The core of social justice is equality and fairness, specifically concerned with addressing a person or a group of people that society marginalizes or diminishes the power the person has. The goal of any social justice movement is to empower individuals to regain the power and dignity and/or to change the situation that is oppressing people. Counseling is also a practice centered on change and empowerment (Brackette, Rezaei, & Kuyinu, 2015). It is evident that professional counseling and social justice go hand in hand, yet the how and the deeper why need to be considered and explored so that counselors can fulfill their calling and client can regain dignity and the journey to wholeness. Counselors can engage in social justices practices on …show more content…
Social justice in counseling involves advocating for a person or a group of people so that they can better voice their needs and fight against the injustices they have endured individually or in their communities (Crethar, & Winterowd, 2012). Social justice requires multiple levels of activities such as: advocacy, raising awareness, and legislative influence. Counselors are in a ideal position to initiate change and be an advocate for individuals while engaging on these other levels, people involved in social justice are often referred to as “change agents” (Brackette et al., 2015, p. …show more content…
Social justice practices and multicultural counseling are closely related, because it is likely that the person in need of justice comes from a different background than the counselor and has a variety of experiences impacting their view and situation. Constantine, Hage, Kindaichi, and Bryant, (2007) recognized nine core competencies that can be summarized in three general areas: knowledge/awareness, collaboration, and advocacy skills. It is noted that it is crucial to constantly challenge therapeutic approaches and to be aware of ones own privilege and experiences and oppression. Knowledge and awareness of various ways injustices are experienced by all individuals and groups of people is the foundation to being effective in social justice movements instead of perpetrating the problem more deeply. Each person has their own values, beliefs, and biases and it is important to understand how that influences your working relationships and effectiveness so that it does not undermine or replicate injustice for a certain individual or people group (Constantine et al.,
Popple, P. R, & L. Leighninger. (2011). Social Work, Social Welfare, and American Society. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Popple , P. R., & Leighninger, L. (2011). Social work, social welfare, and american society. (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Ideas of community, social progress, and culture are an ever-evolving social work issue. How do we as social workers choose to approach needs of groups and communities at the macro level? In order to grasp an understanding of true helping systems it is important for one to have a range of knowledge to justly participate within the formal helping structures an models that comprise of the social work field. In attempt to create our identity as active justice based social workers it is essential for one to conceptualize the framework of intersectionality. According to Kirsten-Ashmen, “Intersectionality involves the idea that people are complex and can belong to multiple, overlapping diverse groups “The intersectional perspective acknowledge the breath of the human experience, instead of conceptualizing social relationships and identities separately in terms of either race or class or gender or age or sexual orientation”; rather an intersectional approach focuses on the “interactional affects” of belonging to multiple groups (p. 48).” In order to remain committed to intersectionality I will apply theories and models to a progressing community in the city of Boston. A critical analysis of the strengths and weakness within each theory related to the specific community will be discussed. I will expose the intersecting layers, allowing for identity development through the lens of the macro social worker. I will begin by discussing my experience through the research process with my team members. After giving a detailed description of the project we can further explore the empowerment theory and systems theory to better explain the development of Dudley Street. The two theories are able to give an understanding of Roxbury’s forward progre...
Once the foundations have been set and teachers, students, parents, and communities understand the features of oppression we strive to create social relationships, great positive communities, and a society that we all want to live in! Social justice education pedagogy is a set of principles and practices for teaching about oppression and social justice. According to teaching for diversity and social justice, “social justice pedagogy aims to generate active engagement with social justice content through learning process that are consistent with the goals of social justice” (27). The priority of social justice educators is to, model, and sustain socially just learning environments for all students in order to do that modeling equitable relations
The National Association of Social Workers, NASW, considers the following as its six most core values; service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence. The value of service is considered to be a core value because offering help to those in need is a crucial goal for all of those looking to practice in the field of Social Work. These services can include, but are not limited to, addressing social problems, helping those in need, and volunteering their knowledge to those who cannot otherwise afford such help. Social Justice is also an important core value for a Social Worker to develop. As a Social Worker one will encounter many people from several different walks of life, no two cases will ever be exactly the same. Some of these walks of life can leave a client vulnerable, defenseless, exploited, oppressed, and troubled. Therefore it is important to learn what Social Justice is, and how to help people from falling victim to injustice. Dignity and Worth of the Person is one of the most important values that one should uphold. People who need the help of a Social Worker many, but not all, times feel powerless, embarrassed, and worthless because they feel as though they cannot control aspects of their life an...
It is important to include cultural issues in the helping process to be more effective. We also need cultural competence because the U.S. is becoming more diverse. Therefore with diversity comes different beliefs, norms, and values. Eurocentric values dominate sciences and began cultural universals which puts the clash of dominate and non-dominate cultural behaviors in motion. In 1996 the NASW Code of Ethics increased the recognition of cultural competence. It is important to know diversity exist within ethnic and cultural groups because social workers need to know that relationships between helping professionals and clients may be strained. This happens because of the distrust between groups. Another important aspect is that the professional realizes their own values, biases, and beliefs. The reason for this is because they must value diversity to start with and understand the dynamics of difference. Culturally competent practitioners have to go through developmental process of using their own culture as a starting point to meet all behaviors. Striving for cultural competence is a long term process of development. The literature on cultural competence is theoretical and conceptual. They have not been evaluated in a systematic way. Roughly there are 2 million Native americans in the U.S. Which survive decimating disease, over-repressed in child welfare system, suffer from health problems, and are among the poorest people in the United States. Working with them clearly falls within the social work clearly mandate to serve vulnerable and oppressed clients. However, we do not know how many people from this group is actually receiving help from social workers. Even though it is important to train social workers to provide care in th...
Social justice is a core value in the social work field. We define social justice as, “all citizens would possess equal fundamental rights, protection, opportunities, obligations and social benefits (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2015, p. 29). Unfortunately, we understand there are many members in today’s society that are not receiving social justice. Some may not want help and believe that s/he is able to do it on their own and then there are the individuals that we may not know about that could really use our help. Our jobs as social workers is to help those who need help no matter if they are rich, poor, disabled, white, Hispanic, it does not matter because everyone should be treated equally. As NASW states, “The original mission of social work had much to do with championing the rights of society’s most vulnerable members, from children to homeless people to the physically disabled” (NASW: National Association of Social Workers, 2015, para. 1).
Social workers play a pivotal role helping one achieve social justice. “As such, the social justice mandate of the social work profession may be regarded as an ethical obligation to ensure that all persons have an equal right to access societal resources and opportunities so that they may fully participate in and be contributing members of society” (DuBois 136). Everyone deserves to live in a fair and equal society however, in the movie Selma portraying the years 1964-1965, this wasn’t how the American society lived. Despite segregation slowly coming to an end, racism was still a huge issue as blacks were denied the right to vote. This is where social workers step in: social injustice and inequality.
I first became interested in social work when I took a human rights course as part of my political science major requirements. Throughout the course, I was fascinated and disturbed by the historic oppression of many large groups in society, and I realized my interests lie outside of the political arena; thus, I double-majored in social policy & practice because of my desire to learn more about how to enhance human well-being, fight social injustice, and pursue social change. I soon realized I wanted to pursue graduate social work education in order to gain a more holistic understanding of social problems and human ailments and, in turn, better understand the best ways to fix them. My background in political science and social policy gives me a unique perspective on the field of social work, as I have gained immense knowledge on social issues, the law, and public policy that will be useful in my graduate school and professional endeavors to fight for social justice and human rights.
As a social worker, the ability to merge cultural competencies with social work methods and theories allows intervention to be customized to meet their client’s need-based which vary upon culture. Since there are a massive amount of different cultures with different traditions, values, and beliefs the social worker needs to obtain the fundamentals of the culture in order to assess and advocate for the ethnic group effectively. The NASW of Ethics clearly values the competence and the Ethical Principle of Social workers practice within the areas of competence and enhances their professional expertise. In addition, “ Cultural competence is a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system or agency or among professionals and enable the system, agency, or professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations” (NASW, 2000b, p. 61). Cultural competency ensures that our primary mission of the social work profession to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.
Stone, C. B., & Zirkel, P. A. (2010). School Counselor Advocacy: When Law And Ethics May Collide. Professional School Counseling, 13(4), 244-247. Retrieved March 12, 2014, from http://dx.doi.org/10.5330/PSC.n.2010-13.244
A social worker must present themselves as a learner and understand clients from all experts of their own experiences. To show your respect to the clients as a social worker you must be able to show that you understand complexity of cultural identity. Cultural competence targets social workers knowledge of development, focusing on culturally specific demographics, characteristics, values, and intravenous technique. When dealing with cultural sensitivity a worker’s genuine appreciation of the client’s uniqueness and universalistic respect for the client’s humanness is needed. To have success in multicultural practice, cultural responsiveness come in to play, which means to be culturally responsive, social workers use dialogue skills that place the client’s construction of reality at the center of the
Social Work is a profession that seeks to improve the standard of life for individuals and to effect system-wide change through the pursuit of social justice. This profession is classified under Human and Social Services as a helping profession. This profession is divided into two categories, direct service and clinical, or “licensed”, social worker. Within the two categories of social work, there are numerous of positions that focus on a particular population. Regardless of the variety of achievements and accomplishments done by the profession, some critics cannot understand the importance of Social Work. Other critics condemn the helping profession by wondering why Social Work is not combined with other similar professions, such as counselor
Ethnic minorities seeking services should have access to culturally sensitive social workers, who acknowledge and confront practical dilemmas when working with increasing numbers of culturally diverse people in the community. Professionals working with minority groups, “must provoke moral sensibility, political consciousness, and social action” (Aponte, Rivers, & Wohl, 1995, p. ix). It is imperative f...
Social workers challenge social injustice. Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. The meaning of this value is to ensure that individuals going into the social work profession pursue change, most importantly with, on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals, and with groups of people. Additionally, this social work value forces social workers to constantly affect social change primarily focused upon issues of poverty, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice by creating activities that seek to promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression and cultural and ethnic