Personal Development Paper Examining the influence of personal experience and values on oneself and others

Assessment of the paper will be based on the following:
Personal Description: A brief and succinct introduction of yourself that includes a description of your
attitudes, interests, values, strengths, challenges, goals, or other characteristics that would be valuable
in presenting a descriptive overview of who you are as a person. e.g., What values are most important
to you? Where did these values come from? Parents? Life experiences? Peers? Mentors? How have
these values influenced your life in other ways? Give examples.
Description of the critical period, event/experience: set the stage for your story; what happened to
you or in your life? Provide a brief history that sets the stage and where: (family composition and
interactions – may be blood or marital, adopted, etc.), environmental setting (home, workplace, etc.),
and a description of the particular personal and systemic issues.
Analysis: From your personal description above: describe the relationship between your personal
characteristics and the critical period events/experiences. Did this happen because of your attitude,
gender, sexual orientation, etc.? How did your personal characteristics/social identities help you cope or
did they hinder your ability to deal with this life experience?
Theoretical Implications: Identify, apply and reference 2-3 theories, world views, belief systems or
major ideas from the textbook and other readings that you believe help explain your critical
events/experiences. Not that everything that happens is explicable but modern social scientific theories
may help us to describe some life events. e.g., a lot of people struggle with stress and anxiety and may
draw from psychodynamic theory to understand how the internal processes of needs, drives, and
emotions influence human behavior. Or, how a person who has survived a life changing disease or
accident may look at her body immune system (biological system) and the role of family, friends, and
healthcare (social system), a belief system, helped her to cope.
Practice Implications: Given what you have experienced, what is your perspective about change?
Discuss and describe how your growing knowledge of yourself and others will be helpful or useful in
working with other people and understanding their behavior when you provide services as a social
worker