HGA237 Juvenile Justice and Child Protection

Child and Youth Care Justice

Competition in the workplace means that people should sharpen their skills to ensure that they do the best to survive the competition. We have the responsibility as workers to prove the ability of our skills to put our mark on our work. Therefore, employees need to stand out to ensure that the company progresses and flourishes in achieving its set objectives and vision. Personal competencies are important in ensuring this takes place. Knowing personal competencies is helpful because it ensures that we can work on our weaknesses and take advantage of our strengths to power us into good performance and excel in our fields. This paper discusses my goals for professional competency at Affinity Mentorship Foundation. Affinity Mentorship Foundation helps young people working in the criminal justice system. They support this initiative through their volunteer programs that I used for my practicum (AMP, 2019). Through my involvement with the foundation, I discovered myself and pointed out areas for improvement. My weaknesses that need to be worked on will be highlighted throughout this paper, the paths I took for growth, and finally, the paper will conclude by highlighting the goals that need to continue.

Strengths to improve

While working at Affinity Mentorship Foundation, I identified myself to possess certain critical skills as my strengths. One of these competency areas I consider my strengths entails personal development and self-care. Self-care is an essential professional development aspect that all professionals should embrace. As I worked in Affinity Mentorship Foundation, working with children taught me to take some time off to focus on myself by doing certain activities such as watching specific TV programs, reading books, and visiting friends (Lukin, 2020). This is because the job could make me more preoccupied with children to forget myself by making me lost in a job easily. Self-care is important because since I learned it, I have been able to be a different person at the workplace, and it helped me remain fresh and maintain contact with the most important people in my life. I have also learned to embrace personal development in everything I do, as this is the only one that could help my career and personal branding (Safdar & Aqeel, 2019). It has always been my goal and practice to learn new skills, languages, venture into new challenges to enhance my careers by becoming knowledgeable in many aspects of life (Reach Out Australia, n.d.). Advocacy is also another aspect I consider my strength (Lukin, 2020). Advocacy entails advocating for the rights of people. In this case, fighting for children's rights has become my key strength as I do it naturally and not because it is a matter of duty but to improve myself and make me a better person.

I have identified various areas in professional competency as opportunities to grow. One of the areas I need to improve is awareness of the profession. Being aware of the profession is one of the most critical aspects that I need to improve on. Professional awareness would ensure that I am fully aware of the advocacy issues relating to the youths and other issues such as the relevant policies relating to the youths (Lukin, 2020). I need to improve my awareness about the current and future trends within the profession and contribute to the ongoing developments in the profession. This will enhance my understanding of the profession I am working on. I also need to improve my understanding and application of laws and regulations. Laws and regulations are important in every profession (Huffmyer & Kirk, 2017). The child and youth care profession has its own rules and regulations governing its practice. I should be in a position to describe the meaning of the relevant laws and regulations, describe the relevant legal obligations, and finally access and apply the relevant laws and regulations in practice.

Hardest Area to Uphold

Awareness of rules and regulations is the most complex area to be upheld by many professionals. Rules and regulations define how specific professions should be conducted. However, many people find it challenging to abide by the outlined professional guidelines that define the said profession. Professional ethics and regulations require that professionals should behave and act in a certain way (Grus et al., 2018; Wojcik, 2019). They should also avoid a given way of conduct in their dealings. Therefore, having proper professional ethics by abiding by the provided rules and regulations is the most challenging task many people find hard to uphold.

How I Grew

Throughout the period, my growth took a drastic and systematic approach. My growth started by watching other people who have gone ahead of me professionally and admiring how they understand issues and conduct themselves professionally. After speaking to one of them, it became apparent that this is the journey that I should be deliberate to ensure that I grow myself. So, I developed my professional development plan and started doing the things I needed to achieve personal and professional development and growth (Masoomi, 2018). This journey, however, has not been easy as anyone would think. It has been complicated. I have given up many times but encouraged and picked myself up again. Overall, my growth has been a bitter-sweet experience, but I am managing it well and better.

Goals to continue

My goals should continue throughout this period because they are relevant to my professional growth and development. One of my goals is to improve my self-development and self-care. I should continue improving this goal because it will enhance my chances of learning and becoming a better professional in the future. I also intend to solidify my grasp of professional development and behavior. This will be critical in ensuring that I develop professional skills that will help me better my career.

Conclusion

In conclusion, my practicum taught me that I have a strength that I never knew I had. I developed professional competencies that I now believe that I should even keep on improving to make myself a better professional. Working at Affinity Mentorship Foundation brought the best out of me and exposed the areas that I need to improve on if I have to become a better professional in the criminal justice department. Professional competency skills are relevant for any person who needs to improve and become excellent in executing their duties at work. Although developing these skills and goals was not an easy task, I enjoyed my practicum experience because I discovered the areas that I need to improve. I should continue improving and working on my self-development and self-care. With these professional competency skills, I will enhance my ability to work in many fields and enhance my professional capacity to work.

References

AMP. (2019, July 15). About AMP. Alberta Mentoring Partnership. https://albertamentors.ca/about/

Grus, C. L., Shen-Miller, D., Lease, S. H., Jacobs, S. C., Bodner, K. E., Van Sickle, K. S., ... & Kaslow, N. J. (2018). Professionalism: A competency cluster whose time has come. Ethics & Behavior, 28(6), 450-464.

Huffmyer, J. L., & Kirk, S. E. (2017). Professionalism: the “forgotten” core competency.

Lukin, K. (2020, 3). Reflections on self-development and self-care. Psychology Today. 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-man-cave/202006/reflections-self-development-and-self-care

Masoomi, R. (2018). What is medical professionalism and how should we teach it?. The Journal of Medical Education and Development, 13(3), 176-193.

Reach Out Australia. (n.d.). Developing a self-care plan. 

https://schools.au.reachout.com/articles/developing-a-self-care-plan

 Safdar, S. A., & Aqeel, L. (2019). Grooming and etiquette as part of nurse's professionalism: An essential curricular competency. Pakistan journal of medical sciences, 35(2), 404.

Wojcik, L. M. (2019). In Pursuit of Professionalism: An Exploration of Fire Officer Competency Assessment (Doctoral dissertation).

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