{"id":2477,"date":"2016-03-15T12:49:40","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T11:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=2477"},"modified":"2016-03-15T12:49:40","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T11:49:40","slug":"so-proud-to-be-a-social-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/education-languages-health\/childhood-youth\/so-proud-to-be-a-social-worker\/","title":{"rendered":"‘So proud to be a social worker’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The OU has been training social workers for over 18 years with 300 people graduating in the field each year.\u00a0To celebrate World Social Work Day<\/a> today, a social work student and graduate\u00a0reflect on their journeys into the profession.<\/p>\n

‘Passionate about my career’<\/h2>\n

Emma Govan (pictured above) graduated from the OU in 2014 and has been shortlisted for the Social Worker of the Year award in the Scottish Association of Social Workers<\/a> Awards 2016. Raising a child with autism took Emma into a world where her family needed professional support and she was inspired to help other families.<\/p>\n

Social workers entered my family\u2019s life and I knew then that I wanted to help other families in a similar way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI graduated in 2014 and am so proud to be a social worker. I cannot underestimate the knowledge I gained from my practice teachers and module tutors who nurtured me, and helped me view multiple perspectives.<\/p>\n

“The support they offered came from their own knowledge of social work and beyond. I thank them all; they know who they are, for developing me, not only professionally but as a person,” she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am currently practicing within the Scottish Borders Learning Disability Team and I\u2019ve also set up an equine therapy company, combining my passion for horses with my profession!<\/p>\n

“I am passionate about my career and my learning journey. Relationships are at the core of what I do and with so many changes within social work happening, I will continue to strive to promote equality and social justice. \u2018Never give up\u2019 is my mantra!\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired by caring colleagues<\/h2>\n
\"Social

<\/a> Social work student Laura Mynett<\/p><\/div>\n

Laura Mynett stumbled on a social work career when she was made redundant after 18 years in a role, and took the opportunity to try something new.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw a part-time job in an adoption agency and decided to apply. The only non-social worker in my team, my job was to promote adoption and recruit more adopters. I landed on my feet by finding myself in the most welcoming, caring and diligent team.<\/p>\n

“They showed such care and ownership for the children and families they worked with and advocated for them so strongly. The more I listened, the more I wanted to become a social worker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura\u2019s combining her day job with OU study and is now in the second year of her social work degree<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can read more about Emma and Laura on the Community Care website<\/a>.\u00a0The Open University is a pioneer in practice-based learning and around 250 employers currently use the OU as a social work training provider.\u00a0You can find out more here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The OU has been training social workers for over 18 years with 300 people graduating in the field each year.\u00a0To celebrate World Social Work Day today, a social work student and graduate\u00a0reflect on their journeys into the profession. ‘Passionate about my career’ Emma Govan (pictured above) graduated from the OU in 2014 and has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[589,789,1043,1279,2063,2456],"class_list":["post-2477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-childhood-youth","tag-degree","tag-emma-govan","tag-health-and-social-care","tag-laura-mynett","tag-social-work","tag-world-social-work-day-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}