Reflections at End of Term 1

What has happened to the part of me I brought with me to London 

In Clinical Skills Seminar I was given the task to review of where I am now coming to the end of the term, in reference to the symbolic cultural item we brought to the clinical skills class at the beginning of the term. I thought of taking this reflecting diary as an opportunity to do this piece of reflection.

The item I brought to class was brown rice - while white rice is a staple food in Singapore, I purposely brought brown rice as it represents the coarse (not so refined) culture of my country, i.e. in my view the social aspect is less developed than the economy. At a personal level, I experienced the ease of being who I am and sharing about who I am here in London, as compared to back in Singapore, where the dominant culture has too superficial distinction between what is black or white, right or wrong, good or bad.  It gives me strength in dealing with challenges by bringing my learning home. At the professional level, I have gained a clearer chronological understanding of the development and approaches of family therapy, as well as the first hand experience of what systemic means through my placement. There are however, still many concepts and approaches that I have yet grasped fully and would have to continue to persevere.

Portfolio 

It was great to have a reference point of how a portfolio looks like via my supervisor's sharing of hers. A few key points worth noting down here:

Adaptation from supervisor's style:

· split the critical learning points from the clinical log like the way she did, as it gives more room for the learning points to be presented than being cluttered with other facts of the log;

· split the logs and clinical learning points by months like the way she did, as herslooks really more organised and neat;

· add a page that decodes my abbreviation;

· add in more reflection, eg. reflection from feedback from assignment, reflection of my reflection, where deemed necessary.

New ways of improving my portfolio:

· I will add a one-page summary of the number of clinical hours and non-clinical hours clocked for it to be presented clearly;

· Under "configuration", instead of just specifying those who attended the session, I would include all of whom are deemed to be “Significant Others” as important persons to be involved in systemic work but may not be willing or available to attend sessions;

· Instead of just race, I will also insert specific cultural facts about the family known and important eg. class, sexuality, sole-parenthood, etc.