VISIONARIES AND RISK TAKERS

I liked what it said in our text, (Hardcastle and Powers. 2004), that “social workers must be visionaries and risk takers, able to formulate fresh approaches and challenge the status quo” (p. 211). This is one of the reasons that I am becoming a social worker. I would like to assist others who are in oppressive and marginalized states, and do so in my internship, as well as in my life. In my internship, I help in empowering the homeless, looking for ways to reinforce their living situations, while helping them to see a safer, more predictable way of living than on the streets.
The violence that they experience is not from each other, but from those people who are looking to hurt or injure them-kids and others who fail to recognize themselves in each of the homeless ones. That is a big part of working with vulnerable populations, the fact that we are just one paycheck, or job, away from being in the same or similar situations. “There but for fortune go you and I” (Ochs, P. 1970). I see the homeless as very much abused by and negative toward society. As children, a lot of (in fact, most of the currently homeless), were mistreated as young ones. This continued throughout their lives-in domestic violence situations, in the despair that follows from this treatment, and wondering if they have a right to protest the society in which they find themselves in-a society which is fraught with injustices: crimes of white collar workers; wars which have devastated nations and peoples; drugs, both legal and illegal, which have wasted the best and brightest of minds; medical “advances” which have saved many lives, but also have caused new diseases to crop up. Once safe drugs could “cure” these diseases, but now they have become resistant to the antibiotics to treat them; as well as the crimes of ordinary criminals, such as assault, battery, stealing, lying, and murder. No matter where the crime originates, the effect is the same. It turns people away from their source of goodness and their humanity. I believe that abuse and crimes perpetuated on children will be repaid on those who initiated the abuse or crimes. The web of life continues and we constantly devastate the land, her people, and our nations. The cycle of abuse goes on and on.

References

Hardcastle and Powers. (2004). Community practice: Theories and skills for social workers. (2nd ed.) New York, New York: Oxford University Press.

Ochs, P. (1970) There but for fortune [Recorded by J. Baez]. On The First 10 Years [vinyl]. Side one, track # 5.