Podcast 2

Welcome to this podcast. My name is Adrian Pooley. I am a Master of Human Services student at

Griffith University in Brisbane, and in this podcast, I will describe my aspiration to become a

human service professional. First, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the

Quandamooka land for which I present this podcast. I pay respect to the elder’s past, present and

emerging, and I also acknowledge their wisdom and richness of a diverse nation. As I present

this podcast, I will discuss three things in this podcast. One, what my principles and values are

that shape my career goals. Two, why do I want to work in the human service sector? And three,

what knowledge and practice gaps do I wish to address in this course? Start with values and

principles. I like to follow the Australian Association of Social Work 2020 Edition, which lists

three principles that I feel shape my own career choices. One, respect of persons. Two, social

justice. And three, professional identities. As a consumer of human services, I would value, one,

being able to control my own situation respect of individuality. Two, I would value fair and

equitable access to services social justice. And three, I would also value being able to trust my

service provider's understanding of my needs. That is, professional identity. In writings from

Lesley Chenoweth and Donna McCauley, 2017, the values and principles that I described earlier

have not always been applied. In fact, they have used the British model of deficit, the Western

model. I want to challenge that model and focus on strength. And I will explain what I mean

when I talk about why I want to become a human service professional. So why do I want to

become a human service professional? I want to prove that autism, which is what I have been

diagnosed with, is not a barrier to someone being successful in your personal practice. In fact, a

recent study published from the University of Sterling, led by autistic scholar Monique Bother,

has argued that autism is often framed using the deficit model, just like I explained earlier. But I
want to change that into a strength model because I know what I can actually offer in terms of

strength as opposed to weaknesses. So, what knowledge and practice gap do I wish to address in

my studies? I want to address the lack of research into the lived experience of people with

autism, like Monic Bosa. I am passionate about getting to the bottom of why society still thinks

autism as a deficit and social work practice can help with autistic people actually working in the

field, not just being clients. This podcast is a brief insight regarding what I want to achieve as a

human service professor. While there is always still much for me to learn, this is a good starting

point. Thank you for listening to this podcast, and I invite any feedback and comments you wish.

Goodbye for now.

Task Description: For this task you need to review this podcast presented by your peers.

Write an essay in which you describe the knowledge and practice approaches mentioned in the

podcast and evaluate the relevance of the knowledge and skills to current practice approaches in

human services.

1. Describe key knowledge and skills required to work within the human services sector as

identified by the podcasts.

2. Evaluate the practice approaches and how these approaches affect practice in a particular field.

(In about 300 words)