Part A:
Read the Career Focus Module Assessment Task Overview before starting. You are to complete the Career Focus Module for Social Work and submit a 500 word Career Action Plan. The Career Action Plan Worksheet is to be used as a guide for writing your Career Plan and should not be submitted.
Task Description - Career Action Plan
Using the information from your Career Action Plan Worksheet create a career action plan (maximum 500 words) that summarises:
a. Your career goal
b. Key skills that are required for this profession
c. The skills you currently have that will be applicable to this profession (100-200 words)
d. Your plan for developing the additional skills required from both curricular and extracurricular activities (200 words)
e. Broad timelines of major activities you will undertake between now and the end of your degree.
Remember to focus on the SMART Goals (not the SOAR model). You may want to check the marking rubric before you start.
Part B:
For an assignment of this length you would be expected to use 10 - 15 references. These should include your course text, other readings provided, and relevant articles or books. If you show that you have gone outside the text and provided readings and engaged with broader social work literature, you will do better. Please do not use Wikipedia or similar internet sites that are not academic. Use reputable journals and web sites that have credibility.
You need to have an introduction that sets out the task of the assignment and what you will be covering. Approximately 150 words. At the end, you need a conclusion summing up what you have done. Another 150 words. The rest of the structure should follow the criteria for assessment.
You need to reflect carefully about the knowledge, skills and values that you are bringing with you into social work from your previous study, work and life experiences. This means that when you are discussing, for example, theories that you might be familiar with, you should name these theories and provide some key references to these theories. Just talking broadly about ‘psychological theories' is not sufficient - try to nail these down with some examples. If you are discussing other types of knowledge, such as legal knowledge or policy knowledge, give some examples of these and reference where relevant. When discussing values, refer back to literature about social work values that we have covered and reference this.
As this is an exploration of your knowledge, skills and values, you should write in the first person.
It is important that you critically analyse the transferability of previous knowledge, skills and values into social work. Are there things that you have learnt or done previously that will be useful - or are there things that you simply don't think would transfer across. Your life experiences are important. If you have worked in hospitality, you will know about working with (often difficult) people; if you have worked in a bank, you will know about financial accountability; if you have been an environmental activist, you will know about volunteering and advocacy; if you are a parent, you will know many, many things... You need to build on what you have done in your first assignment and put this into an academic structured paper that draws on literature.
Don't forget to explore potential challenges in relation to your knowledge, skills, experiences, and/or values. This is an important section so make sure you don't get to the end and just tack it on. It is useful as a starting point to consider the challenges you might face transitioning into social work and practising as a social worker, as these are often the most difficult challenges to address.
For example, sometimes there will be a conflict between our personal values and our professional values. How might you overcome these? If you have a religious perspective that makes it difficult for you to accept same-sex relationships, then how are you going to manage this as a social worker? If you have strong views about people who use drugs, or people who work in the sex industry, or people who seek asylum in this country, then how are these values going to sit with the values of social work?
Following this, look at identifying how you might address these challenges as you transition into social work and practice. Try not to focus on small challenges (such as acquainting yourself with services), but anything you foresee as bigger issues. Then consider how you might overcome these.
Academic referencing style - APA 6 style