Despite their financial woes and minimal education, there are disadvantaged clients who do not lose hope and do all they can to make life better. – Methodist Welfare Services picture.
PART 4: THE SOCIAL SERVICES MINISTRY OF THE METHODIST WELFARE SERVICES
‘I am encouraged by resilient clients’
Despite their financial woes and minimal education, there are disadvantaged clients who do not lose hope and do all they can to make life better. – Methodist Welfare Services picture.
By SABRINA WONG
‘IN MY two years as a social worker at Daybreak Family Service Centre (DFSC), I have had the opportunity to work with families in distress and disadvantaged children.
My adult clients are either single parents or intact families with up to four children and only one income earner.
In most cases the families’ income barely meets their monthly expenditure, and in some families, one of the children is not well, which adds to their financial burden. Typically, the breadwinner works as a cleaner, taxi-driver, forklift operator, baby-sitter, technician or repair mechanic and has little or no formal education.
To cater to the needs of these families, I manage one of DFSC’s core programmes, Strength Works, where I have team partners working with me to organise talks, workshops and group sessions for our clients and their children. We teach them financial management and other life skills during Strength Talks sessions and Adult Skills Workshops.
My work with children involves Strength Kidz, which helps to empower children with low self-esteem; and WOW!, a holiday programme for children of parents who are current or former clients of DFSC where children get to attend educational tours and outings. I am also involved in STEP-UP, a school-based social work programme under which I carry out counselling work with secondary school students.
I meet quite a number of mothers who are single, either because their spouse passed away unexpectedly or because they are separated or divorced. Sometimes they come to us with child management issues, where their teenage children do not listen to them and they have difficulty disciplining or communicating with them. I also meet a few fathers who single-handedly raised their children.
I am very inspired and encouraged to continue to help distressed families, especially when I remember how some of them have shown great resilience and determination to become self-reliant.
Once a single mother with four children came to DFSC greatly distressed because she had been looking for a job for months. She asked us to help her apply for the School Pocket Money Fund for her children. We helped to process the application while she continued to look for a job. Her application was successful and her children received the financial aid.
When the time for a review came, she said she did not need the financial help anymore because she had found a job and would make sure her children had money to go to school. I was amazed at her determination to be self-sufficient.
Another client who inspired me was a newly-widowed father with two young children. He showed great resilience when he took on the task of looking after his children when his wife passed away due to a chronic illness. Besides the death of his spouse he had to cope with financial struggles such as paying household bills.
In spite of his grief and loss, he hung on and worked hard in his job to support his children, to the extent of being willing to seek external help for managing one of them. This indicated that he was willing to take steps to do what was necessary to survive, to move on from the past and carry on living.
I used to get very affected by the difficulties faced by my clients to the point that I thought of them long after work hours were over. But I came to realise the importance of self-care to avoid experiencing burnout.
Thus, one of the ways I practise self-care is not to bring work home. When faced with challenging days, I leave the thought of work after office hours to shop, have a meal or go for a karaoke session with friends. I also keep a journal to record my thoughts and feelings. Sometimes I talk to my colleagues about my cases in what we call a debrief.
So far I have enjoyed working here. DFSC offers me a flexible culture where we can talk, joke and be ourselves. My colleagues are also very supportive and creative people, which is what I enjoy about them.
There are a couple of Bible verses that help me in my work. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you … plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything.”
They bring comfort to my heart because it tells me that God is in control of all things and God will not give me anything that I cannot handle. I need not worry because God is a good God, and I can lift up my struggles to the Lord in prayer and trust Him to work out everything for my good.
I believe that my work is a calling from God and I am here for a reason and a purpose, to meet the needs of the community and bring hope to the hearts of people.’
Sabrina Wong is a social worker at Daybreak Family Service Centre in
Daybreak Family Service Centre is a community outreach of Methodist Welfare Services.
Tel: 6756-4995 Fax: 6752-4709
MWS needs your support to continue to assist disadvantaged children and distressed families. In financial year ended