Competency #2: Engage Diversity and Difference in Practice

Social workers understand how diversity and difference characterize and shape the human experience and are critical to the formation of identity. The dimensions of diversity are understood as the intersectionality of multiple factors including but not limited to age, class, color, culture, disability and ability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status, marital status, political ideology, race, religion/spirituality, sex, sexual orientation, and tribal sovereign status. Social workers understand that, as a consequence of difference, a person’s life experiences may include oppression, poverty, marginalization, and alienation as well as privilege, power, and acclaim. Social workers also understand the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination and recognize the extent to which a culture’s structures and values, including social, economic, political, and cultural exclusions, may oppress, marginalize, alienate, or create privilege and power. Social workers:

Practice Behavior 1: Develop and implement strategies that strive to eradicate discrimination in any form

Practice Behavior 2: Implement evidence-based and culturally-informed strategies with diverse populations

Competency #2 in Practice

Competency 2 helps me, as a professional, engage in and learn from diverse clients. It emphasizes the importance of learning about culture, religion, race, etc and accepting it as a great part of the world. It also holds me accountable for my biases and prejudice and calls me out on it. It asks me to know my client’s backgrounds as a part of the whole person. It also calls me to live my life in a way that honors all of the clients I serve. It is a big part of the social justice I plan to create in my career as a social worker.

Evidence for Practice Behavior 1: During my time for my practicum placement at Centerstone, I created a pamphlet during Black History Month. I distributed this pamphlet to my coworkers to help bring awareness to the cultural differences between “white” and “black” cultures. This, in turn, created more cultural awareness in the clinical setting and led to better practice and less discrimination with cultures outside one’s own.

Evidence for practice Behavior 2: For this competency, I recorded a video with a group of individuals about a Biblical character and his mental health struggles. Throughout this video we suggested several therapeutic and evidence based treatments including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Electro-shock therapy and pet therapy. We also discussed the cultural implications of his intense Christian/spiritual identity and how we would take that into account in his treatment plan.