The fourth program goal highlights the importance of an individual’s ability to intervene with clients from a theoretical perspective. Students who are competent within this goal should be able to understand and apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes, consistent with evidenced-based practice, to a wide variety of populations. For this program goal I would rate myself as developmentally appropriate (3). In my undergraduate program, my teachers stressed that it was crucial for therapists to successfully work with multiple cultures and populations. However, that was the extent of our education pertaining to this goal, so, again, this is an area that I had very little experience with prior to entering this program. Since entering this program, …show more content…
Over the course of this program, I found that self-care is most effective when an individual can completely disassociate from anything related to school. While this sounds simple, it takes a lot of practice because it is easy to be camping, at the gym, or golfing while simultaneously thinking about what homework there is to work on or how to study for an upcoming exam. In the event that an individual engages in self-care and does not completely disassociate from school, I believe the self-care will be significantly less effective. Therefore, the biggest self-care lesson I have learned, at least pertaining to me, is that I get the most out of self-care when I completely forget about school while I am engaging in my self-care …show more content…
What happened was a woman misunderstood the office assistant on the phone while she made the appointment. The woman believed that her dental work was fully covered under the financial hardship program. However, when it was time to pay she was charged a small amount for the appointment that day, and informed that she would owe over five hundred dollars for her subsequent appointments. Immediately she explained that she was told she had full coverage over her dental work and that she was informed everything would be free of charge. When the dental students and the women who was collecting money, they informed her that she only had 20% coverage over her dental work. The dental students felt bad because they had misread her file as well, so they told her multiple times that all of her work would be fully covered as well. The women then explained that she did not have five hundred dollars and would not be able to pay for her recommended dental work. The students apologized multiple times and accompanied her down to the financial desk to see what had happened. When I spoke with the students, they informed me that the paperwork was correct and she was not fully covered. While this was an uncomfortable situation for all of those involved, I believe it is important to carefully plan ahead to insure similar instances
Counselors today face the task of how to appropriately counsel multicultural clients. Being sensitive to cultural variables can be conceptualized as holding a cultural lens to human behavior and making allowances for the possibility of cultural influence. However, to avoid stereotyping, it is important that the clinician recognize the existence of within-group differences as well as the influence of the client’s own personal culture and values (Furman, Negi, Iwamoto, Shukraft, & Gragg, 2009). One’s background is not always black or white and a counselor needs to be able to discern and adjust one’s treatment plan according to their client.
Although, even if the therapist is from the same cultural background this can still be hard to counsel these clients because of different traditions, language dialects, family values, and ancestry. This does not mean that the therapist cannot help these clients, but this could hinder the therapist and client relationship if brought up in an entire different environment. For instance, you can have two individuals from the same cultural background and family values, but these individuals live in an entirely different environment or learned different family values and belief system. When working with a diverse client, it is very important to monitor your own culturally beliefs and be willing to work with the client no matter if you have any biases or prejudice towards them. Some of the strategies that could be helpful in these situations include, (a) treat the client the same way you would like to be treated, (b) research some information about the clients background and, (c) beware of your own cultural biases and prejudices when counseling minorities if your unaware of their backgrounds.
At times my personal and professional values seem to conflict with one another because of my culture and the environment from which I come from into the social work profession. For example, the stigma in the black community is in keep personal issues within the family and not to seek counsel. However, (FRC) promotes talking, action, and working through difficult situations; with trained professionals and educators to gather a perspective outside and in conjunction of one 's inner circle. With the hopes of encouraging clients to heal from past wombs, grow and evolve into the people they want to be and have the ability to exhibit healthy interactions in their personal and professional lives. Therefore through my training up to this point, I have begun to understand how important therapy and education is to the healing process for these individuals and their families. So from my professional perspective to hold things in and not seek treatment is only temporarily coping
The diversity among clients and the counselor is an issue that has recently come to the forefront. The counselor must be very cautious and sensitive to the cultural values of their clients, gender and gender preference, age, language preference, ethnicity, and spirituality and religious beliefs.
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...
The idea is to do so by expressing a willingness to learn more about, and showing respect for the client’s worldview, belief systems, and means of problem-solving while remaining empathetic to their emotional journey. Discovering and addressing the client’s personal stories and realities will enable the counselor to establish culturally appropriate interventions.
Self-care has a very different meaning for people. It varies from person to person and can be based on age, gender, religion, occupation, and their type of lifestyle that they live. For myself, my self-care has changed since starting nursing school and I now know have to look at it in terms of nursing. Although my self-care has not changed substantially I now have to realize that being a nurse, I will have more responsibility’s and will be taking care of others and I cannot take care of others until I take care of myself. Self-care is very important for many reasons; in my opinion a healthy person in mind, body and soul is a happy person. You cannot take care of others if you yourself are not healthy and happy.
It is interesting to note according to Raskin et al. ( 2011), “Our basic practice [client centered therapy] remains true to the core conditions no matter who our client may be. We also assert that our ability to form an initial therapeutic relationship depends on our own openness to and appreciation of respect for all kinds of difference” (p. 183). I believe that the cultural diversity that CCT maintains is important in a multiplicity open therapeutic environment. The implications for a non discriminatory form of therapy are that it can be used across populations. This allows for broader use of this theory and the chances for positive outcomes is increased because the availability.
Self-care often goes over looked. However, it could be one of the most important things a healthcare professional can do for themselves and the patients. Working in healthcare often consists of long hours and lots of brain power. Your mind is always on and you are always on high alert. That can be taxing on our minds, bodies, and souls. This is where self-care comes into play. Decompression can look like many things. I some play golf. Others take bi-monthly trips to the massage parlor. Some people seek solace in prayer and meditation. It is important to understand that self-care is not limited to people who hold huge responsibilities. These are techniques everyone should utilize as much as possible.
The counselor accomplishes the above by expressing empathy, developing discrepancies, going along with resistance and supporting self-efficacy. Moreover, the counselor guides the client toward a solution that will lead to permanent posi...
Culture can be defined as behaviors exhibited by certain racial, religious, social or ethnic groups. Some factors in which culture may vary include: family structure, education, and socioeconomic status (Kodjo, 2009). Some may think cultural competence is something that has an end point, however, when the big picture is seen, it is a learning process and journey. From the writer’s perspective, the client-therapist relationship can be challenging. Culturally competent therapists must realize that behaviors are shaped by an individual’s culture. Many changes are taking place within the United States cultural makeup. Therapists and healthcare professionals are being challenged to provide effective and sensitive care for patients and their families. This type of culturally sensitive care requires the professional to be open and seek understanding in the patients diverse belief systems (Kodjo, 2009).
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
They should be sensitive towards the client’s emotions and not be judgemental. Approach should also be developmentally and culturally appropriate and interaction void of any prejudice and discrimination (see ACA E.5.b. Cultural Sensitivity (in Diagnosis of Mental Disorders) & E.6.c. Culturally Diverse Populations (in Instrument Selection)). For example, while counselling a child, counsellor must be able to understand the perception of the child which may involve elements of immaturity and fantasy and not seek to correct the child’s worldview to match that of an adult. Such behaviour will diminish the child’s self-esteem and stress the child, causing harm instead of
Compassion fatigue is defined as “The emotional residue or strains of exposure to working with those suffering from the consequences of traumatic events” (The American Institute of Stress, n.d.). Compassion fatigue occurs when healthcare workers, especially those who work with patients one-on-one daily, feel the emotional stress of their jobs starting to wear on them. For example, a person who works with a cancer patient and watches that patient worsen and finally pass away, may experience great emotional pain. Dealing with stressful situations over time could also cause compassion fatigue. One way to prevent compassion fatigue is through implementation of Schwartz rounds. “Schwartz rounds are not 'problem solving'. Instead, the focus is on the emotional experiences of staff caring for patients and they allow staff to explore, in an environment that is safe and confidential, situations that confront them.” (Thompson, A. (2013). Schwartz rounds are like support groups for healthcare workers. They allow healthcare providers to share their struggles as caregivers and solve their strugg...
Self-care is a necessary practice in everyone’s life. This practice allows people to relax and replenished themselves. The first time I heard of this term was in during one of my social work classes. As we began to discuss self-care it became clear, that without proper self-care people, not just social workers are doing themselves a disservice. Self-care encompasses more than general rest. Self-care deals with emotional wellbeing, good health and spiritual wellbeing. All of these areas are key to having good self-care. The reading provides a good description self-care, it stated that self-care is achieving an equilibrium across our personal school and work lives. Achieving equilibrium in my personal life will only increase my ability to support and help others.