>> Batch 8541: My Name is Abbey Johnson and
I'm currently a professor at Georgia Southern,
but I was a social worker in the field of mental
health and the field of grief and bereavement.
So, the job of social work is multifaceted but
ultimately the job of social work is to tend
to your client's needs; you have clients and of
course in mental health is one area of clients
and like say Hospice is another
are of clients and when I worked,
well in all of them you still have
to do these certain activities.
You still have to these certain performances are
expected of you like your intake interview and,
you know, getting to know the client making them
feel comfortable, there are procedures on how
to make the client feel comfortable and then of
course like empathy is a huge, huge aspect of it
and empathy of course if putting yourself
in the shoes of the other, so you know,
your heart really has to go out to these
clients whether that be in a, you know,
a mental health facility or that be, you know,
coping, helping someone cope through loss,
so it's a very emotional job, but
it's a very like political job
in which the policies are very important
and you have restrictions on what you can do
and how close you can get to the
clients and so it's a lot of making sure
that you complete the synopsis of
whatever went on with you and the client;
it's a lot of writing in that you want to be
detailed so that the next person who, you know,
assists the client has all the details
and that's one of those policy parts,
that's one of those professional aspects of it.
So a typical day would be meet with client
and once again you have to, not have to,
you need to make them feel comfortable,
you have very little information going
into meeting the client so it's a lot of
active listening and therefore you get
as much information as possible within about 20
minutes and you schedule your next appointment,
maybe mention some aspects you
want to cover with the client.
Ultimately, you're going to have this
clinical plan for them to succeed
in whatever their goals are and that
goes into like the next week's meeting,
but it's kind of a continuation of this all day.
The idea of social workers in society is that
they are overworked, their case loads are many
and plentiful and they are, so it's a lot of
back-to-back, you know, and once again putting
on your game face and being able to make
them feel comfortable and be active listeners
and empathetic and so, you know, you're
looking at maybe 40 cases a week,
so every day you're going to meet, you
know, 5 or so cases and a great deal
of those making sure that you
record all that accurate information
so that the clinical team knows
how to better assist the client.