Dreamcatcher

E R I N

N U R S EY

I have grown up in a family where I have been given everything that I wanted and needed. I love spending time with them and we are all very close. I thought that every family was the same, until I started to note indifferences in the way some of my peers lived or whom cared for them. One friend, who I will refer to as A, was fostered long term by an older couple. I became interested in his life and the reasons for him living with them, perhaps at times being ‘too nosy’ or ‘prying’ too much. He had little to no attachment with his carers, and spent most of the time out of the home and smoking cannabis.

A  told me he had no dreams for the future, and wished to just move out at 16 and get his own flat. This made me question whether he felt he had a sense of identity, and made me think about what control I could have in situations like this in the future. I became interested in people, and interested in how families function and how children’s experiences can impact on their future life experiences. I decided that I needed to do oscial work to help to empower individuals and families, whilst helping them to set goals and achieve their dreams. 

I chose Dreamcatcher because …

… I hope to capture people’s dreams in my practice, and I think that social work can help to make people’s dreams come true. I often find people are empowered by their support networks, family and friends and if you help them to focus on their dreams we can help to empower them in being the experts that they are in their own experiences. I chose a Dreamcatcher as my object, because everything is connected and Dreamcatchers are something that I love.  A Dreamcatcher makes me feel warm inside, as does social work practice. This has been on my wall since I was a teenager, when I knew that my role would always be to work with people.  

Connections are an integral part of social work practice, and dreams are something that we should help people to achieve no matter their circumstances. The circles within the Dreamcatcher represent the links and connections that we can create to support people. The big circle represents the family or individual that you are working with, and the small circles represent the services, their support network and family that aim to support them. The strings are the paths that you take to get there, and the beads could represent bumps along the way or those within the network supporting them. The feathers represent hope and freedom, and the individual or family being able to fly high and dream big no matter their circumstances.