Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
My overall reaction to social work cultural diversity
Race and ethnicity diversity in social work practice
My overall reaction to social work cultural diversity
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
My second year placement, Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC), has given me the ability to work with a diverse group of participants. Moreover, I was also given the chance to demonstrate my Korean language skills in placement. Although I was placed at a somewhat similar placement, Orange County Asian and Pacific Community Alliance (OCAPICA), the year before, I was not able to fully utilize my language abilities with many participants. Currently, I have been able to work with the mono-lingual Korean senior population, which has helped me grow as a social worker, because I have not worked with this particular population in a professional level. The senior population has helped me understand many issues that marginalize the elderly. CSUDH’s MSW Self Study (2009) describes cognitive based theories as approaches utilizing contextual awareness, learning and behavioral theories. Hence, working with the senior population has given me the ability to understand cognitive based theories that impair the senior population due to age. As a result, many senior citizens are at higher risk for cognitive decline and impairment due to increase risk factors for age and conditions that may be related to Dementia. Working with children has let me understand cognitive abilities and perceptions at a younger age. It is important to be mindful and help children develop important skills in order to socialize with their peers, family members and their community. Another population I have honored to work with is adults with disabilities. One particular participant I am assigned with is quadriplegic, and I am assisting him by working with him emotionally and helping him apply for necessarily community resources. Since his accident is recent, he has been through... ... middle of paper ... ... a set of beliefs and stereotypes that influence larger ideas in society. Hence, the heterogeneity of disadvantages experienced by Asian Americans is de-categorized by the framework of social constructionism. In practice, I can identify numerous disadvantages in social services because of culturally incompetent practices that disadvantage monolingual Asian Americans. Herein, being able to identify the marginalization of being mono-lingual, helps give insights about the disadvantages in social capital for many mono-lingual participants. CSUDH’s MSW Self Study (2009) describes Assets and Social Development (ASD) focuses on the capacity of participants based on social capital and resources. As a social worker, it is important to advocate for methods of increasing the capacity of participant’s civic participation and collaboration in order to promote economic growth.
Dr. Stanley Sue is an Asian American clinical psychologist whose research focus is on Asian American minorities. Dr. Sue was born in Portland, Oregon and was the third of six children to his Chinese immigrant parents. As a child “his first career ambition was to repair televisions, but soon he got bored with shop classes. Then, he developed great fascination with psychotherapy and the idea of helping emotionally disturbed individuals (Rockwell 2001).” Dr. Sue recalled, “I told my parents that I wanted to become a clinical psychologist, not fully knowing what a clinical psychologists did (Rockwell 2001).” He also remembered what his father said and thought after making this declaration: “My father, who was born in China, said, ‘What is that?’ He couldn’t believe that people would pay me to listen to their problems – indeed, he wondered if I could make a decent living (Rockwell 2001).”
Identify and explain the three major sources of conflict and misinterpretations in social work practice: culture-bound values, class bound values, and language variables.
I come to Fordham University with expectations of completing my Masters of Art degree in Social Service. As a single parent, I have faced many challenges raising my special needs child. My innovation to help disadvantaged children with social and emotional problems encompassed me to continue to pursue a career in the Social Service Profession. This will increase my chances of being a successful Child Therapist. I am aware, prepared and committed to devoting my time towards my studies at Fordham University as well as taking advantage of all the necessary resources that Fordham University has to offer. My personal, academic and profession experience has given me the opportunity
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...
1. What relationships and/or experiences influenced your decision to enter the field of Social Work? A personal experience that influenced my decision to enter the field of social work is when I joined the military after high school. While serving, I was able to assist the Director of the Combined Federal Campaign. This is a major campaign that is sponsored by the military and United Way, and it is geared towards raising money for nonprofit agencies. I enjoyed visiting various agencies, organizing events, as well as educating people about the available resources within their communities. This was definitely a season of growth; furthermore, after careful research I discovered the field of social work was the best profession for me. This was
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.
As a social worker, I have been able to use my skills I have learned in the field and my college education. I have values, beliefs, and ethics that I have used to center my social work career around. I also acknowledge as a social worker, I cannot push my values, beliefs, and ethics onto others. Every person does not share the same values, beliefs and ethics.
Social workers play a very important role in many situations. Most people can only help an individual up until a certain point then they have no clue what to do to help the individual. A social worker comes up with a plan to help an individual that cannot help themselves. Without social workers many individuals will not know how to manage certain situations. They will come up with an idea that they believe is suitable and move on without thinking about it. Social work has come a long way from when it first began. Comparing then and now, social work is much better and very well organized. The people that are in need whether they are mentally ill or someone that cannot support themselves, are being taken care of properly. It is known that years
In order to broaden my perspective on health care, I decided not to interview an occupational therapist. I wanted to hear the health perspective of another professional, therefore I chose to interview a social worker. I believed it would be interesting since social work is one of the disciplines that influenced occupational therapy. Claire Fultz was able to give me a glimpse of the social work profession and corresponding background during our interview. Fultz is a psychiatric social worker employed at Mindoula Health Inc. who began working in the human services and social work field back in 2001. Prior to her professional work experience, she completed two Master’s programs while majoring in four specializations. She explained how her experience
I first became interested in social work when I took a human rights course as a 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
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.
I have chosen social work as a profession because of my passion to help others. I want to make a difference in someone’s life and help them through the problems they are having. Whether the client needs counseling, guidance, or advocacy I want to be the person to help them. My drive for helping others and motivation to change social policies for the better is why I have chosen social work as my future profession.
I obtained my Masters in Social Work (MSW) degree from India in the year 2006. As with most countries around the world, the emergence of social work in India was from charity aiming to eliminate poverty. Gradually it shifted from philanthropy to rights based approach and then to organized social work. Community organization surfaced as the most central method of social work practice along with practice of casework. Although social work is much more structured in nature now, it still operates along the conventional perspective of social work. Social work is not even recognized as a profession in India. An indicator of an occupation being publicly recognized as a profession is exhibited by
This study is expected to provide social workers with information by examining what social workers do post-graduation to help them remain culturally competent. Social workers will be in a position where they can understand barriers/obstacles that make it difficult to engage in the professional development regarding this topic.
Reflecting back on my childhood, I always had a vivid imagination. I would imagine being a doctor, lawyer, or even the first female president of the United States of America. But, I never considered a career in social work. Over the years I realized that I like helping people, but my thoughts of what I wanted to be were indifferent. In high school my counselor had me do a career survey to see what may have interest me. The most common choices were Nursing, Teaching, or becoming a Social Worker. So I went on the Internet and researched as much as I could on each career choice. Nevertheless, at that point of my life I thought that Nursing was the best career choice for me.