Reference no: EM133744788
Social workers engage with diverse populations and must have a professional level of cultural competence to interact respectfully with clients, such as being aware of biases in language and history. At the macro level, social workers serve as social justice advocates for vulnerable populations and collaborate with communities, organizations, and leaders to promote policy decisions to improve justice for affected groups. Advocates may participate in panel forum discussions to explore diverse perspectives in social justice issues and determine culturally informed approaches to social work practice.
As a social worker and advocate for a specific population, your agency has asked you to prepare for a social justice panel discussion focused on national-level issues. Your panel will examine the intersection between social oppression and culturally responsive social work practice for a selected population. The forum's coordinators have shared their general questions with participating panelists to aid them in preparing for the discussion, which are listed below.
Choose one of the following forms of systemic oppression for the focus of the panel discussion:
- Racism and colorism
- Homophobia, transphobia, and cissexism
- Misogyny, sexism, and sexual harassment
- Xenophobia
- Ableism
- Ageism
Choose at least one of the following examples of a population affected by the selected example of systemic oppression:
- LGBTQ+
- Workers who are women
- African American men
- Immigrants
- Older adults
- Adults living with a disability
Response to the panel prompts as if you were a social worker preparing for a forum discussion on national-level social justice issues for a specific population affected by systemic oppression.
Panel Prompts
Question 1:
Describe the disenfranchised or marginalized population and form of systemic oppression you chose as the focus of your research. Give 2 examples of ways that a social worker can promote social justice and collective empowerment when working with this population.
Question 2:
Explain how you might apply power and privilege as a social worker in macro-level practice with the selected population. Describe consequences of oppression that are more likely to affect the population and explain why.
Question 3:
Explain the role of self-awareness in a social worker's ability to recognize unconscious bias, avoid microaggressions, and promote cultural respect. Give 2 examples of microaggressions that the selected population might encounter and explain how social workers could handle each situation with cultural competence.
Question 4:
Explain how cultural awareness and cultural humility can help promote trust and overcome barriers to culturally responsive social work practice with this population. Describe actions that a culturally responsive social worker might take to promote trust with this population. Explain how the tenets of the NASW Code of Ethics Standard 1.05 Cultural Competence apply to interculturally competent social work practice.