I personally grew up in a family where we had numerous financial issues. My mother was a housewife and my father a casual worker in a factory. Dad went to work every day and every day came home dejected as he could barely afford for our food. This occurred in the face of school fee for me and my four siblings. My family is not the only one, many professionals today struggle with financial stress. It is from this experience that I think employees should be supported more at the workplace to help them deal with their own financial issues. This paper is a reflection of a session I had with a social worker who had financial issues.
Social workers are to interact with less fortunate members of society with a view to understanding their situations and helping them to overcome whatever is plaguing them. It is very easy for someone to forget that these social workers also have their own issues to deal with. Among the misfortunes that may plague someone and render the services of a social worker important are financial crises. Ironically, social workers are never the most affluent of people in society and it is not so surprising that they fall into financial crises.
I interacted with a social worker who did not have any other stable employment and solely depended on the little money from the local authority to fend for his family of four children and a wife. He had to pay school fee for his children and had taken a loan to cover his mortgage. Repayment of the loan had got the poor man into a real financial crisis.
The man was visibly disturbed. He did not want his children and wife to know the particulars of his financial strains. As Beehr (2014 pp.114) predicts, such a man would find it difficult to perform his daily duties in his mental state. Being on a six-month probation even worsened the situation. He risked losing his current position altogether – an occurrence that would only mean one thing – auctioning his property. From my own assessment, the man was not in the shape to enable him to work with looked after children properly.
Helping him proved difficult as their working conditions did not provide for short breaks between working days. Moreover, he was on probation. To help him I excused him from duty for two days to allow him to relax. Beehr (2014 pp.184) suggests that a short break from stressing work environment could help one to cool their head and sober up slightly. Later, I would contemplate with the social department on how we can help such workers.
From this experience, I learned that social workers did a lot of work sometimes under pressure but their own affairs were not catered for well. People who helped other people to deal with their issues were left on their own whenever they had issues to solve. I learned that social workers are a group which requires more support. Workers need more social support to deal with their financial issues (Beehr, 2014 pp.185).
In my future practice as a community development worker, I will try to be there for my social workers. Since they will be working with me, I will try to offer them the services they offer the rest of the society. It is imperative for social workers to be supported mentally lest they can break down under various issues. They carry mental and emotional burdens of their won and those of other people.
Bibliography
Beehr, T.A., 2014. Psychological stress in the workplace (Psychology revivals). London, Routledge.
