Today we conducted the final two FGDs for the counselling review. I was quite excited because the FGDs were held at a Senior Activity Centre, which I had never been inside or actually encountered before. I'm not sure if the place "met" my preconceptions of what an SAC is supposed to look like, but it did seem quite empty, and for some reason I was looking for a karaoke set hmmm...
I got the chance to do the FGD today, which was quite exciting because I had never conducted a discussion group with clients or service users previously. It was different this time because while I had conducted groupwork with youths previously, it is entirely different when you conduct a group with adults whom you are actually asking a favour from (as opposed to conducting a programme with). I was quite conscious about needing to go down to their educational level and not to sound as "ang moh" as I usually do, and while typically being local is not an issue, for some reason when it comes to work I tend to be more "official" sounding, for lack of a better word. This time I felt that my sounding more polished worked against me to some extent because it would mean that no matter how well I could connect with the participants in terms of content, they would not not reach that level of comfort of being able to share as freely with me as I would have liked. Since this was my first FGD I don't expect to be able to so quickly fit in with the participants; however it is something I need to take note of and work on in future work.
What made me a bit more cautious about the FGD was that it needed Malay translation because most of the participants were more comfortable with speaking in Malay. I have never worked with a translator before, and often it is a bit difficult to know whether I should ask for a translation or wait for the translator (in this case the manager of the SAC) to translate. I was also unsure if the participants were quiet because they could not understand what I was saying or if they were thinking or shy to answer. I was also unsure if I should ask them individually, something I observed my supervisor doing frequently - I wanted to, but was hesitant of sounding repetitive. The few times I tried to ask them individually (by directing the quesitons at the quieter ones), they tended not to answer, or the more prominent ones would end up speaking up instead. I think I could have made better use of the translator, by asking him to translate and to prompt each of them to give an answer - this way I could have elicited individual replies from all the participants instead.
I also need to learn to simplify questions I realise. I tried to but I was not always successful - something I realised during the session itself. I need to be quicker at being able to assess the level of understanding of the participants, to pick out the words that they would have trouble with, and find ways and means to be able to rephrase the terms into phrases they would understand and relate to. However it was quite heartening to be able to elicit responses from the participants, though it would have been good if I could have generated enough rapport with them and within the group itself for the participants to start discussing amongst themselves.
I attended the disability network in the afternoon, which was quite interesting. Having someone who straddles both the service provider and service user worlds brings a lot of interesting things to the table, in terms of being able to provide better insight into the service gaps and service possibilities for working with the disabled. I often wonder what it's like, when you have people with disabilities working in the social services - do they feel a greater sense of motivation, and do they feel a greater need to advocate for clients? Do they empathise more with clients because they experience similar problems and challenges, or do they somehow become more disdainful of the clients precisely because they had the same (or similar) challenge in life, yet they (service provider) managed to overcome these challenges and become successful? And as a client, would I feel better understood and more comfortable with a therapist or service provider who had either the same or a similar disability as me? How would this affect how I react to therapy/treatment/service provision? This would actually be a very interesting area of research to look into, and could have potential implications in the field of social work with the disabled.
The speaker also talked about a new way of thinking of the client as a customer, and how when you think of customers you think of profit, you think of businesses - in which case you would do anything to make the customer happy. In light of that, the phrase "the customer is always right" comes to mind. In contrast, when we think of the term "client", that tends to bring to mind the idea that we as service providers are the experts, and that we should tell the client what they should do. While we are taught that the client is the expert of their own lives, we inevitably will tend to think of how their lives fit together and will impose our own ideas of what is better for them. However, if we think of the client as a customer, then we will strive to meet every one of their needs (instead of the bare minimum), and see how else we can serve them aside from just what they come to us for (e.g. they may approach us for financial aid, but could benefit from family counselling and youth programmes for the children). In this way we stop taking our position for granted, and return to what the profession is actually about - serving people, in a manner that addresses their lives holistically, using our expertise not to exploit but to find additional areas to help them.
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