Personal Work Plan for Culturally Competent Social Work Practice 1
Personal Work Plan for Culturally Competent Social Work Practice
Darice Collier Wayne State University
Personal Work Plan for Culturally Competent Social Work Practice 2
Social Work is an occupation that is strictly about having communication skills effectively and very precise when dealing with people. Communication skills are not only defined how effectively a social worker can speak to a client, but how to convey important information with clients with different ethnicity, race, culture, religion, values, and beliefs. A professional skilled social worker will know what to say to someone who are in the same category and clients that are not. We live in a society where ethnicity have a significant impact upon the different interaction between people, so it is the social workers job to have clients see pass that when working in the profession of social work. There are many skills that are needed to be a great asset in the field of social work. One of the most important skills that are needed to be able to work competent with social work practice is to know vital information about all ethnicities. This skill will enable a worker to understand and relate to all the different cultures and have the skills to help clients with a diverse background. The level of competence I had before I started the class was a good amount. I know the importance of being knowledgeable of ethnicities and love to learn about the different beliefs and cultures that people have. I am the type of person that loves to learn about people that has a different background from me. I do not feel that my culture is better and that my culture is the only one I should know about. I am happy that I am not ethnocentric because I will be missing out on knowing interesting facts about cultures. The views that I have that shaped my perspective about my culture and other cultures are the experiences that I have had with people and what I have read about both. I have more views and experience with people that have similar culture with me because I have hands on Personal Work Plan for Culturally Competent Social Work Practice 3
experience with being a part of the culture. The experiences that I have that shaped my views about my culture are the experiences that I have with my family, friends, and people at my school. The experiences that I have that shaped my views about other cultures are the experiences that I have with my friends, people at my school, and people I met while I was out doing daily activities. One interesting idea that is in the text that we read is about how people should view the United States of people as if we are different flowers in the field. Like in the field of flowers, people in our communities often have difficulties interacting with each other (Appleby, Colon, & Hamilton, 2007, p. xi). Even though the flowers are diverse in the field, the flowers all look beautiful together. Diversity is a beautiful thing, just like the diverse flowers that may be in a field. If people were to look at diversity as being a beauty and not negative, then the world could be a better place. The diversity of people being used in comparison to flowers was the first time I learned about it and thought it was a great perspective about diversity. There are many succinctly things I learned that were interesting while participating in this course that was meaningful to me. My favorite chapter is chapter five about the dynamics of oppression and discrimination. Oppression and discrimination are two of the most injustice actions that can be done towards anyone. Oppression and discrimination are two issues that social workers try to diminish for their clients. A primary construction in Western cultural thought is the belief that superior should control the inferior (Appleby et al., 2007, p. 61). The superior is defined as the people with a lot of money that are making double the minimum Personal Work Plan for Culturally Competent Social Work Practice 4
wage and the people that are considered inferior are the people that are only making minimum wage. There should not be any thoughts or ideas that someone is inferior to anyone based upon income and anything that considers someone to be in the category of inferior. Its sad that oppression is common elements of institutional power, economic control, violence, distortion and invisibility. (Appleby et al., 2007, p. 61). The clients that I would believe to be challenging are the people that do not want to open up to me and tell me vital information so I will be able to help them. I would expect that some of my clients will have different backgrounds from mine and may judge that I lack the ability to serve them before giving me a chance. The clients that will be beneficial to me are the people that try to help me understand their perspective, so I can be able to assist them. I would like to learn about more groups and cultures to be able to help them more effectively in the field of social work. One of the cultures that interest me is the Native Americans, which is a great diverse group. I want to know what are their beliefs, values, religion, and culture. I also would like to know the roles that each person have in the family. I do not think there will be any group of people that will be difficult to work with. I think it is not about an ethnicity or culture of people that will be hard to assist, just the people that are racist or stereotype towards African Americans. Some of my clients will probably judge the color of my skin before they can see the content of my character that will be credential for assisting. It is not always people that have a different background than my own that might give me a hard time to do my job. It is a possibility that there will be African Americans that will assume that I am not capable to assist due to me being African American. Personal Work Plan for Culturally Competent Social Work Practice 5
Action Steps That Are Feasible for Increasing Cultural Competence 1. Have adequate knowledge about individual cultures. 2. Research cultures and have a better understanding. 3. Be sensitive to cultural differences. 4. Awareness of the patterns of oppression and discrimination of cultures. 5. Communication skills to speak to them effectively.
Personal Work Plan for Culturally Competent Social Work Practice 6
References
Appleby, G., Colon, E., & Hamilton J. (2007). Diversity, Oppression, and Social functioning: Person-In-Environment Assessment and Intervention (3 rd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon Course
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