In the Human Services profession there are several areas of interest ranging from mental health, human rights, and even criminal justice; to name a few. However, when it comes to the values and missions of several human services organizations, individual cultures and beliefs may play a major role in their formation and services provided. To reflect back on the history of the human services field, culture has not always the main focus of most services that were being provided. The focus was mainly placed more on simply helping those in need. But since then, times has changed and culture has now became the major influence on the practices within the human services field.
With there being several areas in the human service field that sparks my interest, the one that is more important to me is equality/ human rights. I believe that all people should be treated equally and allowed the opportunity to succeed in life without any type of discrimination. Therefore, similar to my own thoughts and beliefs I must say that culture influences this area of the human services field a lot. Emphasis ...
The health and social care practitioner values, beliefs and experiences can influence their delivery of care by what they believe in and what they see as acceptable. It is important as a health practitioner to treat service users equally and to never allow their personal beliefs to affect their role of work. For example giving someone else a special treatment because you like them better and treating a client differently because they do not have the same religion/belief. Treating a service user badly because of their race or their personality is against the practise. The Human Rights Act 1998, The Equality Act of 2010, The Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Equal Opportunities Act 2004 are all legislations that link with equality and diversity. All these acts should be
In the social work practice, social workers should abide by and respect the protocol of their particular organization. The first ethical standard I would like to discuss is that a social worker having cultural competence and social (NASW, 1999). A social worker must possess the knowledge of values, customs, tradition and history just to name a few in order to have success with clients that may identify as something other than their own identity. Culture directs impacts human behavior. Within this case study, due to Mrs. Sanchez’s culture, she struggled to assimilate with the American culture and this included her being able to learn the English language. Her culture was very important to her and I respect that. As a social worker, I would have
A human rights based approach is used to look at the inequalities which are created within development problems, this happens when there is a biased distributions of power that slow development progress. The human rights based approach is used to ensure that the dignity of every individual is centre to decision making. The importance of adopting a human rights approach to care is that it helps to involve the service user to know what their human rights are and it guarantees that every service user is receiving a good quality service and have a feeling of safety within their care environment. Adopting a human rights approach within a care setting means that the services should always be promoting equality and respecting diversity to every individual within the service and it helps to ensure that no one is being favorited or left ignored. The human rights based approach lets individual’s voices be heard and allows for anyone who feels mistreated or unhappy with a service to make a complaint or have an formal investigation carried out. The human rights based approach is important within care as it provides staff with the resources and tools to try and help service users to strengthen their abilities which can make a huge impact
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).
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.
NASW (2001) Code of Ethics. Cultural Competencies. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on April 9, 2002 at http://www.socialworkers.org
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...
Jeannette Dorado SPI 310: Cultural Competence in Health Care Jennifer Flamboe September 6, 2017 Purnell, Ch. 1 Review Question. 1. The need for cultural health studies in this country is to help individuals in the health care field to be more aware of their patient’s culture and being able to understand their forms of medication and illness. 2. The rights that humans have, in the healthcare field , regardless of their status in the country is that they have the right to expect that the health care will respect their beliefs, values, and practices.
Paulo Coelho once said, “Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbor is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.” This quotation means that culture is an understanding of peoples way of living, and growing up. It teaches them to understand not only there culture but others around them with the same situation and questions they have faced.
The population is more culturally diverse today than any other time in history and nurses are increasingly challenged to become culturally competence (Bearskin, 2011). Andrews and Boyle (2016) refer to cultural competence as the assimilation of one’s beliefs, values, knowledge and cross-cultural experiences, as well as meeting the broader responsibilities of effective communication, and accessibility to expert and safe healthcare. In general terms cultural competence equates to equitable health care. However, studies such as Bearskin (2011) shows that, despite medical and technological advances, healthcare disparity continues to impact mariginalized communities. Irrespective to education and socioeconomic status black and brown people encounter
Cultural competency in healthcare is the ability to serve anyone regardless of their diversity, such as the patient’s: ability, socioeconomic status, talents, language, religion, sexual orientation, geographic region, and life experiences.(6) Reflection My journey through the emapthy, ethics and professionalism module has been interesting; filled with the discovery of once unknown knowledge and insight. Indonesia is a country of seemingly limitless variety and diversity, rich in different cultures, languages, lifestyles. It is also diverse in terms of socioeconomic status, living conditions, facilities, infrastructure in different regions of this archipelago.
An individual’s culture and belief may significantly impact the type of services they require. In addition, it may affect the time, place, and method in the delivery of health care
Cultural Competence is being able to engage in respectful and effective practice with diverse individuals, families, and communities, preserving their dignity and affirming their worth. A social worker should be aware of their clients’ cultural and environmental contexts, in order to know a client’s strengths, but cultural competence is never fully realized, achieved, or completed, but rather cultural competence is a lifelong process for social workers who will always encounter diverse clients and new situations in their practice. Social workers should have a knowledge base of their clients’ cultures and be able to demonstrate competence in the provision of services that are sensitive to clients’ cultures. Social workers should obtain education
It is imperative that social workers become knowledgeable about their clients’ cultures and are culturally sensitive. In learning about their clients’ cultures, social workers need to be aware of how powerful and significant culture is in relating to clients’ behavior, values, and beliefs. Becoming culturally competent requires the ability to integrate awareness, knowledge, and skills while maintaining a positive working relationship with the client (Sue and Zane, 1987). Today, the concerns regarding cultural competency continue to accentuate the importance of preparing social workers for a diversified society.
The social worker should be socially sensitive and respect the cultures of other people. For instance, some cultures believe that depression or sadness is a spiritual problem and may want to seek divine interventions from their religious leaders. As opposed to inventions social workers recommend, if the social workers fail to understand the belief of the clients then an ineffective intervention will be chosen. It imperative for the social worker to learn knowledge from these cultures for effective interventions. Third belief to barriers in social worker’s competence is the idea that clients’ needs to be cultural.