Construction of a Professional Theoretical Orientation

Briefly describe yourself (i.e., age, gender, sexual orientation – optional, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, religious and/or spirit convictions, personality – values and beliefs influencing your way(s) of being, thinking, and behaving, etc.).Briefly describe your professional goals (i.e., what are your career objectives? What populations do you see yourself comfortably servicing? What populations may be more challenging for you to serve?)Support your discussion with concrete examples.Very briefly, what do you know about the client population with whom you wish to work with? What do you know about the environment or context in which these client(s) are likely to exist and the major social, economic, and political issues/problems that they face?What theoretical perspective best addresses these issues? Make sure to focus on mezzo/macro level theoriesWhat theoretical perspective(s) of those learned resonates most with your sense of self and professional career objectives?(i.e., what are some of the assumptions and principles of the specific theoretical perspective(s)? )What are some of the strengths and restrictions reflected by the theoretical perspective(s)?How does the theoretical perspective(s) challenge and/or support your beliefs and value system?
How would the theoretical perspective(s) support your practice with the client population with whom you wish to work with? )Support your discussion with concrete examples.Provide examples for how and why this perspective or these perspectives are useful, effective, ethical, etc. for working within the context of human diversity.How does the theoretical perspective(s) address human diversity, social work ethics and values, social justice and what is the research evidence for their effectiveness?What steps do you consider important for strengthening your Professional Theoretical Orientation which will serve to enhance your professional competence? (i.e., supervision, reading, comparison of case outcomes, etc.).This final paper is graded on its rigor, thoroughness, accuracy, organization and application to clients. Since this is a research paper, references should be cited in the text and included in a reference section that follows APA format. It is expected that at least 9 references with 3 outside (peer-reviewed) sources will be used in the development and writing of this paper.