This is a joint guest blog by William Smith, MA Social Work student, and June Symonds, BA (Hons) Social Work student. They were both awarded the Dorset Council Award for Social Work, at the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences awards ceremony. 

When I (William) started my Master’s in September 2020, my end goal was to become a Social Worker. If I’m honest, I didn’t really think about what ‘being a social worker’ meant and my reasoning for why I was doing this course was because I wanted to help people.  Two years on and this has changed. I want to be a social worker because I want to be the voice of the person who can’t speak up. Being a social worker is fighting for the rights of those who can’t fight for themselves and making sure that everyone is treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve. 

This course has given me the opportunity to reflect on my own morals and values and I hope to lead my practice with these at the forefront. I am humbled by winning this award and would like to thank all the social work team for the nomination, as well as for the support I’ve been shown over the past two years.

Hi, I’m June, and I can definitely say that studying at BU has been an immensely enriching journey, one that has truly enabled me to live the motto of our university: To learn is to change (Discere Mutari Est). As a student practitioner, I have been humbled by the opportunities to value the lived experiences of the families and individuals I have supported. Taking the time to listen to their experiences has helped me to understand them and to develop and link theories to practice supporting in a person-centred way.

This is something I will take with me in my future practice and continue developing.  

I am so thankful to the teaching team for the incredible effort they put into the varied learning experiences for us and I am very much looking forward to continuing to support children and families in my new role as an ASYE Social Worker for the support and safeguarding team at Wiltshire Council.

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Department of Social Sciences & Social Work