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Strengths and weaknesses of social work theories
Strengths and weaknesses of social work theories
Reflection on cultural competence
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Thank you for your post. Your examples of how power and privilege can potentially influence practice were appropriate and necessary. You were expressive in your understanding of the issue and descriptive in your narrative. According to Carmelita Castaneda, multicultural competence requires and responds with knowledge and skill to communicate despite dissimilarities using commonalities as a medium to communicate compassion and understanding (Adams et al., 2013).
However, Johnson & Munich state that the means by which the social worker learn about the client's life, culture, and circumstances are contradictory to theories of cultural competence. (2009). Furthermore, problems by redefining conventional theories to acknowledge the client's view
I choose Chapter 4 Cultural Competence for the class discussion, and I addressed the following two points from the chapter. The first one was about Your Ethical Responsibility while working in the Human Service profession and the second was about Important Points to be Remember in Cross -Culture Interactions.
The data provides culturally competent guidelines for social workers. The social worker must understand and appreciate diversity among and within cultures. They should be aware of the history, culture, and contemporary realities. They also must have good skills in patience, listening, and tolerance of silence. A social worker needs to be aware of their own biases and need for wellness and display humility and a willingness to learn. They need to be respectful, nonjudgemental, and openminded. However, researchers must find a way to measure cultural competence with studies that examine beliefs and evaluate actions of social workers. It should include several cultural groups.This will be highly important in building a knowledge base. Doing these studies there can be a better plan to include cultural competence and serve clients from different backgrounds a lot better.
In understanding Relational Cultural Theory (RCT), we will first examine its fundamental assumptions and then critically assess those assumptions. Next, we will evaluate RCT’s assumptions to determine its relevance to the core values of social work. Finally, we will determine the ways RCT can best guide social work practice.
Cultural Competence Understanding culture is an important aspect of being a social worker; this does not mean learning common cultural traits is of great significance to the social work profession. “Consider the second-generation Japanese-American social worker whose practice consists of Mexican-American and African-American families. Memorizing national traits or cultural rituals would be interesting and informative, but ultimately these would be an inaccurate basis on which to “know” these particular families” (Dorfman, 1996, p. 33). When understanding cultural competence, it is important to learn from the client about their culture in order to serve them in the most helpful and efficient way possible. There is a major drawback to memorizing information, and that is, this information will not give you a real understanding of who your client is and what life experiences they have personally faced.
This paper will show the reader how social workers develop a theoretical orientation by first understanding assessing and understanding the client’s needs. For a social worker to been effective they must remember that they have to learn
Cultural competence has to do with one’s culture. Culture affects among other factors, how children are raised, how families communicate, what is considered normal or abnormal, ways of coping with issues, the way we dress, when and where we seek medical treatment, and so forth. I should know because I come from a very cultural home where it is considered bad to talk to a male doctor about anything gynecological.
The empowerment perspective, “support[s] the development of innate abilities and recognize differences in a positive manner are also helping social workers increase the individual client’s capacity to learn to use his or her own systems constructively” (Empowerment, 2011). Meaning, it is when social workers would use the positivity of being different races and religions to help the client. For example, it would be recognizing that being black or Muslim is not a bad thing, but that there are numerous positives. To address the impact of classism, a social worker would “Help clients [to] better understand these contradictions [(that media and the world send them of what certain class’s attitudes, schemas and behaviors are like)] may help them understand” (Liu, 2005). Meaning, the social worker would help the client to understand the good attributes of being in a certain class, and how to obtain a higher class. Since the media often sends contradictions, such as saying “saving is important, but you have to spend to succeed” (Liu, 2005). Lastly, an understanding of the social construction of culture will be used in social work practice, since it could help a social worker to get a better understanding of their clients. Being, it could help them to better understand how their clients view themselves or how their clients feel society views them. Which can lead to the social worker understanding their clients lives and who their clients are, in a better
Culture-bound values, in a simple term culture, consists of all those things people have learned in their history to do, believe, value, and enjoy (Sue, 2016, p. 218). It 's important in this category for one to express themselves, regarding the client. Also the social worker should read between the lines and observe what the client may not be saying. Focusing on the client individually, looking for verbal/emotional/behavioral expressiveness, insight, self-disclosure, scientific empiricism, distinctions between mental and physical functioning, and ambiguity, all fall under
There are different perspectives, however, which put stress on various aspects of culture and try to identify its boundaries and its substitutes. Some regard culture as separate entity from demographic factors, some point out acculturation as one of the obstacles, which makes culture difficult to identify, some show how an intimate and meaningful relationship between a counsellor and a culturally different client to be established. In this essay I will be discussing what the different concepts of understanding of culture in Counselling are, by examining different authors and perspectives and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses.
Cultural Competence is being able to engage in respectful and effective practice with diverse individuals, families, and communities, preserving their dignity and affirming their worth. A social worker should be aware of their clients’ cultural and environmental contexts, in order to know a client’s strengths, but cultural competence is never fully realized, achieved, or completed, but rather cultural competence is a lifelong process for social workers who will always encounter diverse clients and new situations in their practice. Social workers should have a knowledge base of their clients’ cultures and be able to demonstrate competence in the provision of services that are sensitive to clients’ cultures. Social workers should obtain education
Understanding of one’s self and being self knowledge is a critical step in not just achieving cultural competence but in that person life as a whole. Understand and being self knowledge will determine how that person will interact with others including strangers, and love ones. That will help the person understand what is important in life. Specially in the healthcare profession being cultural competence is extremely important, because nurses see patients from different part of the world with of course different culture that we have to understand in order to provide respectable, quality timely care to. Furthermore a nurse understanding and failure to acknowledge and to incorporate that patient culture into his care can and will effect the effectiveness
Also, cultural perspective helps social workers engage differences. Social workers can apply their understanding and realize the significant of variations in shaping life experiences from micro to macro levels. In other words, cultural competence helps social workers figure out the relationship between oppression and marginalization. So social worker can tackle the issues specifically. Hence, cultural perspectives help workers recognize themselves as learners and engage clients as experts of their own experiences. Thus, this can greatly build up the confidence of clients.
School completion rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are well below the rates for non-Indigenous students. The target of halving the gap by 2020 in Year 12 (or equivalent) attainment rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is a major national challenge. (Helme & Lamb 2011) In order to close this gap, I definitely find the capabilities approach relevant to the context of education. Using the Capabilities include a person’s education, their health, their job status, their income, their security, and so forth.
In social work, a social worker has to come to the client’s level and start from there. The client does not have to come to the social workers level. In order for this to happen the social worker has to know the importance of culture, race, gender, sexual, diversity and other forms of diversity to make the best decision for choosing a type of intervention. Understanding the client’s culture, race, gender, sexual diversity and other form of diversity is important because they affect each person differently. An example, Roberto is Latino and in their culture they believe in machomism, so this is something his social worker needs to know when addressing Roberto or someone of the Latino culture. Hispanic women bring machomism
Week five reading had a lot of usual information. Through week five reading I was able to reflect on culture. Summers (2016) discusses how important it is for a human service worker to have a balanced view of the client. This is because the worker must be able to view both the person and the person’s context or vital information and constructive opportunities will be lost. Part of having a balanced view of the client is to understand what the client brings to the situation and how that interacts with the client’s life (pp. 82-83). I learned the importance of understanding that different culture can greatly affect how I would need to balance my view of the client. Being able to view the person and the person’s context from their cultural perspective can help create a deeper understanding of the client’s situation and how their culture influences the situation and their life.