My “why” professionally really comes down to my passion for service. I think this was taught to me by my great grandmother from a young age on. I remember her getting awards like Volunteer of the Year at the library, or Tree-Planter of the Year from our local agriculture society. We would spend many afternoons after school walking the ditches of old country roads picking up trash, or delivering food to those who needed it off a list a local church gave to us. My passion for service is what drives my work ethic. I hold strong values associated with human rights, crisis intervention, career development, emergency management, public health services, community service, and poverty alleviation. My experience in health services is broad ranging from rehabilitation and geriatrics to emergency response and management. My experience working with public and private sector non-profit organizations is also extensive leaving me with a versatile background in non-profit organization and coordination.
My mission is to consistently seek the higher good of humanity through my relationships, professional adventures, personal integrity and volunteerism. My mission is to spend my time and energy devoted to being a professional social worker, dedicated partner, honest elected official, loving family man and proud global citizen.
This reflects my personal values because it speaks directly to why I work so hard in life. All my goals are really reflected in my mission statement. For example, the goal to get my MSW is to be a better professional social worker, whereas loving family man comes with the goal of building a house and adopting our children, global citizen speaks to my passion for international crisis response work.
Agency and Community Connection Reflection
In connecting my mission statement to my education about evaluating agencies and communities, I see significant overlap in the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics in regard to seeking the importance of human relationships, challenging social injustice, addressing social problems and helping those in need. This encourages my mission statement because my personal missions aligns very closely with our professional code. This also helps me advocate in agencies I work around, with and for. It gives me a narrative to compare ethical difficulties and questionable situations to. How cool is that? For example, when I worked for FEMA, I introduced ally workshops, microaggression awareness campaigns, and diversity trainings. I advocated in that space because I saw a need for it. In the same way, I advocated for common-sense policy construction at my undergraduate university surrounding the development of a new student employee position. Some administration at that time had encouraged betraying the trust of students who disclosed to student employees about any rule or code violation at the university. Of course, knowing this is unethical, I did everything in my power to fight this constructively. Another way I advocated in an agency I worked for is by introducing trauma-informed care to our disaster relief response team. This even got us a budget for hiring a trainer, a practice which to my knowledge is still used today. I have seen agencies I work for advocate in various ways, too. For example, I currently intern at the National Association of Social Workers-Minnesota chapter. After a SCOTUS leak containing a new vote changing policy surrounding Roe vs. Wade, they put out a statement challenging their legality. It’s super great to work for an org that stands up for the same things I do!