Journal #3 September 26, 2021
For this journal, we were supposed to complete an assessment based on our personal values. My highest results from the Personal Values were in financial, family, and the intellectual columns. My lowest columns included community, spiritual, and physical. My highest values did not really surprise me because I highly value my family, my education, and being able to financially support myself. However, it did surprise me that community was one of my lowest values because I feel as though working in my community has become very important to me.
My values can impact my work as a social worker because what I believe in may impact how I handle a situation. My values can be completely different from my clients and it would be important to remember in those situations that it is about the client and respecting their decision. In addition, I do believe that biases contribute to values because if you believe something or value something differently from another, your biases can come into play. My values, beliefs, and social identities affect my leadership ability and potential because I believe that these ideas makeup who you are, what you like, and how to handle situations. So in those situations, I would say values guide our decisions and they can strengthen your ability to influence. Lastly, some strategies that could be useful in ensuring that practitioners are being inclusive are being able to educate yourself and leaders, encourage cultural and employee differences, be more open to communication, and continually communicate about goals for the communities.