Native American Spirituality Social Work

I am a social work major here at OU and I am very passionate about by spirituality, so I thought it would be interesting to research and see how I could tie these two subjects together on a Native base. I have learned that it is very important for social workers to know a lot about their clients and who they are working with. After all, their clients are more than likely going to come from different cultures and be sensitive to that. While learning about their clients and the culture that they come from, social workers need to be able to see and understand how powerful and meaningful culture is to the client. It will help them understand the behavior, values, ideas, passions, and beliefs that the client has. Being aware of these cultures requires

To start off with this topic, I will first talk about the knowledge I have gained through this course about Native Americans and their culture. I will then talk about how this knowledge will give me facts and information about how a social worker can deal with Native Americans. Lastly, I will talk about the moral issues and problems that as a social worker I might be challenged with when working with Natives. When I first decided to write about this topic, I knew that I needed to look up some more general information about the Natives and their culture. I had already learned so much in this class about Native Americans, but I knew I might need more. I especially wanted to dig a little deeper into the subject of Natives in the US specifically. As stated by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), there are about 565 legally identified tribes in the US this present day (Who we are). This only includes tribes that are federally recognized, there are many more recognized by the state

Physical, mental, and spiritual health are what make harmony (Limb and Hodge, 2008). In other words, when we are healthy, it is because every part of our lives are in balance. According to the Native views, when you are sick or have any other problems, it simply means you are out of balance (Limb and Hodge, 2008). The result of this for the Indians is to find the balance once again, and then that means they are healthy again and living in wellness. This information is very important for me to know when I will be eventually working with clients from these tribes. Knowing some about Native spirituality is very important. Even if I do not know every little detail about it, having a base sense of it all will help me