As a competent social worker, I understand that anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion can positively shape the human experience and impact the social environment at home, at work, and among the general public. In order to accomplish these effects I aspire to encourage ADEI practices and classes in school lesson plans for students, in workplace settings, and at government entities. I will highlight the benefits for individuals at home, at work, and in public when these practices are in place. I will further underscore the negatives when racism, a lack of diversity, inequity, and exclusion occur in society and how those experiences affect individuals treated in that manner. In relation to ADEI, I aim to be a continual learner, a teacher, an empathetic listener, a consultant, an advocate, and a mediator. I understand that diversity includes the intersectionality of multiple factors including but not limited to age, class, color, culture, disability and ability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, immigration status, marital status, political ideology, race, religion/spirituality, sex, sexual orientation, and tribal status. I understand that some individuals’ life experiences include oppression, poverty, marginalization, and alienation while some individuals’ life experiences include privilege, power, and acclaim. I understand that anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion can eliminate structures in society that oppress, marginalize, alienate, or create privilege and power and benefit client systems. I will seek to support ADEI by utilizing tools gained in my profession and any privilege I have inherited socially in the current climate in order to create a new social climate that includes and offers opportunities and comfort to all in an equitable manner. I will utilize these skills at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels in social work practice.
3.1 Demonstrated Leadership in Advocating for Human Rights, Social, Racial, Economic, and Environmental Justice
I actively engage in advocacy for the human rights and social, racial, economic, and environmental justice that patients deserve when they come to our facility and request assistance with mental health services. In consideration of the rights and justice that individuals deserve, I have interacted with insurance companies, reached out to other organizations for potential service provision, and have sought to enable services options regardless of insurance. Additionally, I was involved in the creation of a document listing the availability of local outpatient referral sources.
Field Experience: At my internship, I call insurance companies to ensure coverage for mental health inpatient admission for our patients when they require acute care at our facility. I ensure that we provide the correct coding and language in order to ensure that the patient will be covered during their stay. Additionally, I provide a Facesheet, Consult Notes, and insurance information to a medication management referral site in order to ensure the patient is given a timely appointment and the appropriate care they deserve so that care is not hindered or slowed in any way.
3.2 Designed and Implemented Social Action Strategies that Demonstrated Social, Racial, Economic, and Environmental Justice
I designed and implemented social action strategies that demonstrated an active respect of social, racial, economic, and environmental justice through a spreadsheet of next available appointments for local therapy sources to refer patients. This strategy ensures that I am actively interested in improving the quality of social justice that patients or clients in my care receive in the service provision provided.
Therapy earliest available local
Knowledge: The knowledge most useful in this competency included a knowledge of how to RESPECT each people group that I encounter and all the ways in which they may identify. I also need to UNDERSTAND THE HISTORY of discrimination in all of its forms and how it impacts the human subject in their day-to-day lives and LEARN HOW TO ADVOCATE for non-discrimination in school settings, work settings, public settings, and worship settings.
Values: This competency involved the values of DIGNITY and WORTH OF PERSONS, RESPECT for others, COMPETENCY, INTEGRITY, and SERVICE. When I interact with clients due to ADEI concerns, they need to sense that they will experience a sense of dignity and worth when speaking with me. Clients should sense that I respect their right to fair treatment, that I am a competent practioner in my representation of them, and that I serve with integrity and a sense of desiring to serve them and their needs. They are worthy of being served and of being treated fairly–but firstly with me.
Skills: This competency required me to utilize LISTENING skills, the ability to RECALL information, the ability to DOCUMENT ACURATELY, and the ABILITY to DISTINGUISH between the most important points to address and those that were not worth our time. In this work I would employ WRITING SKILLS or TYPING SKILLS in order to document and DRAFT PROPOSALS for addressing the discrimination being experienced by clients or for recommending that ADEI be practiced better at my internship location, if needed.
Cognitive Processes: In the completion of this competency, I had to RECOGNIZE when I was hearing information pertaining to an ADEI claim, PARAPHRASE that I was understanding the claim accurately, and SYNTHESIZE concerns into a SUMMARY that I DEVELOPED as a result of the information gathered surrounding ADEI concerns. By COMPARING how ADEI should be practiced in a variety of settings from literature regarding the practice of ADEI in other organizations, I will be able to DETERMINE if ADEI has not been practiced and to what degree.
Affective Processes: WIth claims of ADEI malfeasance, it is important to LISTEN, provide good EYE CONTACT and BODY LANGUAGE that illustrates my concern for information being presented. Additionally, I need to EXEMPLIFY a caring professional that is capable of CARRYING OUT the representation of their ADEI claims, as presented.
Theoretical Foundation: The theoretical foundation that most useful in this competency includes the PROBLEM SOLVING MODEL, as the lack of proper ADEI in practice demonstrates a major lack of proper treatment for individuals, often due to discrimination and prejudicial thoughts. After noting the problem, we can then move to solving the problem via EDUCATION of individuals regarding their faulty ideas, logic, or stereotypes which have resulted in the discrimnatory behavior that was related. Beyond education, the problem solving model will also include action, such as drafting policies that prevent discrimination as well as advocating at city counsels and at organizational boards regarding the need to practice non-descrimination in all facets of life in order for all to realize the American Dream.