Samantha Pedri

Evaluation of Practice Paper

SW 4442
March 9th, 2015

Evaluation of Practice 2

Intro:
The agency that I intern for is East China School District. The district consists of
nine schools including high school, middle school, elementary, and a developmental
program for ages three to twenty six. I am located mostly at one elementary school. I
occasionally travel to other locations to work with specific students. I have gain
independence within the building I work for and have learned more since the year has
started.
At my agency I work with a group of students mostly, but it can branch out to
representing the school as a whole or the district as a whole, and how they are involved
with the community. I work most often with a small group of students or with a student
individually. I am not as involved with the district as a whole or with the community. I
feel as though I could easily evaluate my skills working with individuals and groups
much easier than I can to the community.
Evaluation:
I evaluate my skills on a regular basis. I think about my skills and prepare myself
for the day as I drive to my agency in the morning asking myself what I can do better to
help similar situations or what can I do to challenge myself more. I evaluate myself as I
leave my agency asking how the day went and what I could have done differently. The
online course for this class is a great way to evaluate my skills as well. I get to sit down
and really reflect how I feel about the agency and see if what I am doing is working. It is
nice to have that comparison with other classmates also to see if they are progressing or
struggling or seeing things I should pay more attention to.

Evaluation of Practice 3
Another form of evaluation I have is taking the time to sit down with my field
supervisor and doing my evaluations together. She takes the time to address any problems
or questions I may have and tells me how she feels about my work there. We go over my
learning plan and make sure I am meeting the required and expected criteria to prepare
me for the social work field. This helps me make sure I am learning specific skills and
learn them enough to apply them or refer back to them in my future career.
Impact:
I know that the work I do in the school has an impact mostly based on feedback
from the school faculty and visible progress my students make. I help out with the
Cognitively Impaired classroom. With my set of extra hands in that room, it really
helps out the teacher and the paraprofessional. It is easier for the kids to be watched and
handled properly and allows the teacher time and ability to teach and work with each
child individually.
I also have developed great relationships with each of the students in this
classroom. My welcome every morning is a big hug and an, I missed you! When I get
to class it is a common saying by the teacher and paraprofessionals, If you dont listen
you dont get to sit with Miss Sam, and then they will do as told so they dont get their
Miss Sam time, taken away. The positive feedback and reinforcement is a great
reassurance that my help and work is appreciated and effective with the students. Seeing
the progress of a student is not gone unnoticed.
Required Skills:
The skills that are required to work in my agency consists of being able to work
properly with staff and students, being able to work with diversity, patience, you have to

Evaluation of Practice 4
be understanding, and you have to be able to handle physical aggression. There are a lot
of meetings and a large caseload so you have to be able to handle the large amount of
work you will be given, be able to travel, and you have to know vocabulary. You have to
know the schools code of conduct and their expectations across the district. You have to
be able to document data accurately and record it properly. Other skills needed would be
to be able to use physical restraint if needed with a student, be able to differentiate the
difference between different types of plans and meetings, and be able to work with not
only staff but with parents as well.
Population:
The agency from just the elementary school perspective is not very diverse when
it comes to ethnicity or culture but it is divers when it comes to mental health, which
would be the groups of students that I get to work with. The population works great for
me because I love children. I at first did not want to work with kids and I wanted to work
with adolescence and was very disappointed in my field placement. After some time I fell
in love with the class I work with and work hard to improve my skills because of them. I
could see myself working in that classroom forever.
I have been able to take what used to be a negative thought and idea and change it
into a positive thing. I made the most out of my field placement and I love it now. The
kids are a great group for myself and it also personally helps me outside of the social
work side of things. It has been a blessing that I changed my view of the agency and
made something better out of it.

Evaluation of Practice 5
Improvement:
I can improve more on my vocabulary and understanding more of the office work
of the agency. I am aware of 504 meetings and plans, IEPs, and behavior plans but I am
unaware of how they are brought up or referred. Also I would like to gain more insight on
how students are assessed and how they are certified or diagnosed, to determine where
they are placed in a school, such as the cognitively impaired room, the early childhood
program, or the life skills developing school. I can also document daily what I do to make
sure I am remembering these skills for the future and how I can apply them.
Ethical Social Work Practice:
Being in a school setting, it is very important to be ethically correct and to follow
the code of ethics and code of conduct. With todays society, it is hard for families to trust
just anyone with their child and it is important that a school can trust someone with their
students. You cannot release any personal information, you have to be careful how you
interact with students, and you have to make sure everything you do is ethical and would
be approved by the school and the parents. When working with the cognitively impaired
students sometimes you have to pick a student up from attacking another child,
sometimes there are injuries, and sometimes the children are just very affectionate. If a
parent finds out that an adult at the school is hugging their child it may not be okay. So it
is very important to remember where the line is and not to over step your boundaries and
to be very careful.
Values of Social Work Practice:
This agency placement has taught me a lot about building great relationships with
staff and being able to work with everyone. It has taught me a lot about the diversity of

Evaluation of Practice 6
mental health and physical disability. It is a great reminder for the advocacy of equality. It
has also given me the ability to be confident and independent with my work. I feel as
though I no longer have to be skeptical of my skills or hesitant to work with a student.
That was originally my biggest fear, having someone observing me and I was afraid I
would be doing something wrong or they did not think I was doing a good job. Now that
I feel more comfortable it has made my job there so much easier. Being comfortable
makes a huge difference in my work there and my attitude towards what I am doing.
It has also taught me basic skills, how to research and how to use my resources to
better help my studies and others. I have been able to reach out to the community a little
bit and it has given me a better understanding of macro work, which is still a large
learning opportunity for myself. It has given me some vocabulary and simple work ethics
of a social worker. It has prepared me for the real world that this job is a hard job and
time consuming and involves a lot of skills and tasks, but it is extremely rewarding. If
you work hard and allow yourself to grow it will be rewarding and you can gain so much
more than knowledge.
Overall:
This past semester thus far has out done last semester by far. I at first was so upset
with my field placement and I have come a long way educationally, on my skills, and on
my attitude about my placement. I have developed great skills and relationships and I
now look forward into going to my placement. The most important feeling to me is
feeling wanted when you are at work and I feel wanted. I also am excited to go to work
there and it is always a huge plus loving what you are doing, I will be sad when the

Evaluation of Practice 7
semester ends, so sad to the point where I will be asking about volunteering or doing
paraprofessional work while trying to get my masters degree.