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As a social worker with dyslexia, I felt an important part of this website and my blog would be to acknowledge the large proportion of dyslexic socials workers and students and share some of the strategies I have employed on my own social work journey to enhance the strengths of dyslexia, and to mitigate some of its challenges. This is important because of the continued stigma associated with dyslexia and because of the limited number of resources and conversations about dyslexia in social work.
Within this post, I will give an overview of my experience of social work education and practice as a social worker with dyslexia, and I will provide you will tips and tricks I have developed as a student and qualified practitioner. These tips and tricks will include practice and interview tips, with screenshots for examples.
Dyslexia affects more than 10% of the general population and is recognised as a learning difficulty, which is protected under law and means employers and educational settings must make reasonable adjustments to meet our needs. This is vital in social care where one in 25 workers appear somewhere on the dyslexia scale (diagnosed or not). Dyslexia has primarily been defined, detected, and diagnosed based on its challenges as opposed to the acknowledgement and identification of its strengths.
In the social work profession dyslexia can sometimes feel like a blessing and a curse- it not only has challenges, but it also provides us with amazing strengths such as abstract thinking and communicating in a jargon free manner (See a summary in Table 1 below).
These strengths are acknowledged by GCHQ who openly recruit individuals with dyslexia due to their 3D and abstract thinking; having the ability to spot connections or relationships between different objects, concepts, or points of view; being able to create stories by connecting a series of mental scenes from past personal experience; as well as the tendency to use stories to recall the past, understand the present, and imagine the future; having stronger dynamic reasoning skills (the ability to recombine elements of past experience and use this information to predict or mentally simulate future outcomes with great accuracy)- skills that are also vital for social work.
Table 1: Dyslexia Strengths and Challenges
Within the social work education system, there appeared to be a more formal and systematic approach to providng dyslexia support (if one has a diagnosis, which can often be expensive to secure) through the disabled student allowance. When I started as a student in 2015 the disabled student allowance scheme gave access to 37 hours of 1:1 support with a specialist tutor and computer software that would: enable one to dictate notes/essays; read notes aloud; and would assist with planning essays.
However, in lectures I still struggled to keep up with note taking and what the lecturer was saying, if the PowerPoint was not made accessible the night before, I would frantically note take, I worried my writing was not a good as my peers (sometimes my grades reflected this), and I couldn’t articulate my point or contribute in discussions if put on the spot (to recall something on the spot with no prep put me straight into freeze mode), keeping up with the reading list was difficult (especially if there wasn’t an e-book) and reading literature outside of this list to gain extra marks was near impossible at times.
And it didn’t stop here..
On my statutory placement, educators focussed on the ‘limitations’ of dyslexia, not noting the immense strengths we hold. Strengths that make us fantastic social workers. They additionally didn’t put in supporting factors and were not inquisitive about how dyslexia impacted me or my learning (I appreciate this will not be the same as everyone).
From these experiences I realised that the biggest lesson that needs to be learnt by social work employers and educators is to focus on identifying and building strengths. As too often all the focus is on “fixing what’s wrong” with dyslexia, rather than celebrating and nurturing what’s right.
The focus on fixing what is ‘wrong’ made me anxious about people on placement finding out I was dyslexic. I didn’t want them to think I was slower and less capable than them- at this time I felt shamed by having dyslexia and I did not realise how many social work peers also had a diagnosis.
So, with support and encouragement from two dyslexia tutors I learnt to own and use dyslexia to my advantage. They made learning fun and enjoyable as they didn’t use a one size model fits all and they build strong relationships with me. They worked on my confidence by unweaving the narrative that I couldn’t learn. A narrative which was reinforced in my early years.
Because of this I started learning about dyslexia and how my brain processes differently. This enabled me to start advocating for myself, my learning needs, and my dyslexia strengths; I was louder about being dyslexic, accepting it as a part of me; and I additionally developed and adopted self-help methods to help me manage the challenges from dyslexia. As well as seeking to change systems that were built on neurotypical ways of thinking, learning and practicing.
Below are some self-help strategies I have adopted and listed over time, with support from my dyslexia tutor and a social work colleague. I have additionally listed tips and technique’s lecturers, practice educators and managers could employ in helping students and staff who have dyslexia. Because it’s not up to us to change in order to fit the ‘norm’.
There are additionally examples of visual and creative ways to prepare for your interviews, and visual ways to map theories and PCFs throughout your portfolios’! See below:
Self-help and tips on how to support students/colleagues
Now, EMBRACE Dyslexia!
· Believe in yourself. Dyslexia teaches you to manage and allocate your time wisely and work hard. This work ethic will help you all the way through life.... especially in social work.
· Talk to others who are dyslexic and listen to stories from them. They will inspire and encourage you. If they did it, you can too!
· Remember that just because something takes you longer to do, doesn’t mean you can’t do it well. And sometimes because it takes you longer, you remember it better.
· While it’s hard to feel different or singled out if you need extra help or tutoring, try to remember that you’re learning the skills to overcome dyslexia—and that you are smart and have positive abilities no one else does!
Case Note Template Example
I find having a case note template can improve my recording. It ensures I reflect on observations and gut feelings I may have had rather than focussing solely on reproducing the notes I have written down. A template also ensures that I cover the main points each time and can keep track of changing risks and strengths for the family. This means I have better note, which I can look at before my next visit enabling me to acknowledge the strengths and address any risks/tasks.
Mapping Theories and PCFs
When completing my ASYE I developed a strategy to map the PCFs, KSSs and theories to ensure I had a variety of evidence (see theory table below). By using a visual excel sheet, I could physically cross PCF’s out and plan what theory I would employ for a piece of work to ensure consistent evidence and to meet the requirement for passing. By using a colour coordinated approach I was able to visually see what content I had already covered, as opposed to trawling through the work in the portfolio, which could often become overwhelming.
Interview Preparation
When preparing for an interview, I was always advised to take notes in with me. However, having a blank white page of notes, which I needed to read through, was more daunting than the interview itself!!
Therefore, to overcome this, I played into the dyslexic strength of thinking outside of the box and played to my visual learning style. I created colourful and eye-catching posters specifically to the interview I was attending (see examples below).
To create these posters, I made lists of important aspects of social work practice, which I thought may come up in an interview:
relevant legislation for the post,
how I manage time,
example of theories/models,
practice examples from my student placement, which I could use if they asked a scenario-based question,
specifics about supervision,
how to write evidence based and analytical case notes,
transferrable skills I could bring to the post,
why I picked the organisation and specific team,
information on the organisation I was applying for,
personal attributes which make me suitable for the role and working with people in the community it serves
clearly listed questions to ask the interviewing managers,
research on the service user group you will be working with,
values and behaviours the organisation expect you to demonstrate,
and finally, specifics of the role, team, and the responsibilities I would need to fulfil as part of the job.
Child protection assessment team example:
I used this basic template for several interviews. Below is an example from a children’s mental health team. Having not practiced in this setting, I completed research on practice and therapy models so I could demonstrate I have researched the area before applying and accepting an interview. I have also added the following:
What I have learnt form a young person in my past roles,
How I relax and offset the emotional and physical demands of the role,
What I have done in previous roles,
And specifics around child safeguarding (can be changed to adults).
If you would like to create one for your own interview or even for writing an assignment, I used Canva.
I hope you have found this post helpful and are able to adopt a few of these self-help skills yourself. Please do get in touch if you have some of your own strategies for studying or for practice- in the future, I hope to create a second post with even more tips and tricks.
Thank you for reading!
This is a fantastic resource, congratulations for pulling it together. As a practice teacher of more students than I can remember and someone who has struggled throughout with these challenges this is incredibly useful.