MENTOR INTERVIEW

Although the career I desire is to become a clinical psychologist, I wish to pursue a career as a social worker until I meet the requirements to work in a hospital or psych ward as a clinical psychologist. For the mentor interview I interviewed a social worker in the nursing home that I currently work at.

The first question I asked the social worker whose name is Kendra was what type of personalities are required to work with these patients as well as their family members? What personality is needed to work in this field of work? Her response was that one must be compassionate toward these patients because each have a special case and need for care. Also, most are at the facility for long term care. Kendra stated that as a social worker, one must also be a good listener, problem solver and must have excellent intrapersonal skills because there needs to be open communication between the social worker and her patients, their family member, staff and doctors. The skills required other than intrapersonal skills are good writing skills and portable skills.

I then asked is this career changing and if so how? Has the economy had any effect on this career? Is it more in demand than what it was when you first entered this field of work? Her response was that most of the patients in the nursing home are the baby boomers and that there are more people that need help. She says the economy has affected this career because social worker positions are not available at the moment because facilities cannot afford to hire more but she says that once the economy picks up she has a strong feeling that many jobs will be available. She says that in five years she believes there will be an increase in jobs due to the many people that need help and that a social worker position cannot be taken over by computers because this field requires an actual person at hand to complete every task needed.

Another question I asked was what are the hardships that you face as a social worker? Kendra responded by saying dealing with difficult people. She stated that the patients, for the most part aren’t too difficult but their family members tend to be because some do not have a realistic view of the situation. Some are in denial and think that they know what’s best for their family member when in fact; their approach may not be the best. Another hardship she faces is when patients and their siblings do not get along or had many conflicts in the past, and now that sibling is in charge of making all decisions for the patient. This tends to cause even more chaos and difficulty. Kendra just tries to play fair because she cannot take sides in situations such as these; therefore she keeps all point of views open.

Some hardship she faces with staff is that sometime staff forget that social workers are the advocate for the patients and that they must report abuse or any type of neglect no matter if there is a friendship. She cannot worry about what the staff may say or how they feel because she has a job to do and all must be reported and documented if the patients’ needs are not being made. This often causes friction between the staff and social workers.

Lastly, I asked Kendra what is the upside of working in this field and this position? She smiled and quickly said that it is rewarding to see short term patients’ progress and reach their goals so they are able to go home. She said it is also very rewarding to see long term patients content and happy because they are being taken care of and their needs are being met. Most of the patients are very sick in this facility and have multiple medical diagnoses so they are dealing with a lot of end of life issues, so their happiness is very important. Getting to know long term patients family is also rewarding to Kendra.