my heart set on becoming an MSW Professional. My profound suffering as a child and adolescent has given me a desire to help those who are in similar kinds of situations. As a child I pushed my mom to get a divorce and was always looking for adoption papers as a way out. I was the black sheep in my family and punished for speaking up. Nevertheless, I found the grit to pull myself up by my own bootstraps and I have worked very hard to survive my painful past, to recover. I now have a house, a degree, and have enjoyed steady employment for some time. I seek career change and personal as well as professional advancement. Thus, I have been preparing myself to apply to your MSW Program at XXXX University, my first choice for graduate school because of the sheer excellence of your program.</p>
<p>My recovery has been sporadic, gradual, and taken several years. I ended up pregnant in an abusive relationship with a drug addict in my 30s. Luckily, his addictions kept him out of the house for long periods of time. I took my national exams, obtained a professional license as a Certified Massage Therapist, and became financially independent, ending all contact with the father of my child. That situation put me in self preservation mode, especially since I now had a daughter. Thankfully, I was able to completely snap out of my own negative behaviors and co-dependencies and move on.</p>
<p>I now have a much greater appreciation for life and have come to terms with my past and my family. It helps to limit contact with them in order to do so. I am now a relatively happy person with a drama free life, always keeping things simple and straightforward. Now that my daughter is in her teens, I have the free time to return to school so that I can pursue the career that I find most fulfilling, Social Work.</p>
<p>Now 42 years old, I have only remembered for a little more than a decade the gruesome details of the abuse to which I was subjected as a child at the hands of my biological father: physical, emotional, sexual; constant and always violent, it continued for many years. By the time I reached my late 20s, the memories came flooding back in and it took me years to turn tragedy into triumph: to understand, reflect, and heal.</p>
<p>Thus far I have enjoyed success as a certified massage professional after earning my BA in Art, with an emphasis in painting and printmaking, from California State University, Chico in 2000. In 2002, I received my certificate from the XXXX Institute of Massage Studies in XXXX. This past January of 2016, I began serving as a volunteer working with girls who have been victims of sexual trafficking. This experience also steered me in the direction of becoming an MSW professional.</p>
<p>Thus, I am changing careers and going back to school so that I will be happy in a career for the next 20+ years, working with people who need help - the underdogs. Social Work is my dream job. Ending the cycle of abuse is important to me. I am not yet certain with what social group or population I will focus on, perhaps working with more than one special group. On the one hand, I have experience working with abused women and their children; on the other hand, I am now volunteering in the area of Occupational Therapy at a local VA hospital and the more contact that I have with veterans and the more I read in my free time these days about veterans issues and affairs – especially the challenge presented by PTSD – the more I think about working at a VA hospital after earning my MSW Degree. I am also interested in the elderly and thus I might pursue and learn all that I can under your expert guidance at XXXX University about the issues facing older veterans in particular. Just recently, I have been exploring suicide among Vietnam veterans and have been horrified by the statistics, with many more having taken their own lives than fell in combat in Vietnam. I am beginning to understand the scope of the mental health challenges of returning veterans and how it is not just Vietnam but ongoing, prolonged wars in other regions of the world taking a profound toll on new generations of young people.</p>
<p>My passion for healing, my own difficult history, and my recent experience of helping young women and girls that have been victimized, raped, battered and sold, fills me to the extent that I never thought possible: mission, vocation, and redemption.</p>
<p>I also volunteer with XXXXs, a nonprofit youth football team in Las Vegas. I find enormous joy helping disadvantaged kids get involved in sports and learn the art of teamwork. I volunteer at Three Square, helping to provide meals to seniors and lunches to children. I take part in and very much enjoy 5k runs for charity. My volunteer work with trafficked girls forced to work in the adult industry despite the fact that they were legal minors has resulted in my learning the full extent to which trafficking of girls and young women is global problem that is mammoth in scope. I also feel called to this area of social work.</p>
<p><strong>2: Social Work Philosophy</strong>: For me, the social work profession and its core values all surround the principle of helping the weakest and most vulnerable members of our community. I have incorporated these values in my work with both trafficked girls and veterans facing a wide range of disabilities and challenges, veterans returning from war, in each case helping people to feel that they have attachment to their community. My compassion and warmth is the greatest strength or attribute that I bring to the social work profession, along with my unbridled enthusiasm for our field. I want to dedicate myself to a lifetime of healing, helping returning veterans to cope with their experiences and the all-too-frequently difficult challenges of reinsertion into civilian society. I want to help minimize the damage to their families as well.</p>
<p>I am especially interested in the prevention of veteran suicide. Once I earn the MSW from XXXX University, I will be well positioned in light of my previous experience to assume leadership roles in this great struggle. Nothing seems worse to me than the situation that we find ourselves in today, with many more veterans taking their own life than those falling in combat. Something must be done.</p>
<p><strong>3 Diversity:</strong> After earning my degree and becoming licensed as an MSW Professional, I would like to be able to help abused women and children, & teens, providing them with the knowledge, tools, and support base that they need to be safe to and to recover from the abuse to which they have been subjected. I want to steer them in the right direction, letting them know about the resources that are available to help them. Appreciation of diversity is fundamental to the career that I seek, especially since victims of domestic violence tend to come from the more humble sectors of our society, disproportionately women and children of color.</p>
<p>I hope to be accepted into the Masters of Social Work program at XXXX University so that I might have the privilege of spending my professional life caring for women and children in need, or veterans if I decide to pursue my current interest in that direction. I look forward to an intense immersion experience at XXXX, studying the full gambit of social work issues: particularly domestic violence, pregnant women - especially teens - and the broad variety of special mental health issues that they face. I also look forward to learning as much as I can about veterans issues and PTSD.</p>
<p><strong> 4: Personal Strengths:</strong> I see my strongest and most valuable attributes, in addition to compassion and empathy, to be determination, strength, a very high level of motivation, and a tenacious desire to help everyone who I come into contact with that is suffering, in a professional or volunteer capacity, to the extent to which I am able to do so. Furthermore, I look forward to continuing to cultivate these attributes throughout the course of my professional lifetime. As a result of my own suffering and recovery as a victim of child sexual abuse, I have increasingly come to appreciate how life can change in a moment, the blink of an eye. I have known great hardship and tragedy and that is what drives me to a career in Social Work.</p>
<p>In my search for answers, I have read a great deal about addiction, trauma, healing, and recovery and I hope to have the privilege of counseling those who suffer from trauma and/or addictions in the future as an MSW professional. I feel strongly that this is the right time for me to go to graduate school to prepare myself for making my maximum social contribution</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to Social Work at XXXX University.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2017-05-22:/entries/1883714MSW Autobiographical, Healthcare Disparities2017-05-22T10:43:00-07:002017-05-22T10:54:32-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/374672/310;163;b369598c8875cf2edee0e953259994ee4e438778.jpeg" style="float:left">I have been working as a Social Worker in long term care for the past 4 years. One of the most prominent patients that stands out in my mind serves for me as a frame of reference for why I am fully dedicated to my short term goal of earning the MSW Degree: so that I can learn to be a better advocate for my patients, and to be in a better position to help them. One of the residents in our facility was discharged, which was not my decision. She came to me crying because she did not want to leave, fearing that she would be abused or neglected by her children. Her insurance had cut her off and I was told that there was nothing that I or anyone else could do. She cried all day long that day. The following day, prior to her discharge, she died.</p>
<p>After completing high school and entering the working world, I became a Certified Nurse’s Assistant and was soon working in private care as well as nursing homes. Not long after I began working as a CNA, I began to feel like a lot of the residents in my facility were not provided with adequate attention. I very much enjoyed discussing this issue at length with one of the residents, a very alert, smart, and sensitive 95-year-old retired physician, Frederick XXXX. He encouraged me to go back to school in nursing so that down the road I would be able to have greater say in nursing care and help to augment the levels of attention that residents are given. Thus, this resident was very inspiring to me and I went on to obtain my associates degree. Once I had my Associates Degree in Nursing then I felt inspired to go forward and obtain my bachelors degree. But I switched career tracks and earned my BSW instead of my BSN because I felt in my heart that the social work degree would prepare me to do more, to make a greater contribution to the needy residents with whom I have worked and the clients that I have had the privilege of helping so far.</p>
<p>Finishing my BSW made me feel very proud of myself and, at first, I thought that I had reached my permanent professional goal. But as time went on I began to realize that I still did not have much of a voice and there was nothing that I could do to help especially vulnerable residents like the lady mentioned above who died on the day of her mandatory discharge, a noble woman who had worked her entire professional life as a school teacher, this client will always be with me. She is now one of the primary inspirations behind my application to study towards and earn the MSW Degree at XXXX University. I want very much to obtain my masters degree so that I will be prepared to engage in research concerning our most vulnerable residents in America’s nursing homes, especially in Eastern Tennessee. I want to contribute not only to research but also the outcome, participation in the creation of services to protect those people who cannot speak or are no longer able to protect themselves especially the elderly.</p>
<p>I would say that my first and most prominent role model was my grandmother, Virginia XXXX, because I feel like she saved me from foster care and was the only person who ever cared for me enough to have patience with me. I can never thank my “resident physician” Frederick Billings for encouraging me as well. I can still hear his voice telling me that I was much smarter than I realized. Finally, my faith in God has greatly increased over the course of the last decade, incrementally, resulting in an increasing sense of dignity and empowerment that comes from devotion to the most vulnerable among us, as was our Lord, in whose footsteps we rise every day and seek to walk.</p>
<p>I would like to share in designing, creating and operating programs specifically designed for individuals that are falling through the cracks in the system, especially our healthcare system. I have been a witness to the many changes in insurance policy and how these changes often have a negative effect on residents and their families. Not only does the resident have to worry about illness and how to recover, but they have to worry about the cost and if they will lose their home to the government. And this stress has a negative impact on their chances for recovery. I was a witness to many residents being discharged to the community who were still very much in need of assistance simply because they were told that they had hit a plateau and their insurance will no longer pay. I think it would be much better if we could discharge applicants not on the basis insurance guidelines, but, rather, on when it was in their best interests to discharge them.</p>
<p>I have also been witness to many young adults placed in long term care who want very much to discharge to the community despite their disability, but they are unable to do so because of a lack of community resources and I hope to have the opportunity to work to change this. I have also seen residents discharge to the community, only to be in the hospital days later, and then return to the nursing home in a continuous cycle. My professional dream is to provide services that include educating the community concerning insurance policy so that they are better able to plan for the care of their loved ones. I want to empower members of my community and help to make sure that they realize that they do indeed have a voice in the many changes that are taking place and how important it is to use that voice by voting and asking questions concerning where a candidate stands with respect to the care of individuals with disabilities. I also want to empower and educate healthcare workers concerning the design and operation of group homes so as to meet the healthcare needs of these vulnerable members of our community.</p>
<p>I have a great passion for serving the needs of mature adults with disabilities or impairments. My own background contributes to my well-developed sense of empathy and concern for the voiceless since I grew up from the age of 2-12 in foster care in Los Angeles, CA. My mother was addicted to drugs and my father was new to the country from Nigeria and did not have the resources to care for me. I was lost in the system and went through many foster homes, until my grandmother, 65 years old, agreed to take me and provide me a stable home. Due to what I been through I was angry and bitter, and generally felt hopeless, but my grandmother continued to be there for me through it all, and because of that, I am not just a person that was in foster care with a drug addicted mother, I grew up to be a social worker that would give back to the community. I hope to someday create my own non-profit that labors to meet the needs of at-risk individuals who suffer from a lack of resources and services in our healthcare system.</p>
<p>Now having spent 4 years with a Metro Nashville Health and Rehab facility with 419 residents I have learned a great deal about the health care challenges of many groups with special needs including mental health issues, HIV & AIDS, Veterans with PTSD, etc. Nothing has brought me greater joy than assisting the resident with Medicaid applications, applying for SSI and disability—always staying abreast of changes and developments in these areas.</p>
<p>I have also been active as a volunteer for many years in the community, especially anything having to do with health care and our most needy residents. I helped to created a non-profit called A Hand for Care Givers to boost the morale of health workers. First a survey was created to assess how they felt their lives at work may be improved, from that survey services such as an education fair were create by partnering with the different colleges in the community to come and setup an discuss programs that they offer. I also helped with other fairs promoting health care resources and partnerships as well as volunteer fairs. I went with my church to my father’s homeland of Kenya in 2011 working to rebuild schools. I have also served as a volunteer in Bangkok, Thailand working with at risk children to prevent them from being sold into the sex trade.</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to your distinguished MSW Program XXXX University.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2017-05-19:/entries/1881236MSW, Domestic Violence, Children, Africa2017-05-19T21:31:00-07:002017-05-19T21:48:50-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/374290/362;242;0332f1f1a6c6a4a345247aa399cb93ab418af055.jpg" style="float:left">I come from Cameroon in Africa. I both witnessed and suffered domestic violence in my home, a situation which, unfortunately, is not uncommon generally in the society from which I come.</p>
<p>I recognized early in life that the situations that I and my mother and siblings suffered and, also saw in other households around us, were unnatural. Many of us were living lives of fear and near hopelessness and I decided that this could not go on unchecked and that I might be a channel of change.</p>
<p>Even as a child, I wanted to ‘do something’ about these widespread and unhappy conditions and, as I grew up and discovered that there existed a whole profession dedicated to the eradication of domestic conflict and fear, I determined to join it. I found enormous satisfaction in my work to date in the field of social work in my home country and seek now to acquire advanced skills and knowledge to enable me to do more to assist those in need. I also hope to help in the training of less experienced and qualified social workers to enable them to provide the very best service of which they are capable.</p>
<p> In my country, domestic abuse is almost universally ‘male on female’ because of historical cultural norms. I have undertaken a significant amount of private study in social work in this country and in the matter of domestic abuse in particular. It initially came as a surprise to me that in the US, domestic abuse is also suffered by men and that sometimes the abusers are women applying passive- aggressive modes of ‘attack’. I recognise that I shall need to be ‘open-minded’ to cultural differences in dealing with situations of domestic unhappiness and claims of abuse by the parties involved in this country and that cultural backgrounds will be a factor to closely consider. I am very interested in furthering the aims of the profession by assisting in research, particularly in the area of community mental health.</p>
<p>After graduating from the school of social work in Cameroon, Africa with a diploma in social work, I did a six months voluntary work in the Social Work Department of Family and Child welfare. I provided counselling in cases of domestic violence within families, child abandonment, child support, child placement, child abuse, and cases of incest, among others. After my voluntary period, I was to be offered a full time counselling job in same Delegation. However I decided to come to the US.</p>
<p>I have been employed, for nearly six years, in a Rehabilitation Hospital as a Certified Nurse Assistant. Almost all our patients need some kind of practical help, most because of their disabilities. For example a patient might be homeless and/or unemployed and need place to go after discharge, or be in need of other assistance such as medical, help with social security claims, food, clothing, or assistance to help them at home by home support services. My heart is very often moved by patients struggling with one or other such situation and I now seek to help people like them in having their basic needs met swiftly and sufficiently and in having clients feel that society cares what happens to them. I recently passed the written examination to qualify me to work as a Medical Case Worker. I hold a BA degree in Psychology which I pursued with the intention of seeking a Master’s in Social Work.</p>
<p>During my voluntary work in Africa, I succeeded in changing some lives for the better and felt enormous satisfaction from doing so. In one case I recall, I advocated for a wheel chair for one of my nineteen years old client, who was suffering from cerebral palsy. This boy was brought to the office where I was doing my voluntary job, and my supervisor gave me the case to handle. His Mother was a single mother, his Father died from a car accident when this boy was seven years old. So his mother was suffering with him all by herself. This mother brought her nineteen years old son carrying him on her back. This family was advised by a school teacher to go ask for help from the Social welfare office, that is how she got to the office. The second case which stands out in my memory, was a domestic violence victim, whose husband kept battering her because she was not helping the family financially. I helped look for a job for her where she worked like a baby sitter for a day care centre. After two months this family came back to the social welfare office, happily her husband said their live had changed. I continue rendering helping services right here in America. That is why I work at the rehabilitation hospital where I have opportunities to render help to patients even if, sometimes, it is just to give a smile, squeeze a hand and provide a sympathetic ear.</p>
<p>I am aware of the core values of social work in the US; I fully endorse them and would seek to apply them at all times in my future work. Unfortunately, during my work in Africa, I witnessed some of the pitfalls into which social workers can fall. Some clearly placed their own needs and convenience before that of the clients and some had become cynical and hardened and had lost their initial enthusiasm and commitment. Several were more interested in just ‘making a living’ rather than ‘making a difference’ in their clients’ lives.</p>
<p>In such a uniquely valuable profession, I recognize the absolute need for agreed and comprehensive core values and recognize that those adopted are essential in the proper performance of a social worker’s daily duties. I should certainly seek to keep them constantly in my mind’s eye and to measure all my professional actions against them on a daily basis and to rapidly adjust my actions in case of any ‘falling short’.</p>
<p>In my experience, as a black woman with what might be perceived as an unusual accent, in this country, overt discrimination on any grounds is fairly rare and generally dealt with appropriately where established to have occurred. However, most discrimination is not overt but is exercised in subtle but nevertheless in very real ways and there is still a very strong need to educate people to recognise the ‘other’ no matter how, or how far, ‘different’ should in every circumstance, be treated as an individual of unique worth. I also recognise that members of minority groups are not, themselves, immune from pre-judging people who do not share their race or are otherwise different from themselves and so the need for education is not limited to majorities in any community that I have observed, though that need may not be so obvious or urgent in terms of needs of addressing.</p>
<p>I have also observed the unfortunate fact that those who might seek to subtly discriminate against members of another, ‘different’ group, will almost always have similar feelings towards another minority or other minorities. I think that it is necessary to recognize that in historical terms, we are still in the early days of getting people to recognise their own capacity to pre-judge and discriminate. Although great strides have been taken, one cannot destroy discrimination solely by legislative means but ‘hearts’ must be changed. Much research and work remains to be done, in a very complex area, to achieve and extend this end and I look forward to doing my part to assist in achieving this desirable goal of people valuing all other people, to some extent at least.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The effects of discrimination are as varied as those who suffer them. They may be manifested in ‘giving up’ on one’s education because everyone around one has done so, in failing to pursue and achieve the achievable because one’s self-image has been formed by those who regard you as being of low worth.</p>
<p>Certainly, I believe that the task of building up feelings of self-worth must begin as soon as possible in the lives of those who are disadvantaged by financial or other constraints. There exists a need for successful role models to ‘step forward’ and encourage those who need to overcome substantial obstacles in their own lives and to demonstrate that one’s minority or disadvantaged status does not prescribe the kind of life one has to lead.</p>
<p>Before seeking to enter the profession, I carefully considered the qualities required of an excellent social worker and genuinely believe that I possess them and have sought to demonstrate them in my volunteer service and work to date. I have a genuine desire to help people and to assist them in helping themselves, I am a very good listener, I have determination, I am patient, I relate well to others, I have a creative approach to problem solving, and, not least, I have a sense of humor. I am also aware of the importance of being sensitive to non-verbal signals especially when supporting children and distressed adults. I know that social work calls for a very high degree of cultural awareness and sensitivity. I have lived in two very different cultures and have happily studied, worked and socialized with people of many different cultural and social backgrounds during my voluntary service, work and academic career.</p>
<p>I know that those coming from outside the ‘caring professions’ sometimes harbor unrealistic expectations of the effect of such work. From my experience, I know that a realistic outcome might not be the perfect one but that the most realistic outcome should be established as soon as possible and pursued with determination and flexibility.</p>
<p>I believe that my personal background and experience of dealing with extremely distressing situations in Africa, together with my personal characteristics, academic achievements from an unpromising start and my passion to help others provides me with an excellent basis to serve as an outstanding social worker in the US and to advance the core values of the profession. I look forward to ‘adding value’ by sharing my unique perspective with others on the program and to profiting from their varied life and work experiences.</p>
<p>Thank you for considering my application.</p>
<p> </p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2016-04-11:/entries/1413497MSW, Child Advocacy, Bilingual Latina2016-04-11T13:08:00-07:002017-05-19T21:45:38-07:00<p><img alt="" class="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/374289/300;225;b47fc9e00e6196320844fceb9e33c0567916780c.jpg" style="float:left; height:202px; width:269px">I came to realize that I wanted to be a social worker while working at my job in a bank. For years now, I have attended to a constant stream of people at one of their most sensitive and vulnerable moments, making their monetary transactions. I was once a single mother, as the oldest of my three children is not the biological child of the man to whom I am married, the father of my two youngest boys. While I am most happily married now and we are a unified and loving family, for me the real American dream, the struggles and sorrows that I endured as a single mother stay with me and this is one of the reasons why I am so inspired to help others, mothers with little children who do not have the support of the children’s father or a stable family life. I want a career change. I no longer want to work with money, I want to work directly with people, helping them to solve their money problems, along with the other great (and generally related) challenges that they face.</p>
<p>XXU is my first choice for study towards the MSW Degree because of everything that your university represents: a global perspective and commitment, liberal agenda, progressive creativity, and most of all the celebration of diversity. I was born in America; but, since my parents were refugees fleeing a brutal civil war in their home country, El Salvador, in many ways, I was raised to think and feel like a war refugee myself in a strange land. I empathize with those Latino families around me who struggle, especially the more recent immigrants. I feel like I understand them. With both Spanish and English as native languages, I also feel that I can be a good role model as a social worker for children and their families.</p>
<p>I have always worked in the business world, currently for a company that is a personal banker for JP Morgan Chase. I like to think of my work as valuable preparation for my career as a social worker, helping customers that come in needing statements and paperwork that they need for section 8 and welfare. They would also open up to me when I asked questions, generally speaking, however, all I would do was listen and for some it appeared to be all that was needed, a hearing ear. It felt good to see my customers waiting for me in particular to help them.</p>
<p>I will earn my undergraduate degree in Family and Child Studies this coming January of 2015, with a minor in Psychology. I will also have completed my work for the Child Advocacy Certificate by the time that I graduate. I want very much to devote the balance of my professional life, many decades, to the protection of at risk children. I did well in college and even made the Dean’s List for the Spring of 2013. I think I did well mostly because of my passion for the topics that I was studying, protecting children, challenges, flaws in the system, and ideas for policy reform, etc.</p>
<p>I am also very much inspired to pursue the MSW Degree as a result of my current volunteer work. I volunteer with SAVE of XXXX County, a program of the Family Service League in the State of New Jersey’s “Designated” Rape Care Center for XXXX County. The Center has two primary goals: providing direct services to survivors of sexual violence and their families along with working to prevent sexual violence through education and advocacy. These goals are achieved through the services that we offer: our hotline, accompaniment, and education. I assist individuals on our 24-hour hotline, and help to staff information tables for special events. I am deeply honored to serve and promote an organization such as SAVE of XXXX County which has a team of highly trained volunteer Advocates ready to help, 24-hours a day.</p>
<p>My passion for building a career protecting at-risk children has also been inspired all along by my experience as a mother of 3 boys. After having my boys, I realized I wanted to work with children. I first thought I wanted to be a teacher; that changed, however, very quickly, as soon as I started taking classes for child advocacy. Those classes taught me about child abuse and neglect, how the upbringing of a child is very important for their future. I studied so many cases of parents neglecting their children, each case breaking my heart. The most difficult part of my studies has been my struggle to try to imagine how a mother can do such horrible things to her children. I find the abuse of the father less mysterious, frankly. I speak freely on this because I am a mother of 3, and in my mind your children are your life, they are everything that is just the way it works with me. However, I am ‘normal’ and it the ‘abnormality’ that I seek to understand, and become an expert in this area. My heart has ached throughout my studies because we are talking about innocent children who depend on their parents. It is sad how many of them become another statistic. </p>
<p>But, if can convince these children that someone out there really cares, then maybe they will not go down the road that appears predictable as a result of their unfortunate circumstances. My short term goal is to earn my MSW Degree at XXXX University, My ultimate, or long term goal is to launch a private practice as an LCSW after gaining further experience. Ideally, I would be awarded a contract with XXXX Department of Children and Families providing therapy to at-risk children and their families, saving the world one little life at a time.</p>
<p>My central dream is to have my own private practice dedicated to helping at-risk children and their caregivers. I firmly believe that raising children is the duty of the community, not just the parents, and this is especially true in the absence of one or more parent. I want at-risk children to know that the community supports them, is with them, and will help them to see and feel part of a broader whole that will go a long way to filling the void that exists at home. I have spoken Spanish sometimes at work in the banking world when it was useful. As a social worker, however, I imagine speaking my own native tongue with much greater frequency. And I also feel strongly that the social worker who attends to at-risk Hispanic children of recent immigrants must be able to speak with them in the same language which they use to communicate with their parents, particularly their mother. Since m own parents were refuges from Central America, I will have a special gift to offer in this regard, constantly reaching out to the underserved in my community, so many of whom speak my language.</p>
<p>XXXX, where I have worked for years, is a tough area, and I learned a lot about the difficulties of life in urban America, especially for limited English immigrants. I got off to a late start in college myself and it has taken me a long time because I was raised to think in terms of earning money first and foremost, and to look at education as more of a luxury than a necessity. Thus, I look forward to helping children to achieve the kind of stability early on that will inspire them to work hard at their studies while growing up; this will be for me a special triumph, helping at least some of the children to whom I provide therapy to achieve a good education, and to do it quicker than their therapist.</p>
<p>Finally, I want to explain the period of time in which my grades were not good at all. While pregnant with my 3rd son, I was finishing my Associates Degree online through the University of Phoenix. I had complications with my pregnancy which caused me to be a little withdrawn from my classes, and this is reflected in the grades that I received. Also my son was diagnosed with a rear medical condition and he could not eat anything but vegetables, which added a significant amount of stress to our lives. If he ate anything other than vegetables, he was immediately hospitalized due to dehydration. After many hospital stays and seemingly endless testing, we were told it was something he would probably grow out of by the age of 3. He is now 3 and he did grow out of it, already prior to his second birthday.</p>
<p>Even during our worst of times, however, I did not quit; I finished my classes as best I could. Getting into Montclair State University was for me quite an accomplishment. Back in those days, if someone had suggested that someday I might be admitted to the MSW program at XXU, I would have thought they were teasing. But I have grown enormously and I now I have the confidence, for myself, my family, and my community, I want to move forward in nursing and I want to attend one of the finest programs in the world, at the center of my world, XXXX.</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to your distinguished program.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2016-03-03:/entries/1355783MSW Social Work, Special Needs Children2016-03-03T23:05:00-08:002017-05-19T21:40:35-07:00<p><br style="clear: both">
<img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/374288/327;228;b4905c6efa62bb8a546971fe41c5497902b2bee8.jpg" style="float:left">I was born and raised in India. I hold a degree in Information Technology and a Diploma in International Business. My goal is to join the program, to excel within it and to work as a social worker applying my skills and knowledge for the benefit of children with special needs.</p>
<p>As the child of a relatively privileged family in India, I was expected to undertake voluntary work in my community and I was very happy to do so. From my early teens, I worked as a volunteer with physically and mentally handicapped children who had been orphaned or abandoned. We volunteers helped the staff to feed, clean and teach the children and we played games with them. I gained as much, if not more, from these encounters than the children did and loved helping them.</p>
<p>I pursued studies in business with some success and, when I returned to India, I took up a post as a graphic designer. At the same time I began voluntary work at weekends for an organization called AID India. Initially we taught women, who were HIV positive, basic computer skills but gradually we also began to teach other kinds of clients such as underprivileged children, young adults and others whose lives might be financially improved by acquiring such skills. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching and helping these people and this fired a desire to spend more than just weekends helping people.</p>
<p>During the Tsunami of December 2004, I was living very close to some of the worst affected areas. Many lives were lost, much property totally destroyed and thousands of children were orphaned, it was a heart rending situation. I was assigned to help doctors in the make-shift camps that grew up. I helped as a translator with the US doctors who had come to assist and was also taught to measure BP and to assist in the pharmacy. Once the initial phase was over, I worked with AID India to relocate people to new homes. I subsequently worked with a team that provided education about TB to village communities and in video production in a HIV/AIDS intervention program.</p>
<p>By this time, I was sure that I wanted to work full time in directly helping others. I recalled how much I enjoyed working with the handicapped children when I was younger. I carefully considered the career paths available to me in which I might help special needs children and concluded that I could best improve the lot of such children by qualifying and working as a social worker.</p>
<p> I have carefully considered the qualities required of an excellent social worker and genuinely believe that I possess them. I have a genuine desire to help people and to assist them in helping themselves, I am a good listener, I have determination, I am patient, I relate well to others, I have a creative approach to problem solving, and, not least, I have a sense of humor. I am also aware of the importance of being sensitive to non-verbal signals especially when supporting children and distressed adults. I know that social work calls for a very high degree of cultural awareness and sensitivity. I have lived in three countries and have happily studied, worked and socialized with people of many different cultural and social backgrounds during my voluntary service, work and academic career.</p>
<p>I know that those coming from outside the ‘caring professions’ sometimes harbor unrealistic expectations of the effect of such work. From my volunteer experience, I know that a realistic outcome might not be the perfect one. I am also aware of the core values of social work, I endorse them and would seek to uphold and promote them in my studies and work.</p>
<p>I moved to the US in 2006 but was not permitted to take paid work until 2008. Immediately I received a work permit, I took up work as a Teacher’s Assistant at a special needs school. This has familiarized me with the care of special needs children in the US and exposed me contact with their teachers and parents. I had to leave this job because of my husband frequently moved because of his work and the fact that I had a child of my own.</p>
<p>I am now ready to study in order to achieve my personal and professional goals. I have carefully researched available programs and conclude that your own is the ‘best fit’ for my needs. I seek a challenging and supportive academic environment which will provide significant practical project work.</p>
<p>I know that there will be many well qualified applicants for the program but I genuinely believe that I am an excellent candidate. I have substantial volunteer work experience with clients of various types in two distinct cultures including special needs children. My experience will enable me to bring useful insights to the program and I have the intelligence and diligence to succeed within the program. However my main recommendation is a genuine and passionate interest in beneficially affecting the lives of children and their families by applying the skills and knowledge that I will acquire by my enthusiastic participation in the program.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2015-07-22:/entries/1180532MSW Gerontology and Public Policy, Latino Issues2015-07-22T00:36:00-07:002017-05-19T23:52:51-07:00<p><img alt="" class="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/374340/203;276;98d061a93e541b4cf132b1196afd6184251bf023.jpg" style="float:left; height:240px; width:177px"><strong>Career interest/objectives in Social Work.</strong> I want to learn, live, write, and publish for the rest of my life in the area of gerontology and public policy from a social work perspective, with a specific research focus on Latino populations in the USA. Ten years from now I hope to run my own practice as a social work professional. I am also very interested in doing international social work, particularly in South America and Asia.</p>
<p>Wholeheartedly dedicated to lifelong education, I enjoy thinking that life begins at 50; now, at 49, I seek a new path and professional direction. Currently a nurse and a health coach living in North Carolina, I am happy with a wonderful family and career. Nevertheless, I want still more. I want to continue to grow as a human being and tie the loose ends in my life together in such a way as to enable my maximum personal and professional contribution to both family and community: as a professional social worker with a specialization in the area of gerontology and a research focus on Hispanic populations. My Hispanic focus is one of several reasons why I now want to live, study, and work in South Florida. As a registered nurse, I have long admired hospital social workers for their ability to help patients gain access to resources and services, assisting people achieve meaningful, forward movement in their lives.</p>
<p>I want to be a social worker because of the way that I have observed social workers being compassionate with those for whom they care, collaborating with patients and their families in order to facilitate resolution and healing. Early on in my role as an RN performing highly technical, crisis-oriented interventions, sometimes I questioned the extent to which what I was doing was indeed making a lasting difference in the long run to the patients and families that I was serving. Over time, however, with the benefit of hindsight, I now see clearly how I have helped to build lasting relationships for many of my clients and I have indeed empowered people to improve their lives and I want to devote everything that I have to continuing to do so for decades to come, developing in-depth connections that foster positive, proactive change in the community, improving people’s lives. It was the use of evidence based practices that led me to become a Certified Health coach here at XXXX University and I have come to greatly appreciate the way in which this process helped me to discover my passion for professional counseling, helping people maximize their human potential.</p>
<p>Over the course of many years to come, I plan to develop my skills in a variety of social work contexts, focusing my energies towards motivational interviewing along with cognitive and dialectical based therapies to help individuals make positive growth, enhancing their lives on multiple fronts simultaneously. I have many interests to pursue as a social worker in addition to mental illness, including hunger and poverty, and the needs of military families in particular. I am most intrigued by the great paradoxes and disparities present on a global level, part of the world with food insecurity and the other obese. I enjoy wrestling with the way in which poverty reduction and ensuring access to safe nutritious food are complex societal problems requiring major if not impossible policy overhauls. At the same time, I seek to stay full engaged at the local level, helping my community to have an impact on issues of food security and a healthy diet. For decades, I have helped to organize projects and events that advocate for and promote change for marginalized groups in our society. I am especially fond of community gardens that are cost effective and produce highly nutritious food, initiatives that support military families.</p>
<p><strong>Current social problems of greatest concern, addressed or prevented.</strong> There are two areas in which I have personal experience with socially and economically disadvantaged populations. As a young mother on public assistance in XXXX, New York, I experienced the humiliation and insecurity of poverty, including food insecurity, and substandard living conditions. Now part of a military family living in a large military community, my personal experiences help me to contribute helpful insights into the issues facing low income and military families.</p>
<p>As result of my internship with a mental health agency, I have extensive knowledge and practiced skills working with people who suffer from chronic mental illness. This intensive, supervised experience has equipped me with skills and experience in empathic interviewing, active listening, conducting classes and groups in psychosocial rehabilitation, person-centered and solution-focused planning, and program evaluation. Thus, I have developed an enhanced understanding of and appreciation for the daily struggles and stigmatization that the chronically mental ill experience. I particularly look forward to further exploring the additional stressors of homelessness, poverty, and living in isolated rural communities and the many ways that these factors have an impact on mental health challenges. </p>
<p>When I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I plan to be instrumental in facilitating optimal health and an improved quality of life for those suffering from mental illness. </p>
<p>My mother’s parents are from Colombia and Peru. She is now 80 years old and lives close by Boca Raton and XXXX University. She is another reason why I hope to begin your MSW Program next fall at XXU rather than studying in another location. My mother and I have almost always spoken English. She thinks it is both strange and funny that I am speaking to her now as much as I can in Spanish. I want to learn many things from my mother while I still have her near, many things about the needs of geriatric Latinas, how they think, and how they express themselves, especially in Spanish.</p>
<p><strong>Special knowledge or experience:</strong> My inspiration for earning the MSW and launching myself into social work on a professional level as also comes from my recent volunteer experience initiating, developing, and executing our "XXXX Project," a grassroots effort to fight food insecurity in our community; and we raised 4000 USD, to benefit our soup kitchen. Our MSW courses are offered on the XXXX campus. Students come from a broad range of backgrounds, representing a variety of undergraduate majors and universities. The student body possesses a wealth of life experiences, an appreciation of diversity, and commitment to social and economic justice. We are truly inspired by the enthusiasm, skills, and knowledge of our students, as well as the many sacrifices they make to pursue their dream of obtaining an MSW degree.</p>
<p><strong>Experience/leadership: </strong>Different periods in my life have provided me with rich insights and understandings. Living for several years in a depressed, crime ridden and drug infested neighborhood in New York, looking back on the experience now provides me with insight into the nature of homes where large numbers of vulnerable members tend to be at risk. Currently I live in, and interact with a large military community, which gives me a unique perspective on the issues young families face on a daily basis. I continue to attend classes in motivational interviewing, cognitive and dialectical behavior therapies as well as in wellness management and recovery. Most recently, I have facilitated psychosocial rehabilitation groups using these skills as well as incorporating creative art projects. I have become much better at recognizing ambiguity and exploring the complexity of ethical concerns, applying strategies of ethical reasoning through interaction with clients.</p>
<p>Working with clients who face profoundly difficult mental health challenges has helped me to grow and blossom enormously as a human being and an effective professional. I am now completely convinced that I want very much to devote the balance of my professional life to providing leadership for individuals and groups doing counseling. As a registered nurse working in a hospital, I assumed another kind a leadership role, as the “charge nurse”. The role of charge nurse requires great clinical competency, excellent communication skills, and the ability to make important decisions as needed. I was an effective charge nurse and I helped to create and maintain a positive working environment through delegation, education and conflict resolution. I also functioned as a liaison between doctors, patients, families and other staff. This job taught me to decisive, resourceful, and a change agent that always strives to be aware of the big picture. </p>
<p>In addition to being a nurse, I have run my own business for the past 15 years offering professional services that promote optimal health and healing. These include therapeutic massage, yoga instruction, and two years ago I added integrative health coaching to my professional practice. As a certified health coach, I utilize a holistic, strengths-based approach. In partnership with the client, I facilitate positive behavioral and lifestyle changes that aim to promote optimal health. The goal is to empower the client to explore options that are congruent with their personal vision and values.</p>
<p><strong>Additional information</strong> I am as well traveled as I am well read and have just completed a lengthy tour of most South American countries, exploring my South American heritage and celebrating it on many levels. It is here where I hope to make my greatest contribution to the celebration of diversity in your program. I have also developed a sustained interest for many years in the areas of holistic medicine and alternative therapies. art, play, movement, yoga, yoga nidra and meditation/mindfulness in particular. In addition to the fact that my mother lives nearby, XXU has an excellent academic reputation. I am also attracted to XXU by the presence of both large geriatric and Hispanic communities with which I very much look forward to working.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2015-07-22:/entries/1180523MSW, Ethiopian, Daughter of Single Mother2015-07-22T00:20:00-07:002017-05-19T23:48:22-07:00<p><img alt="" class="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/374338/426;240;837d83e39c2cbe88c4126932d7110f030236c912.jpg" style="float:left; height:185px; width:328px">I came to America from my native Ethiopia only last year, February 2013, as a result of my marriage to a wonderful, supportive woman who agrees that I should further my education in my new home so as to be able to excel professionally. The fact that I will be a father by the end of this coming June, 2014, only reinforces my determination to make my mark in life professionally as a social worker who gives his all to protect children and to help them to prosper in life in every way, especially on an emotional level. My special concerns and professional interests are a direct bi-product of the challenges that I have faced in life, often early on, as is my case as the child of a single mother in Ethiopia.</p>
<p>A fatherless boy growing up in the slums of Addis Ababa, I know well the struggle to survive and the value of an education. Most unfortunately, as the son of a single mother with no father around at all, I was part of a class of children singled out for often brutal and most public ridicule, something which made a profound impression on me, helping to inspire me to struggle against the suffering of children from all forms of sexual violence and discrimination, both directly and indirectly.</p>
<p>I completed my undergraduate education in Ethiopia in 2001 in the area of Political Science and International Relations. Nearly 12 years later, by the time that I immigrated to America, I had worked my way up to the position of Training Officer with 10+ years experience working in both the public sector and with non-profit organizations using my skills to the fullest extent possible in the service of my community, especially in the area of public education. I worked very hard to become highly skilled in organizing, leading, and training large communities and multiple stakeholders on issues of gender equality, gender based violence, and HIV/AIDS Prevention. Heavily experienced in grassroots training and mobilization methods, I have helped to organize and participated in numerous including workshops, plays, peer education initiatives, and community discussions.</p>
<p>One of the most salient highlights so far in my career was my service from September of 2005 through October of 2008 as a Training Officer with the Ethiopian XXXX Lawyers Association (EWLA) in Addis Ababa. I organized and managed 2-day, weekly, awareness workshops for 60 participants from community organizations, schools, and government offices, incorporating training manuals on gender, domestic violence, sexual harassment and harmful traditional practices. I also led 3 programs to better mobilize community resources and promote special awareness actions in districts with high levels of gender-based violence. I took special delight in coordinating a total of 8 plays with no less than 4 different schools, resulting in a subsequent reduction of 60-70% in violence against female students in those institutions over the course of the following 3 years.</p>
<p>My next position as a Training Coordinator from November of 2008 through March of 2010 was with a non-profit global health organization with its headquarters in Washington, DC that has programs in 60 countries employs 8400+ staff. Most of my duties were centered around the implementation of 5 day peer education training for factory workers to increase consciousness of the various critical issues involved in the discussion of HIV/AIDS. Over the course of these 18 months, I was able to feel like I had gotten our message across to an audience of at least 15,000 people on their company and families; discussion groups formed which impacted 15,000 people.</p>
<p>Since shortly after my arrival in America, October of 2013, I have been working with a Professional Charity Fundraiser, the XXXX International Team in Berkeley, CA, a non-profit organization with programs with more than 80 community centers in 11 countries. I labor to promote our charity partners by engaging members of the public in a one-on-one conversation through face-to-face fundraising, inspiring new donors to join Children International's mission and work to break the vicious cycles of child poverty.</p>
<p>I hope to build a research focus for the purposes of your program and beyond in the area of single-parent families, especially in minority communities--the special social, economic, psychological, and emotional challenges faced by children in these families. This interest is especially dear to my heart not only because of my personal experience but also the professional experiences and challenges that have shaped my adulthood.</p>
<p>Since I feel very strongly that I would be able to make my greatest contribution to society in my new home, America in the areas of family mediation and arbitration, I ask for admission to your distinguished program at XXXX University in particular because of your strength in the area of family.</p>
<p>I thank you for considering my application to your program.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2015-07-21:/entries/1180500MSW, Military Family, Corrections Experience2015-07-21T23:46:00-07:002017-05-19T23:44:13-07:00<p><img alt="" class="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/374335/295;171;6002c291644630cc8ea6aaae870dd55276987bfe.jpeg" style="float:left; height:203px; width:350px">Now 39, I seek advancement to the next level of my career. My personal and career goals have not always been the first priority of our military family. My husband of almost 16 wonderful years has dedicated 27 years of service to this country. He is fully supportive of my decision to pursue Graduate school. “Now it is your turn” he tells me with a smile.</p>
<p>As a hardworking professional and dedicated student, I earned my BA in Psychology and it has served me well since then as a professional. I have over 12 years’ experience in the health care field. The knowledge obtained with each step of my career has been an invaluable asset to my most current achievement as a Licensed Psychiatric Technician (PT). My knowledge of multiple departments and operational procedures has been beneficial not only in my professional career, but will be a continued asset in my ability to excel in the MSW program, and later as a social worker. As a military spouse I lived in Japan for 2.5 years and I came to adore the country and miss it daily. My spouse has been stationed overseas twice in the last 8 years. This last tour he went without me and our animals for 3 years and we have only been able to see each other twice a year. He will return home to us April 2015. We have made enormous sacrifices as a result of his military service and I have only worked part-time for the last 3 years while pursuing my baccalaureate degree. We have overcome many challenges, invented new strategies, in order to make our lives, marriage, and family a success. This is why I feel called to work as a social worker, helping other military families cope with their unique challenges.</p>
<p>I met my husband 20 years ago and being married to a sailor has come to define my life professionally as well as personally. I have been inspired by my travels while living abroad and the opportunities to visit Sydney Australia, Kuala Lumpur and Malacca while in Malaysia, exploring the land and connecting with the people. I celebrate diversity through travel, new experiences; people from parts of the world that I hope to visit someday.</p>
<p>Since January of 2011, I have been employed with the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison (CSATF/SP), in XXXX, California. I have been afforded many growth opportunities as a Psychiatric Technician and for the last 3 years have been working in the capacity of the Medication Court Administrator (MCA) as a patient liaison and advocate for the facilities’ inmate/patient population requiring involuntary psychotropic medications. Working in the Mental Health Crisis Beds (MHCB) I have become acutely aware of the great challenges facing our prison systems, resulting from economic constraints, principles of justice, and substance abuse problems that never go away. Working in the MHCB has provided me with an increasingly in-depth look at patients suffering with debilitating mental illnesses and substance abuse addictions; after completing your program at UXX, I look forward to working with clients in my local community who often face complex, multifaceted challenges that with great frequency have something to do with substance abuse by one or more member of the family.</p>
<p>At CSATF/SP I provide Nursing and Mental Health care requiring extensive knowledge in both fields. Developing educational and therapeutic groups approved by the interdisciplinary treatment teams; helps to ensure patient success and well-being. We struggle to equip patients to initiate and maintain a proactive role in their mental health care, and continue to utilize their resources to achieve a successful re-integration, becoming productive members of our society, lowering recidivism rates. I hope to focus much of my efforts working to keep marriages and families together and veterans out of jail and off the streets due to homelessness. This is why the social work program at UXX is my first choice, because you offer the Families and Children concentration and Military sub-concentration that is devoted to understanding and working with military service members and their families. I hope to be an inspiration, a beacon of hope, and empower other military spouses to actively choose their futures; building upon our past as a testament to our strength.</p>
<p>Working with children, especially those growing up in abusive environments has always been my foremost passion. My background might surprise you; as I was this child. These two factors combined to make me especially motivated concerning the need to protect at risk children in our community, especially in our military community. I am deeply engaged with the study of how child abuse transcends all socio-economic and ethnic classifications, with children all too often left to suffer in silence, voiceless. I seldom share the stories of my own abuse and when I do friends and co-workers are generally surprised and typically compliment me on my sense of strength. My courage and sheer determination to overcome my own adversity as a child lead me to search out positive connections and interactions that I knew even at a very young age were missing; and many of those connections made during my childhood remain to this day.</p>
<p>Successfully overcoming the negative energy, circumstances, and experience of my childhood have resulted in the victory of who I am today, poised to enter your MSW program. My own therapeutic process has been extremely positive, rewarding and empowering not just for myself, but how I use the skills personally and professionally. The resources that I personally found available through my own therapy have been key components in my success to manage of all aspects of my life. As a military spouse, and a former military child dependent I can relate to the military family and obstacles that we face. This is why it is imperative to break the stigmas and barriers that exist within the military community regarding mental health and how it relates to our overall well-being and the services accessible and available.</p>
<p>My goal is to work with veterans and families at the VA, military hospital and is largely inspired on a fundamental level by my own family tree of service member’s my grandfather, two uncles, step-father, and my spouse with respect to their military careers. I am most confident that my extensive experience in state hospitals and prisons will also inspire me to excel in your program at UXX as I explore many new areas and confront new issues, especially with respect to improving upon all aspects of social services. I want to encourage spouses and children to find their voice, achieve a sense of self-worth and family-worth that will enable them to accomplish their own goals and aspirations while keeping families together and providing the stability that children need.</p>
<p>Documentation is one of the foremost barriers that prevent many active-duty service members, spouses and their families do not seek mental health services. There is a fear or concern that any interaction with mental health will have a negative impact on the military service member’s career. I have personally experienced this concern from my own spouse. For the first 12 years of our marriage my husband was against any form of mental health assistance; despite my education and professional experience. It has been 2 years now since his perception of this began to change and we have made a lot of progress together.</p>
<p>I would like to address the blemish regarding my undergraduate GPA. In 2012, my only sibling was facing an extremely stressful and serious legal battle and the consequence was serious jail time. He was ultimately sentenced to a 4 year prison term. Out of a sense of family and as his sister, I unselfishly put my educational goals on hold to help him cope, protect him, and prepare him for time spent gaining a new perspective on what his focus in life should be. Soon, I returned to my own focus on finishing college--the only member of my immediate family to do so. Nevertheless, this resulted in my achievement of a cumulative GPA of only 3.371, still an outstanding accomplishment under the circumstances. My plan is to focus fulltime on my Graduate course work. I know what I am capable of and I com armed with an extensive professional understanding of the general outlines of the field of social work.</p>
<p>I am compassionate and empathetic with a strong sense of moral and ethical values and the pursuit of a Master’s Degree in social services has always been my ultimate goal, opening professional doors and resulting in profound opportunities to engage right here in my local community located in the Central Valley of California, XXXX. My goals encompass not only working with children and their families but the enhancement of family structures, particularly through the advancement of therapeutic communication techniques. </p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2015-07-21:/entries/1180492MSW, Older, African-American Man2015-07-21T23:31:00-07:002017-05-19T23:38:49-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/374330/166;248;f78a2ad8306802cbad2fb1aa79e7a6085ab6174a.jpg" style="float:left">I am a 48-year-old African-American man. As a youth growing up in South Central Los Angeles, I faced many of the typical obstacles poverty, violence, and substance abuse. I joined the US Navy on my nineteenth birthday largely as a way to escape the perils of my environment. What I learned about young people of color in at-risk environments, however, through the experience of being an at-risk child of color myself, is something that I see as a most valuable asset for the social worker who seeks to assist, guide, support, protect, and advocate for children in Foster Care in California—most of them children of color—as I do. I also think this helps to turn my advanced age into an asset, because I feel strongly that older people have much to contribute to the foster care system, especially as a result of the wise and gentle spirit and diplomatic skills that they have had time to cultivate throughout years of service to the community.</p>
<p>I became aware of my ability in this regard and have found my new calling as a result of my work with the XXXX County California Child Welfare—especially for my internship, Fall 2012 through Spring 2013—where I effectively interviewed, assessed and counseled families in crisis on the phone and in person. Since I am not a Spanish speaker my focus on African-American families worked out in practice quite well with my Spanish-speaking colleagues attending to most of the Latino cases. Approximately 2/3 of the families with whom we worked were one or the other, either Hispanic or African-American—or at least mixed-race families that involved at least one member of these ethnic minority communities—, highlighting the extremely ethnic character of those whom we were serving, as is often the case in California. I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Social Work at California State University XXXX, in May of 2013; even making the Dean’s List is 2011. I also earned my Group Home Administrator Certificate.</p>
<p>Your world-class program at XXXX is my first choice for graduate school and I assure you that I would attend if accepted. I will attend another program only in case Berkeley is not able to make room for me among many other extremely well qualified applicants. It is not only the prestige of your institution, or its spectacular location so rich with intellectual and social resources, but, most of all, the Center for XXXX Policy and the dream of learning directly from Drs. XXXX and XXXX. The leadership of these pioneers in child welfare policy would be optimal in my case since I seek to focus the balance of my career almost exclusively on the welfare and protection of foster children of color, studying, supporting, defending, and advocating for minority youth in the Child Welfare and Foster Care systems.</p>
<p>I hope to always remain engaged in research in the same areas in which I already have a good start as a result of my research as an undergraduate student: “The Overrepresentation of African Americans in Foster Care,” and “The American Indian’s Experience in Foster Care.” Co-facilitating a classroom presentation of some of the more salient aspect of the historical trauma encountered by American Indians was a special moment in my undergraduate education.</p>
<p>While my grasp of these areas is still rudimentary, this is what most fascinates me and commands my attention; and I feel strongly that my dedication to these subjects, combined with my determination and experience, will help me to excel. I also look forward to in-depth study concerning the unique or singular complexities of Latino as well as Asian children in foster care, constantly improving my own understanding of our own African-American experience through in-depth examinations of the experiences of members of other ethnic groups, particularly native Americans.</p>
<p>Since August of 2011 my service as a Volunteer Advocate for the XXXXSolano County CASA has been the center of my world, advocating for the interests of foster youth, meeting with them every week for several hours, attending court sessions and filing reports to the court concerning the needs of the children. Furthermore, the nearly one year that I spent with XXXX County Child Welfare for my internship taught me what I love most in life, what interests me, how I might go about spending the balance of my professional career improving the lives of some of the most vulnerable members of our community. I adore children and doing everything that I can to safeguard their wellbeing is for me the best road to happiness and fulfillment on personal as well as professional levels. I was never happier than when I was last year, interviewing, assessing, and counseling families, providing comprehensive case management services and completing all documentation with diligence and pride, effectively communicate the agency’s goals and caseworker responsibilities to my clients and developing client-specific case plans, verifying compliance, and monitoring outcomes. Co-facilitating permanency team meetings was a special highlight. In my humble opinion, the best thing about being black in the USA is our opportunity to participate in and contribute to our society’s celebration of diversity; and I very much enjoyed the wide range of ethnic and religious backgrounds that I came into contact with not only with respect to clients but also other human service professionals.</p>
<p>As a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), my task is to research every aspect of the child’s life, using information from the Court, Health and Human Service Agency, school, medical, therapist, and other agencies, I develop a detailed report to be submitted to the judge. If a child’s needs are not being met, I advocate for the best potential outcome. For example, while reading a recent medical report, I noticed that the psychiatrist ordered an increase in the child’s ADHD medication because the child had been lashing out at teachers and peers after lunch for the past three weeks. However, during our scheduled weekly visit, the child discloses that he hasn’t been eating lunch because he wanted to lose weight so that he could make the wrestling team. One of the side-effects of ADHD medications is that it can cause lethargy and irritability in the absence of sufficient food in the stomach. I advocated for an emergency medication evaluation and explained that the child has been skipping lunch, helping to explain the negative behavior. His doctor explained to him the importance of eating lunch before taking his medication and convinced him to eat more protein and exercise to lose weight in a healthy manner. The dosage was reduced, his behavior stabilized, and he made the team.</p>
<p>It would be a bit of a stretch for me to suggest that my experience of 18 years as a mail carrier for the US Postal Service also prepared me well for a career in social work. Nevertheless, the extent to which I will excel as a graduate student will be inspired in part by the profound way in which I had the opportunity to get to know and to share in caring for a local California community for an extended period of time. Serving XXXX was an honor and a privilege: signing a child’s life book; brief conversations with the retired and disabled, in particular, had a long lasting effect. A middle-aged woman who suffered from mental health challenges living alone with her elderly mother haunts me upon occasion until today. I still see her standing in the window looking for me. Shortly after her mother’s death and unable to cope with the loss, she began presenting psychotic behaviors, so neighbors began calling the police. Consequently, the woman was arrested and admitted into a long-term mental health institution. That was only one of the many occasions in which I wished that I were a social worker rather than a mail carrier.</p>
<p>My current professional capacity as a Facility Manager and care giver at a level-11 group home for teen boys –XXXX in Fairfield, CA 6/13-Present—has provided me with an up-close look and in-depth exposure to two critical aspects of our social services that I think we all agree have room for improvement, foster care and mental health systems. My approach to working with clients is to not focus exclusively on their behaviors, also their needs that are not being met. I began working with a young man who was diagnosed with bipolar, mood, and encopresis disorders, for example. I was one of the staff who was able to build a strong rapport with him and became particularly successful at de-escalating his incidents. Six-months after I began working in the group home I was promoted to facility manager and this enabled me to modify his program by altering his consequences, so that we could retain him in the program and work with him at least until he had made further progress. One evening, following an episode of encopresis that he adamantly denied, I received a phone call stating he was placed in a manual restraint because he had attempted suicide by asphyxiation. After I arrived, he calmed down and we talked about what was going on; the following day he and his therapist worked out a plan whereby if he began to feel like he wanted to hurt himself he promised to have me paged. His episodes of encopresis became much less frequent and his progress is exponential.</p>
<p>One of only two undergraduate students from the entire class of 2013 to be assigned for field placement with Child Welfare Services (CWS) was very inspiring since these positions are typically reserved for graduate students. This internship provided me with a unique opportunity to see what it takes to become a CWS social worker and I feel strongly that I have what it takes and will be highly successful at continuing to grow, rapidly accumulating clinical hours, and also becoming an LCSW. I thank you for considering my application to your program.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2015-07-21:/entries/1180477MSW Social Work, Historically Black University2015-07-21T23:08:00-07:002017-05-19T23:35:04-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/374328/269;238;d429f0bedba53cf1e0013a9b3685057394049d23.png" style="float:left"><strong>Goals</strong>: After earning my MSW Degree at XXXX University, I hope to begin my career as an accredited social worker serving with Child Protective Services’ (CPS), Child and Family Agency. Within time, I would like to become a Social Worker Supervisor at the same agency working to ensure the safety and well being of families. My long term goal is to serve as the Director of a program working to prevent child abuse and neglect. Since I see children and families as inseparable, child and family welfare will always stand at the center of my social work focus, direct practice, and method.</p>
<p><strong>Experience</strong>: My decision to make my mark in life as a social worker was directly inspired by the traumatic events that I personally endured and survived by learning to cope, as a child, an adolescent, and an adult. My parents divorced when I was in middle school. My sister has mental health dx (Bi-polar & depression) and 5 children, none of which are with her. My mom and I have custody of the oldest, one is with her dad, one is with a friend, one is with a paternal grandmother, and the fifth was placed in the child welfare system and adopted. I followed each case and did everything that I could to ensure that they would all be cared for. My older brother had undiagnosed mental health issues and suffered from drug addiction; he committed suicide when I was a senior in high school. We were very close and the loss of my brother prompted my life-time dedication to the study of the destructive effects of substance abuse, particularly to the abuser’s family and children. I am myself a victim and survivor of domestic violence at the hands of my oldest child’s father and I know close up how difficult it is to rise above being a victim of domestic violence. A single mother of two, neither of the two fathers of my children has helped me to raise them or support them so far and neither has complied with court orders to assist financially with child support.</p>
<p>I have worked two jobs since I was 15. My struggles have helped me to better understand my own strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of our society and our social welfare system. My work with the Institute for Family Centered Services in XXXX MD from 2009 through 2010 opened my eyes to many important family issues and stole my heart as well, energizing me to help at-risk families in my community. Our goal was to preserve families and my job was to do assessments, develop and implemented treatment plans with individuals and families, and to help provide 24-hour crisis intervention. I prepared holistic assessments and made practical recommendations for clients, collaborating with service providers, probation officers, therapists, case managers, and social workers. From 2010 through most of 2011, I also worked for XXXX Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington DC as a Fortitude Housing Case Manager providing outreach, intake, assessment, employment search, and case management services. In this position I learned a great deal through my collaboration with the Department of Human Services and the DC Housing Authority. In 2011 I began working with (SOME) So Others Might Eat, Washington, DC 2011-2012, as a Service Coordinator independently managing a housing contract with the Department of Mental Health including all statistics, data reports, phone conferences, screenings, intakes, and move-ins for two of SOME’s largest housing properties. I remain dedicated to helping the homeless in our city and one of the highlights of my life has been to attend the National Alliance to End Homelessness Conference in 2010. I have also served as an advocate for homeless individuals at Washington DC, City Council Meetings.</p>
<p><strong>Weaknesses and Essential Strengths</strong>: According to what my friends, family, and co-workers tell me, I am often “too nice” or friendly, take on too much work, and need further instruction in how to say ‘no’. But apart from my own children I am a workaholic and I thrive on helping people. My greatest and most essential strength is probably my professional experience. In addition to the experience described above, I have been enjoying my two current positions enormously for almost 2 years now, with DC’s CFS as a Substance Abuse Coordinator and the XXXX working as a Life Skills Trainer. I find this latter position to be especially beneficial on a human level in the development of my leadership skills in crisis intervention. In my work as a Substance Abuse Coordinator for CFS, I often feel as if I am half scientist and half detective, laboring to determine the most clinically appropriate treatment supports and options available to families being aided by the District of Columbia's child welfare system. </p>
<p><strong>Contemporary Social Issue:</strong> I hope to put my experience to work in your program and focus much of my research on child abuse and neglect as it results from or is exacerbated by substance use and abuse. I am pleased that my BS Degree is in Psychology (2009) as this background helps me to understand the fundamentals of many of the dynamics involved in the psychology of substance use and abuse. The father of my oldest son who is now 8 years old loves him dearly and the boy loves his father. Unfortunately his dad is high on marijuana all of the time and lets my son do whatever he wants to do so that I have to re-program my child every week. This has also helped me to appreciate the profundity of some of our challenges in this area as a society, since it is close to home on a regular basis.</p>
<p><strong>Mission: </strong>I want to be a successful Social Worker that keeps families together by providing support and services that are offered in the DC area. I would like to become a leader in our field and serve as a Supervisor or Program Manager for Social Workers at a Child Welfare Agency. I am particularly interested in the statistics on removals and other related issues in child welfare including but not limited to substance abuse, domestic violence, education truancy, and child cruelty.</p>
<p><strong>Financial Aid:</strong> I am a white woman raised among mostly black people and this is why I attended an HBCU as an undergraduate, XXXX University, in Baltimore, MD. The fathers of my children are black, and we all struggle in our own ways. I want to continue my education in a predominantly African-American academic community because the wonderful black people with whom I have shared my life over the years have taught me to admire and find joy in struggle for advancement.</p>
<p>I am applying for financial aid through FAFSA to finance my graduate education. I thank you for considering my application to XXXX’s distinguished MSW Program as I feel strongly that your University is the best fit for my personality, drive, capacity, resources, and extremely high level of motivation and I thank you for considering my application.</p>
tag:socialworkstatement.com,2015-07-21:/entries/1180128MSW Military Social Work, Navy, Mental Health2015-07-21T05:50:00-07:002017-05-19T23:31:54-07:00<p><img alt="" src="https://socialworkstatement.com/files/resized/271155/275;206;a039a2c5c7ffb099de7c3f56702dd46b404a7d20.jpg" style="float:left">I have now been in the US Navy for the past 12 years and it is my home; and the context in which I hope to continue to make progress professionally as a social worker. It is my intention to excel in your flagship Masters Program in Social Work at UXX based not only on my experience with the military but also my intense dedication to the subject of mental health issues, addictions, and domestic violence. I have seen and witnessed up close the daily struggles of our service members and their families now for most of my adult life, which helps me to understand the complexity of their situations and I believe will help me to think creatively in your program about military issues from a social work perspective.</p>
<p>Persistent and a very hard worker, I take great pride in the fact that I am a survivor and have personally bounced back from the trauma of sexual abuse and the crippling affects of depression and anxiety that so frequently compound the suffering of the victim. This is why I now want to be seen as a source of hope, in particular, for the women and children of military families.</p>
<p>I have now spent many years working as an Instructor for the Navy with an extremely diverse population, helping soldiers to deal effectively with their personal, legal, financial, and professional issues on a daily basis. I also serve as a Family Advocacy Program Representative working as a liaison between the Navy and the families of service members. I deal with Domestic Violence issues among service members on a daily basis, many if not most of these cases have something to do with substance abuse. This is why I want very much to develop a research focus as a student in your program at UXX in the areas of mental health, addiction, sexual abuse and domestic violence.</p>
<p>I have also distinguished myself as a volunteer to the extent to which I have been able, working, for example with a group called Saturday Scholars tutoring children. I have long had a profound passion for feeding the homeless and I have also engaged in this area to the extent of my abilities, what I have left after being a soldier and a mother of 4. In Japan, I spent a lot of time visiting orphanages.</p>
<p>Born and raised in the Philippines, I joined the Navy shortly after our arrival in San Diego, CA. I still speak Tagalog almost every day with my family and there are so many Filipino soldiers in the military that sometimes I feel as if I never left the Philippines. I also see myself as following in my father’s footsteps since he worked at a US Naval Base in Subic Bay as a civilian safety engineer. I grew up very familiar with the US Bases. But my patriotism really developed shortly after the 9/11 when we permanently immigrated to America only one month after the attack. I remember to this day watching it on CNN in the Philippines.</p>
<p>My brother and I enlisted in the military at the same time, right after getting our social security numbers, primarily because we were very grateful for the opportunity that America was giving us. We saw our enlistment not only as a way to prepare for our education, but also as a way to honor the victims of those attacks (including 17 Filipino and Filipino Americans).</p>
<p>My first duty overseas was in Yokosuka Japan for 6 months. My next adventure abroad was a year in Bahrain, being able to visit Dubai twice, as well as Paris and Venice. Now I am deployed in Kuwait for 7 months. I work as the Leading Petty Officer of the "Separations Platoon" dealing with service members who are being processed out in the Navy and Marine Corps for legal and administrative issues.</p>
<p>I am a divorced mother of 4. My ex-husband is suffering from PTSD and was medically discharged from the Navy in 2007. Being in the Navy for 12 years, I have seen and witnessed the daily struggles of our service members and their families and the great sacrifices that they make in order to serve our country. This is why it would bring me special joy to help develop, put in place, and administer effective, timely, and culturally sensitive treatment plans for social service programs in the military, helping to improve the lives not only of service members but also their families.</p>
<p>Troubled by the way in which in today's society the genuine willingness of people to help others is a rarity and doing for others is generally seen as a burden. I seek to live my life as testimony to the best in human nature, celebration of service to those who most need our help, especially the protection of families. I know how it is to be in their shoes and to feel the sense of hopelessness that comes all too often along with military service. I want to serve as an inspiration to my patients and clients and be able to touch their lives and make a positive difference. I want to serve as a role model to women who were abused and abandoned and empower them to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I want to be an advocate for those who do not have a voice and those who are too weak to defend themselves and their own. This is why social work shall be my mission, passion, identity, and sense of fulfillment in life.</p>
<p>I want to become a Commissioned Officer in the Navy as a Social Worker to do research and develop more Social work programs that serve to more effectively identify those service members and their families who are in greatest need of assistance, in a proactive if not preventative fashion, addressing the issues before they spiral out of hand and great damage is done. I have watched with horror and investigated cases of soldiers who have ended up murdering their wives shortly after returning home from combat zones. I want to see this as largely preventable, not always, but in most cases. I want to help control the stress that drives these incidents by creating and identifying more resources for soldiers, in a variety of areas, especially coping strategies.</p>
<p>My heart is set on your program at UXX for obvious reasons, the fact that your program is not only the first military social work specialization at a civilian research university but also the first web-based MSW program and the principal pioneer program implementing virtual reality into graduate education. Furthermore, your program is the only MSW program to receive a direct appropriation from Congress for military social work research through the department of defense. One of your research clusters is veterans and military families, another is substance abuse, a third is child welfare; where else would I want to earn my MSW? Why not join the online academic community of the most rapidly expanding social work graduate school in the nation?</p>
<p>I am a living testament to the way in which one can bounce back and make their own life and the lives of others around them much better, despite difficult circumstances and challenges. I have always sought to serve and was originally attracted to the study of health care. This is why I began studying and finally finished my undergraduate studies in the area of Healthcare Management. The weakest part of my application to your program is my grades as an undergraduate student. At the time, however, I was wrestling with great challenges and I ask that this be taken into consideration as a factor in the evaluation of my ability to perform as a student in your program. My husband became completely unstrung by his PTSD at the very same time that all 4 of our children were still small. My grades suffered because this was my time of greatest trial and struggle in every way. All of these issues have now long been resolved and I am free to concentrate my energy on my studies.</p>
<p>In 2012, I was sent unaccompanied for a year to the Middle East where I worked in a small clinic and it was there that I found my calling, when I was introduced to the Social Work field in the clinic. This year-long tour was challenging especially being away from my family. I got divorced while in the Middle East, and married again, to Social Work. It was the wonderful support that I received from my own military social worker that gave me the final push to put my own troubles in the past and to give my all to my future and the troubles of others. Ten years from now I aspire to have my Doctorate in the field of Social Work Program and possibly open my own clinical practice as a social worker dedicated to military families. I thank you for consideration of my application to your unique and distinguished MSW Program at UXX.</p>