Mexican-American Counselor Case Study

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In the growing community where I reside in northern Colorado, the population is a mix of Euro-Americans and Mexican-Americans. Therefore, the majority of clients entering into agencies in the community would be of these populations. The issues foreseen would be communication concerns, even though, the child speaks English the parents may not or it may be limited. With this knowledge as a professional counselor, it is the responsibility of the professional to educate themselves on the culture of the clientele in their community. Hays (2008) reports, In the Mexican American culture attending counseling by a professional, is the last resort, they typically keep their issues within their family. Therefore, by the time a Mexican-American client …show more content…

There are several things a professional counselor needs to be aware of when working with clients of a culture other than their own, one of them is to not assume because you have read about their culture you know their culture (Hays, 2008). Each person and their experiences are different; therefore, it is best to ask the person to tell you about themselves. Sue et al., (2007) reports, the counselor needs to be aware of their nonverbal expressions or microaggressions people express even without their knowledge can be offensive or come across as disrespectful or threatening. If the counselor is able to obtain some background about the family this can be helpful in treating them, such as the acculturalization of the child and his parent, such as are they first generation into the culture of the United States? (Shapiro, Friedberg & Bardenstein, 2006). In Mexican-American families, there is a strong hierarchy of respect and the counselor needs to be aware of this, therefore, it would be disrespectful if the counselor is having the child translate to between the parents and the counselor. Thus, the counselor should either refer the family to a bilingual counselor or if there is no one available they should obtain an interpreter to assist by translating

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