Abstract
This study examined social care workers’ understanding of self-awareness and reflection, the impact of reflection on their practice, and the factors which support and/or impede reflection in their practice. Given the limited evidence base in general on the use of reflection in social care practice, this qualitative study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by exploring the role of self-awareness and reflection in social care practice among a small group of social care practitioners in Ireland. The study included interviews with seven social care workers who were pursuing a postgraduate qualification in social care practice. The main findings indicate that the participants had a general understanding of self-awareness and how to reflect on practice with critical incident reports being identified as the most common tool used to reflect. The findings also suggest that the role of self-awareness and reflection in social care practice appears to be an ideological concept which the participants believed to be an essential professional skill, but in fact it was not exclusively employed in everyday practice.
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Recommended Citation
Greene, Aoife
(2017)
"The Role of Self-Awareness and Reflection in Social Care Practice,"
Journal of Social Care:
Vol. 1, Article 3.
doi:10.21427/D7614X
Available at:
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/jsoc/vol1/iss1/3
DOI
10.21427/D7614X