Here's how you can align your social work continuing education with your professional goals and interests.

To assess oneself for more learning opportunities in social work, start by evaluating your current skills and knowledge. Reflect on areas where you feel confident and identify gaps where you need improvement. Seek feedback from colleagues, supervisors, and clients to gain different perspectives. Stay updated with the latest trends, research, and best practices in social work. Participate in workshops, seminars, and online courses to enhance your expertise. Set specific, measurable goals for your professional development and regularly review your progress to ensure continuous growth and learning.

Much of social work is grief work. Providing support to people learning how their expectations and reality are often different and will not align. Much of the time, it's giving patients and clients feedback on how to be okay with not being okay. Life is peaks and valleys, sometimes the view from the peaks make the valleys seem close vice versa.

Start by self assessment and evaluate yourself by asking questions like 1) what makes you happy about social work or is there any specific change or area i want to contribute towards society or is there a specific need of society which needs to be addressed? 2) what role i can play in that and how? 3) What skills i have or need in order to deliver that work? 4) what options or platforms would be best to learn such skills

Professional goals are important because, if you are committed to the role that you have in your organization, you will want to grow. You might choose to turn your?greatest weakness?into a strength. You may be interested in increasing?cognitive abilities,?interview skills?or public speaking skills, or you might have a few?personal goals?that can fit into your career path.

It's important to identify the intersectionality of your professional goal as well as your social goal. For example, for me, social work was my personal salvation while my professional salvation lied in the legal field, hence I found the intersectionality of socio-legal work and started to work more on the relevant topics which covered both. Hence this is the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timebound) approach to plan strategically.

Focus on getting the CEUs you need first like Ethics and child registry. Then get CEUs for topics you would like to learn and get training on like EDMR for example.

You must understand the power of networking and should learn how to be good at it cause networking plays very important role almost everywhere. For networking there many platforms you can start with like local social clubs or groups , travel groups , meet different people and surely attend conferences and workshops or events relating to social work it will connect you to community of like minded people like you who wants to do good and you surely will meet Great people there which might help you in many areas of your interest

Consider volunteering at a conference as a way to minimize costs on either registration or continuing education credits. Volunteering is also great way to learn what goes on behind the scenes of hosting a conference.

I recommend you to volunteer as much as you can at social events , it will be a great experience and exposure for you which will surely add something in your life , just try it!