R O S I E
K A V A N A G H
I was 19 when I chose a career in Social Work, coming from a family of nurses, the concept of caring for people was in my blood! I have predominately worked with adults and now work as a full-time Practice Educator in the voluntary sector.
I chose Mirror because…
In my direct work with vulnerable adults I have been committed to empowering people, I have encouraged service users to ‘look in the mirror’ for them to identify their existing strengths/skills and to look beyond an illness or diagnosis they have been labelled with.
The mirror symbolises ‘reflection’ to me, I have continued to develop my critical reflection skills and spend a lot of time evaluating my practice and searching for new, more creative/effective ways to support students. I have explored my identity in great depth and support students to do the same, to help them consider any values conflicts and learn about oppression and discrimination.
I love teaching students about reflection, I encourage my students to use the ‘mirror’ to consider what type of Social Worker they want to be and use reflection as a tool to learn about themselves and improve their practice!
social work in 40 objects 
Great post. I have often used the mirror concept in my teaching especially in relation to personal values and seeing those things we perhaps need to consider changing. I like your more literal approach and can see how that would work really well with social work students (and many people generally). I also like the strengths based approach you adopt. Thanks for sharing.
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