Category: Free Essays

The essay is an analysis of theories underpinning and key elements of critical social work and its values. Furthermore I will explore Counselling as one of the areas of social work practice and how it is influenced by the critical social work approach in practice. I will include examples from practice experience and literature and also highlight the influence of inequalities, power and social divisions. The views of service users and their contribution towards the practice will also be taken into account in the essay.

Social work in the UK dates back to the 19th as a community and charitable activity to support the disadvantaged and poor. From the charitable and community origins it developed in strength to a field that aims at challenging inequality, oppression; promote social inclusion/ social justice and independence Parrot (2002). Through these values and aims Social Work broadened its knowledge base and developed into Critical social work. Wooster (2002) supports the above origins when he mentions that Social work owes its origins to Christian morality than a commitment to social problems affecting individuals. Following the economic crisis in the UK in the 1970s due to escalating oil prices social issues like poor housing, unemployment, poverty and homelessness social work shifted and broadened its focus and tried to address social issues and problems. (Grimwood et al., (1995).

Adams et al (2009) mentions that in attempting to address social problems, disadvantage and inequalities social work practitioners have drawn knowledge and ideas from various disciplines such as sociology, psychology, philosophy and politics. From this multi-disciplinary knowledge base the underpinning ideology was anti oppressive principle which provides theoretical tools to understand, intervene and respond to the complex experience of oppression. This means social work practitioners have a moral, ethical and legal responsibility to challenge inequalities and disadvantage.

Critical practice can be traced and associated with radical social work in the 1960s-70s deriving ideas from Marxist theory Fook (1993). Radical social work upheld the following themes: structural analysis of personal problems, ongoing social critique mainly focusing on oppressive ideas/practice and goals of self emancipation and social change. Parallel to these traditions empowering and anti-oppressive practice to participation in research and community work. Several key principles were shared from radical critiques to present critical social work which are: challenging dominant forces and oppression in all forms, a critique of positivist ideas and the need to challenge dominant constructed ways of knowing by developing other ways of knowing. This would be achieved through recognising that knowledge may reflect reality but may also be socially constructed. In order to create more/new knowledge self reflection and interaction are essential tools using communication processes.

Marx analysed the capital society he lived in Germany and argued that the structures within society derived from the economy and the changes in the industrial revolution influenced some people to be more powerful and others not. Individuals were restrained by the demands of Capitalism resulting in structure/agency problem at the expense of structure. Marx highlighted issues of class and class struggle where there is a struggle between powerful and powerless resulting in different societal classes. As such a situation prevails that those in power will seek to remain in power at whatever cost and means mostly exploitation of the powerless by depriving them of their opportunities and access to facilities. Rush (2004) further mentions that Marxist critical theory is not descriptive but a means of influencing social change by raising awareness of forces within society that brings inequality and highlighting how awareness can help individuals to overcome such forces and liberate themselves.

Critical thinking is also linked to Marx and Socilogists from the Frankfurt School of Sociologists (Horkeimer (1979), Adorno (Adorno and Horkeimer, (1979) and Marcuse (1964) from the 1920s/30s and Habermas (1984, 1987) writing in the late twentieth century. These theorists held that social interpretation was based on assumptions of a fixed social order mainly derived from religion, politics and social beliefs. When this social order started being rejected and challenged. Sociologists argued that knowledge of the envinonment makes individuals more effective (Gerth and Mills (1948) and Durkeim (1972) established that if we understand how social relationships work we would be able to achieve our objectives in society. This is how critical thinking in modernist way is about and it was termed ‘modernism’ but has expanded and embraced other theories concerned with transformation and social change. Gray and Webb (2008) argue that critical theory is shifting from the Frankfurt school but at the same time it has not defined its critical base. (Allan et al 2003; Fook 2002; Healey 2000) acknowledge that there is tension in defining critical theory as it comprises different theories, some argue that it is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of theories and approaches including Marxist, radical, feminist, anti-racist, anti-oppressive, anti-discriminatory, post colonial , critical constructivist and structural perspectives. This suggests that there are many theories although different they all try to understand the relationship between an individual and society.

For the purpose of clarity and continuity I will at this stage define critical social work practice and highlight its values. Adams et al (2009) view critical practice as involving exercising one’s judgement in a reflective and diverse manner. It involves exploring different options in a situation or actions in judging the best way to address issues. The practitioner would review their ideas, perspectives and options of others before deciding a “best way forward.” This is underpinned by the fact of accepting change and continuity as practitioners encounter different situations and ideas. Payne et al (2002) further mentions that in order to fulfil the requirements of critical practice which include liberation and empowerment social workers need an open mind, reflective stance that encompasses diverse perspectives, experience and assumptions. This would result in acknowledging individual differences, equal opportunity and respect. Fook and Garner (2007) further identify three aspects of critical practice which are critical thinking, critical action and reflexivity as essential tools to apply when seeking social justice and change.

In trying to address social injustices and inequality social work uses a variety of skills and knowledge based on theory perspective and methodology. This empowers social workers to put in place intervention which is appropriate to individual circumstances. This intervention empowers social workers with skills to engage service users to bring positive outcomes. Critical social work is also informed by values which overlap the traditional social work values. The value of social justice is upheld from the fact that critical practice is a moral activity and as such professionals are also moral agents.

This is further supported by Thompson (2006) when he suggests that Society comprises of a diverse range of people in which social divisions emerge which in turn forms the societal structures which networks relationships, institutions and groupings. These groupings determine, control and regulate the distribution of power, privilege, status and opportunities resulting in social stratification and dimensions. From these groupings however it is important to mention that unfairness, inequality and oppression is witnessed in the group of people who are vulnerable and marginalised.

From these theories we can trace the ideas of critical perspective and acknowledge that the powerless can influence policy society views from the oppressors. The theoretical development implemented by service users was the theorising of disability from the medicalised interpretation to social model of disability. This shift was championed by disabled people’s movements to express how they felt and were treated for more than a century. This shift and theory influenced societal attitudes, influenced policies and to some extent changed societal attitudes in UK and abroad. (Abberley,1998; Barnes, 1998). (Morris, 1993) supports this by mentioning that the disability movement has overhauled societal perceptions and upheld disabled people’s rights to live independently,promote anti discriminatory practice, fairness and equal opportunities.

Harris and White (2009) further explored events and changes within the welfare state from administering to managing the welfare state. They observed that the Conservative “1979 -1997” and Labour “1997-2010” were influenced by neo-liberalist ideas. This idea upheld the belief that market was superior to the state and as such professionals including social workers were meant to implement competitive government policy and approaches to meet global standards. These changes affected the vulnerable people in society as well because managers had been given the powers to speak on their behalf. These changes, debates and contradictions have put Social Work practice into a contested dilema profession. Although this definition states that “Social work is a profession that promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being”. (International Federation of Social Workers, 2000 p1).

Fook (2002) also argues that critical social work practice should be concerned with promoting a society without domination, exploitation and oppression. In order to achieve this practitioners need to reflect, reconstruct and unpack more processes for change through careful negotiation within the dominant framework. Parton et al (1997) points out that the present political environment is dominantly global, modernized and authoritarian. As such policies are informed and regulated by market principles which prescribes and narrows professional boundaries which affects the rights of service users. In order to achieve their objectives social workers need to challenge and resist the authoritarian elements by employing critical practice.

Adams et al (1998) further identifies that Systems theory is another major theoretical source underpinning social work. The systems theory emphasised that people’s existence is determined by the environment they live or grow in. It highlighted that people’s problems are a result of how they interact with their resource “systems” which are either formal or informal. The informal include friends, neighbours and colleagues. The formal include support groups/ social clubs and associations. The public/ societal include housing ,hospitals, work and school which provides certain structure or particular function in society. The system theory encourages growth and provides a wider range of solutions to problems by identifying areas of improvement or needing improvement. However it is said not to be acknowledging power differences within society and with different roles. Furthermore (Coulshed and Orme, 1998) pointed out that the nature of diversity in society makes it difficult to be entirely dependent on one theory or approach. Different situations and different circumstances entails different approaches through reflective practices and perspectives.

Many critical social theorists have challenged the existence of a social order and have questioned social order as evidenced in the work of Habermas (1984, 1987) who distinguishes between the system and the lifeworld which interact and sometimes conflict with each other. The system represents the structures like the government departments, transnational companies emerging from globalisation, ideas promoted by communicative reasoning, education and media.All these structures are relaying a world view through different reasoning. aAs such Social work is not excluded as an agent of systematic managerialism in agencies.

(Fook 2002 and Gardner 2007) further highlighted alternative forms of critical theory which are feminism and post modernism. They have different views from Marxist views and the Frankfurt sociologists in that they focus on the understanding that the world reflects personal experience and social historical context. They argue that personal experience constructs and is constructed by the world we live in. They advocate to listening to people’s experiences (narratives) seriously and from these we can hear how they view and experience the world in different ways. This is supported by the feminists when they highlight that the narration of experiences by individuals gives us a clue on how they construct the world and how they want to engage with their problems and situations. Thus postmodernists say there is an alternative way of viewing the world than what it seems to be. Postmodernity argue there is a different way of viewing the world and different ways to deal with societal prtoblemsa hence critical social work seeks for different options and take the best way forward.

In order for all these theories to be implemented there should be contact with individuals in society who experience inequality and disadvantage. Furthermore it is also important to mention at this point that social work intervention and practice is broad and spreads into other disciplines. Groupwork, Counselling, Advocacy and Assessment are examples of different forms of practising social work. I will not focus on the broadness of disciplines but will focus on the aims of the essay which are to explore how the critical social work approach influences counselling. Counselling requires a lot of skills and approaches as it seeks to address and resolve individual dilemmas, decision making and resolving issues.

According to BAC counselling is a more deliberate activity and in its definition of the term the British Association for Counselling spells out the distinction between a planned and a spontaneous event. ‘People become engaged in counselling when a person, occupying regularly or temporarily the role of counsellor, offers or agrees explicitly to offer time, attention and respect to another person or persons temporarily in the role of client.’ According to Dryden (2004:40), it is described as principled relationship characteristics by the application of one or more psychological theories and a recognised set of communication skills, modified by experience, intuition and other interpersonal factors, to clients’ intimate concerns, problems or aspirations. Its predominant ethos is one of facilitation rather than of advice-giving or coercion. It may be of very brief or long duration, take place in an organisational or private practice setting and may or may not overlap with practical, medical and other matters of personal welfare.

From the above definitions and tracing the historically it is evident social workers were /and are still engaged in counselling as highlighted by the Barclay report in the early 1980s which mentioned that it was essential for social workers to engage in counselling as it helped to engage with individuals to help them manage their problems, worries and anxieties. Barclay Committee, (1982). This is no longer the situation today as noted by Brearley (1995) political, administrative, legislative changes and ideologies have affected the relationship between counselling and social; work. Some social work practitioners are in dilemma as to when they can do counselling or not and where to start with counselling and when to stop. Because social workers operate in a legislative, organisational, ideological, value and ethical context it is becoming increasingly difficult to engage in counselling without pushing boundaries. Furthermore the economic environment, budget cuts and lack of resources makes it difficult to manoeuvre and employ uncontested interventions.

However despite the above constraints social workers at some point carry out counselling as not carrying it out would render their job inadequate and inefficient.

There are a number of Counselling theories which are Person centred, existential, Cognitive behavioural (CBT),motivational, humanistic, psychodynamic, Karpman’s (1969) Drama triangle and eclectic and intergrative approaches. Some of the theories have been criticised as inadequate and resource straining. One approach that is complimentary to social work is the eclectic/ integrative approach.

Integrative theory is a method of intervention that meets the needs presented by the client and specific circumstances. The benefits of this approach are that it is flexible and adoptable to client needs. McLeod (2003) supports this statement when he mentions theapproach enables the counsellor to choose the best option and techniques from a range of theories to meet the client needs. It can mean employing different elements from different theories to blend them into a new suitable model or theory.This compliments with one of the social work theories of eclecticism which seeks to intergrate different theories to intervene ( quote)

It can be argued that the aims of social work and the aims of counselling are both focusing on individuals and their interaction with the society, problems they face and how they solve them. As Egan 2006 puts it and complimented by Coulshed and Orme 2006 social workers adopt skills that compliment counselling skills some of them are empathy or understanding,respect, self knowledge and acceptance and honest. Although there are criticisms on Egan’s work as being ignorant of psychodynamic ideas meaning it has limited application and effectiveness. A reflective practitioner would seek to promote social justice, anti -oppressive and anti-discvriminatory practice based on knowledge to promote inclusive practice. Both professions are being challenged by increasing literature developing and need to engage in best practice and critical practice to reach all individuals and communities.

My privilege as a social worker working with clients is that I have acquired knowledge and on values of social work issues and intervention. I also have a black African background which has some conflicting values to social work. I will focus on the social work values to overcome any prejudices and biases which may jeopardise my work. I also have the law on my side which will give me power to intervene and practice. From my experience as a caseworker at RA I used counselling as a technique to working with clients. Clients from different background accessed the service to resolve their immigration matters. Mostly the approach we used was person centred approach which meant clients were treated as individuals and given advice relating to their immigration issues

My identity gives me a privilege because I have my own values. I am black African student social worker. I nave my values, knowledge and prejudices which can impact on the way I will relate with clients when in practice. I will not allow my own values and prejudices influence my practice. I will engage in reflective practice and use the critical social work approach discussed in this essay. Clients have their own views, way of life and interpretation of the world. My role is to promote social justice to the people I work with in order for them to have choice and independence. . This is supported by Carrniol 2005 when they mention that it is important for social workers to deepen their conscience into their social location and privilege as the first step towards empowering clients and challenging oppression.

In my previous role as caseworker for refugees and asylum seekers I worked and experienced that men from other cultures do not cry because of their religion. My belief values say if a person is hurting they cry. Also handshakes are part of my culture to greet but others do not handshake. Appointments with Muslims on Friday afternoon were not appropriate as they attend mosque. I would seek to give appointments on another day. Giving Muslims women make caseworkers to counsel they won’t talk give them women? I will signpost people to their own community groups to give help and support. Once you listen to somebody’s problems you are counselling. I overcame all these by putting the needs of clients first before my own.

Privilege as described by Bailey (1998:109) is systemically, conferred advantages individuals enjoy for being members of a dominants few with access to resources and institutional power that are beyond the common advantages of marginalised citizens Sidanius and Pratto 1999 further suggest that an individual’s privilege is derived from their membership or association to privileged groups rather than their personal achievement. According to Ixer 199 it is important to examine privilege critically in two ways i.e. how it benefits the privileged person and how it affects the individual who does not possess it. In critical social work practice social worker need to reflect upon what causes privilege and explore the socio political dimensions of an individual’s problem than focus on their capability to cope. (Fook 1999 Morley 2004)

Carniola (2005) observed that social workers is in the right direction of developing critical consciousness about the psychological impact of oppression on individuals. He further expressed that there is concern on the degree of awareness among social workers on the impact of privilege or dominant status on individual’s subjectivities and world views. Rossitter (2000) echoes the same sentiments when he mentions that the position/ impact and ways in which professionals engage with clients is overlooked and underestimated as they possess a certain class in the form of gender, race, and sexual privilege.

It is important to highlight at this stage the values of critical social work practice. It is important to mention that values are in different categories ranging from personal, organisational, ethical, institutional political and religious. Values can conflict each other as well and socially constructed. Traditional Social work values and critical social work values overlap and are based on Biestek 1961 and consists of the following: Individualism, non judgemental, self determination, purposeful expression and controlled emotional development. In post modernity terms these can be interpreted to promotion of social justice, emancipation, anti-oppressive, anti-discriminatory, empowerment, non judgemental and respect and dignity. As discussed these are values that underpi critical social work for it to exist.

Critical social work as discussed explores the best way forward to individuals problems and seeks to listen and engage with the individual to tell their story and work in partnership to find the best way forward. The limitation is critical social work is surrounded by external forces which are beyond it control. For example resources in the current economic climate globally and at home. It is also criticised as its values and origins are Eurocentric and do not represent universal circumstances as what seems to work in UK might not necessarily work in Afro/ Asian communities. For example the issue of confidentiality is valued and essential in UK and Europe whereas in Afro Asian cultures they value kinship support in times of distress. However they would not want anyone else outside the kinship clique to know about their situation. This brings inrterpretation problems to confidentialtity.

Having explored critical social work practice and theories underpinning it it is important to acknowledge that there is continuos transformation and contest within the academic field and socio-political arena. This is greatly impacting on vulnerable people and how they are treated and marginalised in issues affecting their lives. If the values of critical social work could bre fulfilled and the theories underpinning it are intergrated social work and counselling would be forces for change to promote social justice.

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The essay analyses theories underpinning and key elements of critical social work and its values. An exploration of counselling as a form of social work practice and how it is influenced by the critical social work approach will be included. Examples from practice experience/ literature and the influence of inequalities, power and social divisions will be discussed. The views of service users and their contribution towards the practice will also be take into account in the essay.

Payne (2005) traces social work in the UK back to the 19th century as a community and charitable activity to support the disadvantaged and poor. From the charitable and community origins it developed into a broader field. Jordan (2004) cited in Collins (2009) believes social work owes its origins to Christian morality than a commitment to social problems affecting individuals. Following the economic crisis in the UK in the 1970s due to escalating oil prices social issues like poor housing, unemployment, and poverty and homelessness social work shifted and broadened its focus and tried to address social issues and problems. Adams et al (2005).

Adams et al (2009) mentions that in attempting to address social problems, disadvantage and inequalities social work practitioners have drawn knowledge and ideas from various disciplines such as sociology, psychology, philosophy and politics. From this multi-disciplinary knowledge base the underpinning ideology was anti oppressive principle which provides theoretical tools to understand intervene and respond to the complex experience of oppression. This means social work practitioners have a moral, ethical and legal responsibility to challenge inequalities and disadvantage (Payne 2005).

Fook (2002) claims that critical practice can be traced and associated with radical social work in the 1960s-70s deriving ideas from Marxist theory. Marx analysed the capital society he lived in Germany and argued that the structures within society derived from the economy and the changes in the industrial revolution influenced some people to be more powerful and others not. Individuals were restrained by the demands of capitalism. Marx highlighted issues of class and class struggle where there is a struggle between powerful and powerless resulting in different societal classes. Those in power will seek to retain it mostly by exploitation of the powerless.

Thompson (2006) affirms that society comprises of a diverse range of people in which social divisions emerge which in turn forms the societal structures which networks relationships, institutions and groupings. These groupings determine, control and regulate the distribution of power, privilege, status and opportunities resulting in social stratification and dimensions. From these groupings however it is important to mention that unfairness, inequality and oppression is witnessed in the group of people who are vulnerable and marginalised.

Radical social work upheld the following themes: structural analysis of personal problems, ongoing social critique mainly focusing on oppressive ideas/practice and goals of self emancipation and social change. Parallel to these traditions empowering and anti-oppressive practice to participation in research and community work Adams et al (2005). Several key principles were shared from radical critiques to present critical social work which are: challenging dominant forces and oppression in all forms, a critique of positivist ideas and the need to challenge dominant constructed ways of knowing by developing other ways of knowing. This would be achieved through recognising that knowledge may reflect reality but may also be socially constructed through language and ideology. In order to create more/new knowledge self reflection and interaction are essential tools using communication processes Allan et al (2009).

Moya et al (2009) believes that critical thinking was further enhanced by Marxism through academics from the Frankfurt School of Sociologists (Horkeimer (1979), Adorno and Horkeimer, (1979) and Marcuse (1964) from the 1920s/30s and Habermas (1984, 1987)’s writing in the late twentieth century. The sociologists held that social interpretation was based on assumptions of a fixed social order mainly derived from religion, politics and social beliefs. When this order is rejected and challenged, sociologists believed that this would enhance knowledge of the environment which makes individuals more effective.

Gerth and Mills (1948) and Durkeim (1972) cited in Harrington (2005) established that if we understand how social relationships work we would be able to achieve our objectives in society. This is how critical thinking in modernist way is about and it was termed ‘modernism’ but has expanded and embraced other theories concerned with transformation and social change. Gray and Webb (2008) argue that critical theory is shifting from the Frankfurt school but at the same time it has not defined its critical base. Allan et al (2003); Fook (2002); Healey (2000) acknowledge that there is tension in defining critical theory as it comprises different theories, some argue that it is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of theories and approaches including Marxist, radical, feminist, anti-racist, anti-oppressive, anti-discriminatory, post colonial, critical constructivist and structural perspectives. This suggests that there are many theories although different they all try to understand the relationship between an individual and society. Thus critical practice involves one’s judgement in a reflective and diverse manner Adams et al (2009).

Critical practice involves exploring different options in a situation or actions in judging the best way to address issues. The practitioner would review their ideas, perspectives and options of others before deciding a “best way forward.” This is underpinned by the fact of accepting change and continuity as practitioners encounter different situations and ideas. Payne et al (2005) further mentions that in order to fulfil the requirements of critical practice which include liberation and empowerment social workers need an open mind, reflective stance that encompasses diverse perspectives, experience and assumptions. This would result in acknowledging individual differences, equal opportunity and respect. Fook and Garner (2007) further identify three aspects of critical practice which are critical thinking, critical action and reflexivity as essential tools to apply when seeking social justice and change.

From these theories we can trace the ideas of critical perspective and acknowledge that the powerless can influence policy, societal views and self emancipation from the oppressors. An example of theoretical development implemented by service users was the theorising of disability from the medicalised interpretation to social model of disability. This shift was championed by disabled people’s movements to express how they felt and were treated for more than a century. This shift and theory influenced societal attitudes, influenced policies and to some extent changed societal attitudes in UK and abroad. Abberley (1998); Barnes, (1998). Morris, (1993) supports this by mentioning that the disability movement has overhauled societal perceptions and upheld disabled people’s rights to live independently, promote anti discriminatory practice, fairness and equal opportunities.

Systems theory is another major theoretical source underpinning social work. The theory emphasised that people’s existence is determined by the environment they live or grow in. It highlighted that people’s problems are a result of how they interact with their resource “systems” which are either formal or informal. The informal include friends, neighbours and colleagues. The formal include support groups/ social clubs and associations. The public/ societal include housing, hospitals, work and school which provide certain structure or particular function in society. The system theory encourages growth and provides a wider range of solutions to problems by identifying areas of improvement or needing improvement. However it is said not to be acknowledging power differences within society and with different roles Adams et al (2009). Coulshed and Orme, (1998) clarifies that the nature of diversity in society makes it difficult to be entirely dependent on one theory or approach. Different situations and different circumstances entail different approaches through reflective practices and perspectives.

Harris and White (2009) further explored events and changes within the welfare state from administering to managing the welfare state. They observed that the Conservative “1979 -1997” and Labour “1997-2010” were influenced by neo-liberalist ideas. This idea upheld the belief that market was superior to the state and as such professionals including social workers were meant to implement competitive government policy and approaches to meet global standards. These changes affected the vulnerable people in society as well because managers had been given the powers to speak on their behalf. These changes, debates and contradictions have put social work practice into a contested dilemma profession although this definition states that “Social work is a profession that promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being”. (International Federation of Social Workers, 2000 p1).

Parton (1998) points out that the present political environment is dominantly global, modernized and authoritarian. As such policies are informed and regulated by market principles which prescribes and narrows professional boundaries which affects the rights of service users. In order to achieve their objectives social workers need to challenge and resist the authoritarian elements by employing critical practice. Fook (2002) articulate that critical social work practice should be concerned with promoting a society without domination, exploitation and oppression. In order to achieve these practitioners need to reflect, reconstruct, deconstruct and unpack more processes for change through careful negotiation within the dominant framework.

Many critical social theorists have challenged the existence of a social order and have questioned social order as evidenced in the work of Habermas (1984, 1987) who distinguishes between the system and the life world which interact and sometimes conflict with each other. The system represents the structures like the government departments, transnational companies emerging from globalisation, ideas promoted by communicative reasoning, education and media. All these structures are relaying a world view through different reasoning. As such social work is not excluded as an agent of systematic managerialism in agencies Pease (2005).

Fook (2002) and Gardner (2007) proposed alternative forms of critical theory which are feminism and post modernism. They focus on the understanding that the world reflects personal experience and social historical context. They argue that personal experience constructs and is constructed by the world we live in. They advocate to listening to people’s experiences (narratives) seriously and from these we can hear how they view and experience the world in different ways.

Powell (2001) suggests that feminists maintain that the narration of experiences by individuals gives us a clue on how they construct the world and how they want to engage with their problems and situations. Thus postmodernists say there is an alternative way of viewing the world than what it seems to be. Post-modernity argue there is a different way of viewing the world and different ways to deal with societal problems hence critical social work seeks for different options and take the best way forward.

Adams et al (2009) suggests that in order to seek the best way forward social workers are encouraged to adopt the eclectic approach which entails selecting crucial aspects from different theories and blend them together as one approach. Alternatively they can use different theories for different cases. This has an advantage of addressing inadequacies in particular theories as they compensate one another. However there are also limitations as to master different theories and selecting crucial aspects may be difficult. It might as well be difficult to select the appropriate theory to use in the first place. To overcome these limitations Epstein (1992) suggested that continuous reflection, agreement, debate and teamwork would encourage flexibility in complex issues.

Milner and O’byrne (1998) propose that in trying to address social injustices and inequality social work uses a variety of skills and knowledge based on theory perspective and methodology. This empowers social workers to put in place intervention which is appropriate to individual circumstances. This intervention empowers social workers with skills to engage service users to bring positive outcomes.

Banks (2001) holds that values are diverse, may overlap, can conflict and socially constructed. Traditional social work and critical social work values overlap and are based on “Biestek 1961” and consist of the following: Individualism, non judgemental, self determination, purposeful expression and controlled emotional development. In post modernity terms these can be interpreted to promotion of social justice, emancipation, anti-oppressive, anti-discriminatory, empowerment, non judgemental and respect and dignity. Above all the language used may affect the way we interpret the world resulting in assumptions, overrepresentation or misrepresentation of issues and ideas, Adam et al (2009).

Critical social work as discussed explores the best way forward to individuals’ problems and seeks to listen and engage with the individual to tell their story and work in partnership to find the best way forward. The limitation is critical social work is surrounded by external forces which are beyond it control, for example resources in the current economic climate globally and at home. It is also criticised as its values and origins are Eurocentric and do not represent universal circumstances as what seems to work in UK might not necessarily work in Afro/ Asian communities. For example the issue of confidentiality is valued and essential in UK and Europe whereas in Afro Asian cultures they value kinship support in times of distress. However they would not want anyone else outside the kinship clique to know about their situation. This brings interpretation problems to confidentiality Morley (2003).

In order for all these theories to be implemented there should be contact with individuals in society who experience inequality and disadvantage. Furthermore it is also important to mention at this point that social work intervention and practice is broad and spreads into other disciplines. Group work, Counselling, Advocacy and Assessment are examples of different forms of practising social work. I will not focus on the broadness of disciplines but will focus on the aims of the essay which are to explore how the critical social work approach influences counselling. Counselling requires a lot of skills and approaches as it seeks to address and resolve individual dilemmas, decision making and resolving issues.

According to Dryden (2004:40) cited in Adams et al (2009) counselling is described as principled relationship characteristics by the application of one or more psychological theories and a recognised set of communication skills, modified by experience, intuition and other interpersonal factors, to clients’ intimate concerns, problems or aspirations. Its predominant ethos is one of facilitation rather than of advice-giving or coercion. It may be of very brief or long duration, take place in an organisational or private practice setting and may or may not overlap with practical, medical and other matters of personal welfare.

The Barclay report in the early 1980s mentioned that it was essential for social workers to engage in counselling as it helped to engage with individuals to help them manage their problems, worries and anxieties, Barclay Committee,(1982). This is no longer the situation today as noted by Brearley (1995) when he states that political, administrative, legislative changes and ideologies have affected the relationship between counselling and social work. Some social work practitioners are in dilemma as to whether they can do counselling or not and where to start with counselling and when to stop. Because social workers operate in a legislative, organisational, ideological, value and ethical context it is becoming increasingly difficult to engage in counselling without pushing boundaries, Furthermore the economic environment, budget cuts and lack of resources makes it difficult to manoeuvre and employ uncontested interventions McLeod (2009).

However despite the above constraints social workers at some point carry out counselling as not carrying it out would render their job inadequate and inefficient. McLeod (1998) identified a number of counselling theories which are Person centred, Existential, Cognitive Behavioural (CBT), Motivational, Humanistic, Psychodynamic, Karpman’s (1969) Drama triangle and Eclectic or Integrative approaches. Some of the theories have been criticised as inadequate and resource straining. One approach that is complimentary to social work is the eclectic/ integrative approach.

Integrative theory is adaptable to the needs presented by the client or specific circumstances which is flexible and adoptable to client needs. McLeod (2003) supports this statement when he maintains that eclectic approach enables the counsellor to choose the best option and techniques from a range of theories to meet the client needs. It can mean employing different elements from different theories to blend them into a new suitable model or theory. These compliments with one of the social work theory of eclecticism which seeks to integrate different theories to intervene (Adams, 2009).

It can be argued that the aims of social work and the aims of counselling are both focusing on individuals and their interaction with the society, problems they face and how they solve them. As Egan (2006) puts it and complimented by Coulshed and Orme (2006) social workers adopt skills that compliment counselling skills such as empathy or understanding, respect, self knowledge and acceptance and honest. Although there are criticisms on Egan’s work as being ignorant of psychodynamic ideas meaning it has limited application and effectiveness. A reflective practitioner would seek to promote social justice, anti -oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice based on knowledge to promote inclusive practice. Both professions are being challenged by increasing literature developing and need to engage in best, critical and anti discriminatory practice to reach all individuals and communities Morley (2003).

My privilege in practice working with clients is that I have acquired knowledge and on values of social work issues and intervention. I also have a black African background which has some conflicting values to social work. I will focus on the social work values to overcome any prejudices and biases which may jeopardise my work. I also have the law on my side which would give me power to intervene and practice. In my experience as a caseworker at Refugee Action (RA) I used counselling as a technique to working with clients. Clients from different background accessed the service to resolve their immigration matters. Mostly the approach we used was the integrative approach which meant that the outcomes met the needs of individual circumstances. I did not allow my own values and prejudices to influence my practice.

The advantage of having my own values and knowledge made it easy for me to overcome any prejudices and stereotypes towards my clients. As a person from an African background with different values from those of the British society, it was easy for me to understand how it is to be in the client’s shoes. I also observed that Muslim women preferred to work with female caseworkers and male Muslims preferred male caseworkers. They appeared not comfortable working with people from the opposite sex and tended to withhold information if that was the case. I therefore ensured Muslim clients were assisted by a person of preferred gender. Above all I applied the Narrative approach which solicits encouragement to clients to tell their stories. This enabled me to explore client’s situation at their own pace and actively listened to assess and establish the real problem in the situation.

Carniola (2005) observed that social workers are in the right direction of developing critical consciousness about the psychological impact of oppression on individuals. He further expressed that there is concern on the degree of awareness among social workers on the impact of privilege or dominant status on individual’s subjectivities and world views. Rossitter (2000) concurs that the position/ impact and ways in which professionals engage with clients is overlooked and underestimated as they possess a certain class in the form of gender, race, and sexual privilege.

Having explored critical social work practice and theories underpinning it, it is important to acknowledge that there is continuous transformation and contest within the academic field and socio-political arena. This is greatly impacting on vulnerable people and how they are treated and marginalised in issues affecting their lives. If the values of critical social work could be fulfilled and the theories underpinning it are integrated social work and counselling would be forces for change to promote social justice.

Self-assessment is always a challengeable task because people always attempt to conduct a self-assessment but they do not always succeed in this regard. The main reason for the failure of the self-assessment is the inadequate self-esteem or self-awareness. At the same time, it is necessary to conduct the self-assessment in order to define clearly the progress an individual has made in the course of his or her development and the identification of problems in the personal development along with goals of the further development. At any rate, while conducting my self-assessment, I focused on my current development both personal and professional, and, on the ground of this information, I attempted to define skills and areas which need consistent improvement and what I should work on.

Initially, I supposed to conduct my self-assessment for myself. In fact, it was just interesting for me to know what a sort of person I am, how I assess and view myself and what I actually want to improve in my personality. However, on a profound reflection, I arrived to the idea that I need to share my self-assessment and I extended my target audience from myself to my peers and people interested in psychology because it is always interesting to get acquainted with oneaˆ™s self-assessment to be able to avoid pitfalls of self-assessment made by others in the course of their self-assessment. Frankly speaking, I do not want to be didactic but still I just want to share my experience of self-assessment which may be useful to other people, especially my peers, who may have the same problems as I have.

While conducting my self-assessment, I focused on my current personal and professional development mainly and, on the ground of my current development, I attempted to define what I really need to improve in myself and my development to become a better person. On analyzing my current development, I arrived to the conclusion that I have already reached positive outcomes in my personal and professional development. For instance, I have always been successful in my learning and my academic successes always encouraged me to carry on my professional development. At the same time, the more I learned the better I felt because I felt and still feel that my knowledge, my skills and abilities are very useful in my personal life. They contribute to my personal development, extend my eyesight and make me spiritually rich because my knowledge and experience are my personal wealth.

At the same time, I would like to dwell upon skills and abilities I have already developed and which I consider to be very important in my life. For instance, my organizational skills are of the utmost importance for me but, as far as I remember, I always had problems with my organizational skills which stay a bit under-developed. At any rate, I cannot say that my regular life is well-organized. Naturally, I can do the routine actions I do day after day but sometimes I feel that I am running of time badly and I need more time to do everything I want and I have to do. I do not have a schedule of to dos for every day, although I attempt to plan my actions. For instance, when I have vacations I plan how I am going to spend my vacation and basically I fulfill my plans successfully. On the other hand, in my daily life, I face some problems with the organization of my working day because I can have an unexpected encounter with a friend of mine that may take a lot of time. As a result, I may fail to do something important I have planned at the beginning of the day.

Furthermore, my organizational skills often into clashes with my leadership ambitions because, as I fail to organize effectively my own work or learning, for instance, than I cannot always organize a work of a group or team. As a result, my leadership ambitions cannot be implemented because people I want to lead are not confident in my ability to lead them. Nevertheless, I was always concerned with being the first, being the leader.

In such a situation, I attempt to compensate my lack of organizational skills by my communication skills. I have a lot of friends and I do like the communication with interesting people. I have a few, if any, problems in the communication with any person. I can start communication easily and I make a lot of friends. In this regard, my high self-awareness and self-esteem may be factors which help me to communicate and lead people. frankly speaking, a feel being a bit too self-assured but this quality helps me a lot in my life, although sometimes it provokes conflicts with some people.

On analyzing my current development, I focused on my target development. Taking into consideration the drawbacks I have identified in the course of self-assessment, I would like to focus on the improvement of organizational and leadership skills. In fact, I have to learn to organize and plan my daily life carefully because I believe this will help me to realize my full potential and to become a true leader. The latter is very important for me because I do need to be a leader, who guides people and help them to reach their goals, while working in a team. In this regard, the development of social relations may be very helpful. At any rate, I have good communication skills and I can develop social relations effectively but I believe that I need to change the direction in which I develop my social relations. What I mean is that, at the moment, I develop my social relations for pleasure, to make friends, to spend a good time, and so on. Now, I believe it is a high time to change my life a little bit. In actuality, I need to feel being useful to my community. In this regard, I would like to do some volunteer job to develop my organizational and leadership skills. In addition, I will learn how to be helpful and useful to other people.

Thus, I believe that my self-assessment can be helpful to those people, who are interested in psychology and who attempt to conduct their own self-assessment. I attempted to be as sincere and critical as possible. I identified my drawbacks as well as positive traits of character. Naturally, I understand that I may be subjective but people, who read my self-assessment, can identify strong and weak points in my self-assessment and avoid those weak points in their own self-assessment.

The purpose of this essay is to Critically examine an area of Community Care provision in mental health services. ideological, political and legislative frameworks will be taken into account, it will also examine the complex relationships between service user movements, professional bodies and the statutory, voluntary and independent sector services in the delivery of community care it will also identify and justify evidence of good practice in the provision of community care

The system of community care was aimed to maintain the stability of the social order and to address the disparities and inconsistencies within the existing community care discourse. Mental health services became a part of the community care system early in the 17th century. With time, mental health in community care became an effective element of regulating the state of mental health across different population groups. Today, mental health community care is a two-tier system of community services, comprising health care and mental care provided to vulnerable populations in need for treating and monitoring various types of mental health conditions.

The history of community care in the UK dates back to the beginning of the 17th century, when the Poor Law was adopted to make every parish responsible for supporting those who could not look after themselves (Mind 2010). Yet, it was not before the beginning of the 19th century (or 1808, to be more exact) that the County Asylums Act permitted county justices to build asylums supported by the local authorities to” replace psychiatric annexes to voluntary general hospitals” (Mind 2010). In 1879, the UK established the Mental Aftercare Association which worked on a comparatively small scale and focused on personal and residential care of the limited amount of mental ex-patients (Yip 2007). The association was further supplemented with three more voluntary associations that worked on a national scale and provided community care to mental outpatients (Yip 2007). Those organisations included the Central Association for Mental Welfare, the Child Guidance Council, and the National Council for Mental Hygiene (Yip 2007). Later in 1939 the Feversham Committee proposed amalgamation of all four voluntary organizations into “a single system of mental health community care” (Yip 2007). In 1890, the first general hospital clinic for psychiatric patients

Was created at St. Thomas Hospital, while the World War I became the turning point in the improvement of health care facilities in the UK, giving rise to an unprecedented number of asylums and hospital facilities for mentally ill people (Yip 2007).

It should be noted, that the first stages of mental health community care development was marked with the growing public commitment toward institutionalized care: throughout the 18th and the 19th centuries, cure and containment of mental illnesses in the U.K. and in Europe was provided in accordance with the principles of institutionalized care (Wright et al. 2008). The mental health care went in line in the development and proliferation of other institutional solutions, including houses of correction, schools, and prisons (Wight et al. 2008). “The asylums’ rationale, first and foremost, lay in the belief that separation was in the interests of dangerous lunatics, giving them security and maximizing the prospects for cure” (Wright et al 2008). Yet, those who ever appeared within such asylums had only one chance out of three to come out; the majority of mental health patients, regardless of the diagnosis, were destined to stay behind the asylum walls for the rest of their lives (Yip 2007). Medical professionals considered asylums as an effective means to isolate potentially dangerous patients from the rest of the community: asylums and isolation often served an effective way of investigating the reasons and consequences of mental health disturbances (Wright et al 2008). Many doctors viewed asylums and isolation as the sources of effective moral treatment for mentally ill (Wright et al 2008). Only by the beginning of the 19th century did professionals in medicine and social care come to recognize insanity as a mental illness and not as a product of sinful human nature; yet, years would pass before asylum residents would be given a slight hope to release themselves from the burden of isolation and torture (Wright et al. 2008).

With the development of psychoanalysis in the 19th century, mental health became one of the issues of the national concern – supported by the active development of psychopharmacology in the 20th century mental illness was finally explained in somatic terms (Wright et al. 2008). Psychopharmacology promised a relatively safe method of treating and alleviating mental health suffering, while the identity of psychiatry within the medical profession was finally restored (Wright et al 2008). Nevertheless, for many years and centuries, mental health community care remained a by-product of industrialized society development, which, under the pressure of the growing urban populations, sought effective means to maintain the stability of the social order. Because in conditions of the newly emerging economies lunatics and individuals with mental health disturbances were less able to conform to the labor market discipline and more apt to create disorder and disturbance in society, asylums were an effective response to the growing urban mass and the basic for maintain peace and stability in the new industrialized community (Goodwin 2007). The need for maintaining social order was an essential component of the community care ideology, with institutionalization and local provision support as the two basic elements of mental health care provision. Today, the provision of mental health community care services is associated with several issues and inconsistencies; many of the community care complexities that emerged early in the 19th century have not been resolved until today. Nevertheless, it would fair to say that under the influence of the social and scientific development, the provision of mental health community services has undergone a profound shift and currently represents a complex combination of health care and social care aimed to treat and support individuals with diagnosed mental health disturbances.

In present day community care environments, mental health care provision exemplifies a complex combination of health care and social care. The former is the responsibility of the NHS, while the latter is arranged by local authority social services (Mind 2010). It should be noted, that the division of duties between medical establishments, local authorities, and social care professionals has always been one of the basic complexities in the development of mental health care in the U.K. (Wright et al. 2008). In 1954, the House of Commons was the first to emphasis inadequate resorting of mental health community services and to vote for the development of a community-based rather than a closed system of mental health institutions (Wright et al. 2008). Community services proposed by the House of Commons had to be available to everyone who could potentially benefit from them (Wright et al. 2008). As a result, deinstitutionalization became and remains one of the central policy debates within the mental health service provision discourse. “Central to the argument for deinstitutionalization and the development of community-based services is the contention that the prognosis of patients is likely to improve as a result of discharge from mental hospitals, and that people with mental health problems already in community will benefit from remaining there rather than being institutionalized” (Goodwin 2007). Social care providers in England claim that deinstitutionalization represents a new style of service provision and approach to mental illness which is better and more acceptable than traditional remote mental hospitals (Goodwin 2007). Since the beginning of the 1970s, mental health community care was associated with the treatment of mentally ill patients outside the asylums but, unfortunately, deinstitutionalization did not always lead to the anticipated results and is still one of the major policy debates.

The ideology of deinstitutionalization in mental health community care failed and did not improve the provision of mental health services for several reasons. First, deinstitutionalization does not provide mental health patients with an opportunity to reintegrate with their community: being discharged from asylums, many mentally ill patients were transferred to general medical establishments and other facilities, including residential homes – as a result, instead of community living, deinstitutionalization for these patients turned out to be a complex form of deinstitutionalization, while adequate funding of community services was constantly lacking (Wright et al. 2008). For this reason, the practical side of the deinstitutionalization policy proved to be less advantageous for the prevailing majority of asylums residents than it was claimed to be (Goodwin 2007).

Second, the ideology of deinstitutionalization does not improve health outcomes for patients with mental problems. The current state of research suggests that the process of transferring mental health patients from one hospital to another results in negative health consequences and adverse mental health reactions, including significant deterioration of behaviors and greater problems with social activity (Goodwin 2007). The more complex are the issues with transferring mentally ill patients from and into prisons – according to Fawcett and Karban (2007) the process, later called transinstitutionalisation, results in prison overcrowding and the loss of effective psychiatric care for those who are imprisoned. Today, deinstitutionalization as the ideological underpinning of mental health delivery does not work for patients but works against them. It does not improve the state of care provision and reflects in additional costs and adverse health outcomes. Nevertheless, the prevention of unwanted institutionalization is acknowledged as one of the basic principles of care provision (Gladman et al. 2007) and must become one of the basic elements of policy development and provision in community mental health.

The third problem is the lack of outpatient monitoring: the ideology of deinstitutionalization in mental health delivery will not be effective and productive, unless policymakers and social workers have a possibility to monitor the destination of the discharged patients and their live in communities. Throughout the period between 1954 and 1994, the number of mental health hospital beds in the U.K. was reduced from 152000 to 43000 which, according to Wright et al. (2008) did not result in a reduction in the number of people treated. Not with standing that since 1997 the Government is the one solely responsible for the development and implementation of programmes of supervision and control regarding mentally ill patients, the quality of their discharge and monitoring leaves much room for improvement (Lehman 2007). The discharge process itself and the destination of the discharged patients represent the two most problematic areas of community care provision: the discharge process is often poorly planned, while a very little effort is put into monitoring their quality of life beyond asylums (Goodwin 2007). Discharged patients are believed to live and operate in the community, with their families and friends, but the real outcomes of the discharge into community is highly variable (Ritchie & Spencer 2007). Of all patients discharged from mental hospitals, over 45 percent find themselves in residential homes, 7 percent are in locked facilities, and only 22 percent live independently or with their families (Goodwin 2007). The remainder are either homeless or untreated (Morse et al 2007).

Deinstitutionalization in its current form and in the way the government implements it does not make outpatients automatically eligible for social care. In present day community care environments, the four basic measures predetermine the quality of outpatients with mental illnesses lives: sufficient material support, emotional support, sufficient care, and the presence of a well-performing social network within which they must be accepted (Goodwin 2007). These are the basic prerequisites for the successful outpatient reintegration with their

Community. The only problem to be resolved is the need to develop a clear set of criteria, which will define and determine each patient’s right for social care services. Today, according to the basic provisions of the National Service Framework for Mental Health, all mentally ill individuals should have 24-hour access to local social and medical services to meet their needs (Mind 2009). These patients and individuals have the right for their needs to be assessed – based on the results of the needs assessment social care providers will decide whether an individual is eligible for this particular type of social services (Mind 2009).

Finally, deinstitutionalization of care does not provide any opportunity to properly and objectively assess the needs of patients. When developed, the deinstitutionalization ideology in mental health community care implied that all mental health patients would have similar community needs, but the idealistic interpretation of deinstitutionalization is far from reality. Today, needs assessment was and in one of the most problematic aspects of the social care provision for mentally ill. Despite the fact that needs assessment represents and reflects the major policy shift toward better quality of social care provision, social services do not always provide or have an opportunity to fully utilize their service potential and to meet the needs of the mentally ill individuals. According to Mind (2009), needs assessment compromise’s community care assessment, care programme approach assessment, mental health assessment, and carer’s assessment. Yet, there is still the lack of consensus on what constitutes need: social care providers tend to define need as “the requirement of individuals to enable them to achieve acceptable quality of life” and as “a problem which can benefit from an existing intervention” (Thornicroft 2007). It is not clear whether acceptable quality of life is the notion comprehensible to guarantee that all community needs of mentally ill patients are met (Barry & Crosby 2007). More importantly, it is not clear who, when, and in what conditions should engage in the process of needs assessment: do social care providers possess enough education, training, and knowledge to conduct regular assessments? These are the issues which must be resolved to enhance the quality and efficiency of community care in the context of mental health services.

Mental health and deinstitutionalization: still effective

Despite the problems and failures of deinstitutionalization, community care for mentally ill individuals is effective and reliable, given that it leads to reduced social withdrawal, better social functioning, and increased participation in various pro-social activities (McGuire et al 2007). That, however, does not mean that mentally ill outpatients have better opportunities to find a job; rather, they either participate in specially designed workshops or return to the function of a house wife (Prot-Klinger & Pawlowska 2009). Yet, some population groups require additional attention on the side of care providers. For example, in older populations, more than 55 percent of people with diagnosed schizophrenia were never offered appropriate psychological therapies and do not even have any out-of-hours contact number (Parish 2009). As a result, there must be a profound shift toward providing community care based on the need rather than based on the patient age (Parish 2009). People with learning disabilities represent the opposite end of the current problem continuum, and social care providers often either omit or neglect the needs of these patients (Thronicroft 2007). Several essential steps should be made to develop the quality of community care provision for the mentally ill.

Conclusion

First, community care providers must develop a single set of measures as a part of their needs assessment strategy – to make sure that all community care providers operate as one, and use the same criteria of needs assessment in different socioeconomic groups. Second, special attention must be paid to the vulnerable populations that are often overlooked by the community care system, including older patients with mental health problems. Third, the principles of deinstitutionalisation require detailed consideration:

more often than not, patients who are discharged from closed mental health facilities are transferred to other mental health hospitals or smaller mental health departments and wards, while the government’s striving to reduce the number of mental health beds and specialists do not leave these patients any single chance to meet their health and social needs. The groups of patients, who will benefit most from the closure of the mental health institutions, have in many cases fared worst (Goodwin 2007). Finally and, probably, the most important, is that patients who are discharged from mental health institutions should be closely monitored and constantly supported. One of the main goals of the community care is to help out patients successfully reintegrate with their community. The destination of the discharged patients must become one of the social care priorities, and community care providers must engage outpatients in their social network, to ensure that all social and health needs of these individuals are met.

In this paper, I will examine an interesting case study that I found important to discuss. On one hand, I will scrutinize the details of this case study and the vital culture information of the participants. On the second hand, I will analyze the incident from the perspectives of the ethnicity, White American culture, and language differences.

Description of the Critical Incident

Sequence of events

This event took place in a primary school in Indiana State a year ago. H was introduced to a school psychologist by his teacher. He was the worst-behaved white kid in school. He was aggressive, fights with other peers, and argues with his teacher all the time. The teacher wanted to improve H’s behaviors and reported it to his mother. Therefore, the teacher and the school psychologist agreed to work with H, since he was the most challenging child in the classroom. H was in the 4th grade and had maintained high grades. He continued o have good grades throughout the school year. He sometimes had difficulties in following directions and completing in-class assignments in writing activity, yet his academic standing is in the average; however, it is higher in the math area.

In order to know more about H, an interview was conducted by a school psychologist with his teacher; the reported that H is from a divorced family and living with his mother who is a special education teacher in high school.

During the first session, H was observed to be a Caucasian male of average height and weight with blonde hair, blue eyes, and was dressed casually in a black sweat suit and sneakers. H was sitting silently at his desk and working on his own.

The following session, H was observed to be more aggressive and started to make noises, yelling, arguing with teacher and talking back in the classroom. I interviewed H about his behavior that the teacher and principal told me about his behavior that was erratic; I started the first session with him by playing a game to help him identify his feeling and behavior.

Throughout the sessions, the student was talking to the school psychologist, and he was telling her that he was having some problems in the new place. He was having a hard time socialing and making friends. The student was also talking about the absence of his father, and how bad he was feeling to be raised by a single mother. He also addressed the bad relationship he had with his peers and teacher and he was telling through the sessions that no one could understand him. During this session, there were some misunderstandings between the client and the therapist in terms of language and some cultural things, such as talking about cartoons and movies characters, favorite Cereal, and kinds of dogs.

As a professional, I examined how I would help Hunter to change his behavior issues in the classroom. Therefore, a meeting was conducted with H’s mother in order to know more about his behavior at home and to get her involved. Unfortunately, the conference ended negatively. Added to this, the frustration of Hunter’s mother over my cultural differences led the consultation process to a negative outcome on H’s concerns.

During the meeting, H’s mother argued that her son will be will be attracting attention since they live in a small rural community and everybody knows each other. This was the major problem the mother was thinking about and was frustrated because she would have to face her neighbors’ staring and comments. The mom was also thinking of her kid in the future and how people will treat and look at him as an aggressive and misbehaved kid in the town. She stated as well that she is a single mom that raised her child by herself and she had faced enough from these people in the town. She mentioned that her kid would have some problems working with an international school psychologist who speaks better in another language than English and had a different cultural background. The student was willing to keep working with him, but his mom was refusing to complete our sessions; he seemed to change gradually and wanted to be different. He was mad, because his mother stopped everything and he told the school psychologist that his mother had not let him come to her. He stated that he did not have friends before and the school psychologist was his friend around that time.

Culture of the client The client is H’s mother, 38-year-old, and Caucasian female. She has one child who is 10 years old and step-elder son (age 17) and one younger step daughter (age 5) who does not currently live with her in the same house. The client is divorced, living with her son since she got divorced six years ago. She is working as a special education teacher in high school and mentioned she is from the superior middle class background.

Culture of therapist The therapist in this case was me. I am a 26 year old, Muslim international female student. I am from a middle-class background, and grew up in a home with my father, step-mother, and my sisters and half brothers. My family has been an important part in my life. I had a lot of social and emotional support. My mother had a heart attack and died when I was six. I hardly remember her face and how she was acting. Education was a stressful part of my life; living alone far away, and within a different culture was not an easy thing to deal with.

Handling of situation The team contained the teacher, the school psychologist, and the principle tried to intervene and help Hunter to stop his negative behaviors and start acting like a normal kid. The team conducted a meeting to target the behavior and plan an intervention. They called H’s mother to get her involved. As the team was working through this case, the mom came to school and asked the principle to discontinue working with her child. She said they are living in a small town and it is a sin in her area to be in trouble in school, especially in terms of behavior issues, and she did not want any kind of services from an international school psychologist. There was no way to convince the mother to get her involved and persuade convinced her to finish the case. This was one of my cultural incompetencies and biases that I experienced. I felt so mad and under micro-aggression, because I am not an American school psychologist. They do not want me to work with this kid; especially then the teacher refused to continue consulting with me about the student and the principle asked me to stay away from him. I felt like an outsider and helpless.

The team implemented an intervention to work with H in classroom, but everything was canceled. The problem of this case was unfortunately, was held at the end of the school year. So, I had to stop meeting the child and do what the mom was asking for. I felt so unhelpful and I realized the problems that can occur within school settings and how incompetent people would be in order to intervene. I tried to convince the teacher and the principle to re-set a meeting with the mother to discuss with her H’s academic concerns first, instead of his behavior issues. Explain to her how important it is to work with him before they become major issues in the future, get the mom more involved, and create a connection between home and school. Unfortunately, it was inappropriate to force people to attend sessions or receive help.

It was difficult to present a final consultation report for my project. As a final point, the teacher and school psychologist indicated using time-out and ignoring as methods of discipline. Lots of feedback also was suggested to reduce H’s frustration, but there was no way to handle the mother’s case expectation through her son. Therefore, I found it very important to address this case study to be more aware if it happened again in the future another time.

The Analysis

Cross-cultural issues and value differences

The following are the cross-cultural issues and value differences that may have existed between therapist and client: Gender, age, socioeconomic status, education, ethnicity, religion, and language differences.

Age: The client is 38 years old. The school psychologist is 26 years old.

Socioeconomic status: the client is from superior middle class background and the therapist is from middle class background.

Education: the client is a special education teacher at a high school. The therapist is a student in an EdS program.

Religion: the client is a Christian, while the therapist is a Muslim.

Ethnicity: the client is White European American and the therapist is an international Arab student.

Language: The client speaks English as the first language. The therapist speaks Arabic as the first language.

Out of these issues, I will specifically address ethnicity and language differences in the analysis part of this paper.

Ethnicity

Sue and Sue (2007, chap.1), Hence and Boyd-Franklin (2005), and Fuller (1995) discuss the significance of being aware of our own culture, and each culture has limitations. As an international school psychologist, I was very aware of the ethnic differences during our sessions which made me feel like an outsider. The client in this case was a female white American. She seemed to be categorized deeply within her ethnicity, and she appeared to enjoy being white. In working with her, I believe that it seemed to be heavily associated with how she distinguished and reacted to racial stimuli. Therefore, the race-related reality of whites symbolizes major dissimilarities in how she viewed the world (Sue & Sue 2007). The client was not at ease in the beginning, and she noticed my accent and realized that I am not an American professional; she kept asking the “what are you?” and the “where are you from?” questions, which I believed now how rude and insensitive this questions were. I felt that she was judging me, and it was unclear what she was trying to mention with those questions. I believe that she is one of the people who think that it was fine to scrutinize and query people with dissimilar accents. This unsure idea is surely not to make the individual feel unwanted or insulted when asking about their ethnicity (Sue and Sue, chap.18),

According to my own interpretations and what I congregated from the readings through this class, my client showed her own privilege (Sue & Sue, chap. 11). It was clear for my client to notice that I am from another country, especially after our following sessions and appeared to see school psychologist students in general as incompetent people who wanted only to practice their skills.

While I was reading the Parker and Schwartz (2002) article, I assumed “how did ‘White’ come to be the majority and the oppressor?” certainly, I agree that, in the United States, white is the foremost community that has become more pale into the statistical unit beside the other ethnicities that are classified as “minority” categories.

Through my little experience on the practicum at this school, I also noticed some strange things happening at this school; I did not notice that it was discrimination until now. In this school, all the school staff and students were whites and there was an ignorance of the culture strengths and the school staff blames the students and their parents for their problem; this reminded me of cultural blindness agencies. I did not notice all the time working in this school any other different ethnicities besides white Americans. In this stage, the school works with students as they are all the same, ignoring their unique needs and cultural differences (Sue & Sue 2007)

Goal: the goal of this difference would be to make an equal relationship, free from any racism. Racism found to be evident in all aspects of white community in our daily lives (such as in television, radio, and educational materials, etc.) (Sue & Sue 2007) My client is a white American and I should be aware of her own racial background and the persistence of racism in the United States just by being white (Parker & Schwartz). As was discussed in McGoldrick outlines (2005) “Ethnocultural factors are often the hidden dimension in family therapy with white ethnics, and exploring them may be a key component of successful treatment.” Create a therapeutic rapport will be the main goal of this scenario.

Course of action: After working with this client, I would collaborate with her with respect to determine her feelings in working with a therapist who is from a different culture as hers. I would also work on her confidentiality since there is a clear feeling of mistrust which is a reaction to being discriminated against and abhor for the dominant communities in an approximately global anti-White demonstration and feeling (Sue & Sue, p.200). As a professional, I should know the presence of distrust and work to get my client’s trust. My client is white American; I should be aware that white privilege is invisible (McIntosh, 1988) to her I was unwelcome. It will very effective to reduce the anxiety and the upset feelings of the client and the school psychologist as well in this scenario.

Rationale: My rationale for choosing this goal and course of action was to address the dissimilarities that exist between the school psychologist and the client in order to understand and reduce the relationship of dominant and minority. Collaborating with my client in the future will focus on her salient issues in order to get her more involved and trust the school psychologist. I would also teach my client some therapeutic techniques in order to help her comprehend and increase her feelings of trust and comfort.

Language

Strong emotions such as anger, sadness, and defensiveness were displayed when talking about experiences of race, culture, and other socio demographic variables (McIntosh, chap.1). These feelings may improve or negate a full meaning to comprehend the worldviews of culturally varied clients. As professional, working with a multicultural population, I need to know that I am different and how to deal with it in an appropriate way. In this case study, I worked with a client who is from a diverse culture and that leads to have some hard times to understand each other in the beginning, especially in terms of the language, eye contact, and sometimes body language. The client in this case is an American English speaker using high Standard English and emphasizing verbal communication (Sue & Sue, chap. 6). The client was talking normally, but with attention that she was not satisfied. She sometimes talked very fast.

As a school psychologist, English is my third language and as most of non English first language speaker, I have an accent. Sometimes my accent may sound familiar, but usually most people mentioned that it is understood and has a French flavor, which most of people likes. From time to time, I feel uncomfortable if my client misunderstood me. I think that was because of my accent and she did not used to talk with foreigners she is having troubles to understand me; as Sue and Sue stated (2007, Chap. 21) “Communication due to language difficulties” as I stated above, my client may sometimes talk fast and use some slang statements that I could not comprehend. We were having a problem to connect and link up together, but the main problem was to be unable to work with her child that made me feel very embarrassed and sometimes unfruitful. In this case, I feel very depressed and sometimes I could not handle situations. I know that I have a productive background, but language issues make me very upset. It made me feel utterly unwelcomed in my client’s community and this country, especially with these kinds of clients who do not like me to work with their children, just because they do not trust international people. This idea of the inferiority of me in addition to the belief that my client has the power to impose her standards upon my culture was also presented (Sue & Sue, chap. 4). These also made feel both astound and shocked, especially when I experienced such things directly in this case.

Communication is an appealing part of communicative interaction; it is an instrument that helps the therapists to comprehend their clients and provides him or her needed services. (Sue & Sue, chap.6) In our field, we need to be able to exchange communication in appropriate way for both verbal and nonverbal messages. Coding and decoding messages from others is the key to understand both the language and the message that is transmitted through the use of the language.

Goal: as a goal to resolve this scenario is to be familiar with American culture and speak English perfectly, and also be familiar with their slangs and have self confidence that I am trying to do well. American speakers if they attempt to speak Arabic for an example they will have an accent as well. Through working with this client, I will discuss the language especially the accent barrier openly with her; I bet that this may be beneficial.

Course of action: I think it is very vital to talk with the clients in the initial interview before starting any assessment. Informed her that I am an international school psychologist and they may not fully understand my accent. I will let her know that I am open to answer her questions and repeat if it needed. Discussing the foreign language accents and refer that is normal to have an accent within another language learned as well. I again felt the stinging confidence to improve English with the aim of being a more effective and diverse professional.

Rational: My rationale for choosing this goal and course of action was to talk about the accent issues that may help me relax and work comfortably. Educating the client that her kid’s case is going to be confidential and no one will know about it in the town. It may lead to ignore other issues like language, I will also ask my client to ask for clarifications if the she did not understand me and the problem will be resolved.

Conclusion

After analyzing this case study, I recognized how significant it is to be sensitive of our cultural difference in order to be competent and sensitive to other cultures. This experience helped me to comprehend how dissimilar we are as people and how this affect the interpersonal communications. This will help me be to be aware and work on myself to be more an effective and successful professional in the future.

The moment of learning that has grabbed my attention in this supervision session is that I need to research and identify my practice framework when working bi-culturally with tangata whenua and cross-culturally.

During my sixth supervision session my supervisor assessed me using the second direct practice observation relating to my second learning outcome”to demonstrate competency when working with young people cross-culturally”. This assessment led to discussions around my practice cross-culturally as I have been closely working with young people and their families who are of a different culture from my own. Also in my practice at the alterative education centre where I am placed two days a week I am the only pakeha person there. My supervisor stated in the assessment that “Working in the school setting as the only female and pakeha person, has enabled her to identify the differences in culture but also helped her to work cross-culturally with other staff and clients. Family visitation has also helped her to identify areas that need more training in”.

When my supervisor asked me to identify how I work bi-culturally with tangata whenua and cross-culturally with clients I was unable to articulate easily how I practice in this setting. My response was that in the alternative education setting because I am the only pakeha person there, I work biculturally and cross-culturally:

By respecting the Maori culture of the centre

Removing my shoes when I enter

I have had to learn the words in order to participate in the morning waiata and karakia

I eat my lunch with the young men and the other tutors each day as sharing food together is part of the Maori culture

Following on from this I have stated that during home visits with clients and their families I respect the different cultures; by removing my shoes and accepting food and beverages from cultures where the sharing of food is important.

These responses were very vague and did not give a clear answer as to how I practice bi-culturally and cross-culturally. I am aware that I have been trained at university to practice from a bi-cultural and multi-cultural perspective but I have found it hard to articulate how I do this. As my supervisor has noted I have identified through this supervision session that I need to critically reflect on my practice cross-culturally and identify the areas that I need more training in order to become a competent bi-cultural and cross-cultural practitioner. For the benefit of cross-cultural practice and working with tangata whenua I as a social worker need to recognise that:

“As a professional helper, one can feel uneasy when challenged by striking difference is the first step towards self-reflection. This attitude has a better chance of leading to genuine accommodation of the client than pretending to be politically correct. The creation of collegial support structures and the cultivation of a climate of trust and open sharing within the service setting might encourage this attitude, to be affective in cross-cultural practice” (Tsang &George, 1998, p.87).

Looking backward

The assumptions and biases that are present in this moment of learning is my own cultural awareness;

In Tatum (2000) she discuses the concept of identity and what it means for the individual and how the roles of the dominant over the subordinate can influence a persons view of themselves:

This “looking glass self” is not a flat one-dimensional reflection, but multidimensional. How one’s identity is experienced will be mediated by dimensions of one self: male or female; young or old, wealthy or poor, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or heterosexual; able-bodied or with disabilities: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, or atheistaˆ¦ (Tatum, 2000).

The role and the devaluation associated with it will differ in relation to the socio-cultural context that the subordinate person/s and the dominant groups are part of (Wolfensberger, 1972, as cited in (Wills, 2008b).

Discourses are systemic ways of talking, discussing something of significance. They are the consequence of a combination of social, political even economic factors and often have ‘voices of authority’. Discourses are often informed by beliefs, ideas and understandings that are implicit; taken for grantedaˆ¦even ideologicalaˆ¦Some forms of discourse are legitimated and validated – but still one cannot be confident, and assume that such discourses have become established as a result of well-rationalised, carefully researched, developed and rigorous argument/debate (Wills, 2008a).

Looking inward
Looking outward
Looking forward

I identify to the families that although I am from a different culture to them I have been university trained to work cross-culturally and I am happy to enter into discussions around what this means for our social work relation

Question construction 300
Literature300

In defining competence one must also consider the meaning of culture. “Essentially, culture is understood to relate to some shared elements which connect people in a common way of experiencing and seeing the world. These perceptions of the world guide day-to-day living, influence how decisions are made and by whom, and determine what is perceived to be appropriate and inappropriate behaviour within any given context” (Connolly, Crichton-Hill &Ward, 2005 p.17, as cited in SWRB, 2007, p.5)

To work with Maori clients the social worker must competently understand what Te Ao Maori means, the same goes with working with other cultural and ethnic groups. Using Tsang and George’s conceptual framework of attitude knowledge and skills the SWRB created its competence standards of practice. To understand what competent practice for Maori and other cultural and ethnic groups means for social workers in New Zealand I will be critically discussing in this essay; what the ANZASW’s standards of practice are that inform competence and what it means for social work practice in New Zealand, I will identify and describe the constituent elements of Te Ao Maori – the Maori world view, critically examine Tsang and Georges conceptual framework and apply their framework to an aspect of Te Ao Maori in a practice setting.

Members of the ANZASW are accountable to the association and expected to abide by their policies and procedures, competent social work practice being one of them, the following ten standards for social work practice in Aotearoa New Zealand were set and ratified by the National Executive of NZASW (now ANZASW) in June 1990:

The social worker establishes an appropriate and purposeful working relationship with clients taking into account individual differences and the cultural and social context of the client’s situation.

The social worker acts to secure the client’s participation in the whole process of the working relationship with them.

The social worker’s practice assists clients to gain control over her/his own circumstances.

The social worker has knowledge about social work methods, social policy, social services, resources and opportunities.

In working with clients, the social worker is aware of and uses her/his own personal attributes appropriately.

The social worker only works where systems of accountability are in place in respect of his/her agency, clients and the social work profession.

The social worker constantly works to make the organisation and systems, which are part of the social work effort, responsive to the needs of those who use them.

The social worker acts to ensure the client’s access to the Code of Ethics and objects of the New Zealand Association of Social Workers.

The social worker uses membership of the New Zealand Association of Social Workers to influence and reinforce competent social practice.

The social worker uses membership of the New Zealand Association of Social Workers to influence and reinforce competent practice (NZASW, 1993).

To illustrate how these standards for practice work in professional social work practice I will select one standard and show how two aspects of the standard apply. For standard four: the social worker has knowledge about social work methods, social policy and social services, this standard can be shown in practice with how Child, Youth and Family services work within a bicultural framework and the Treaty of Waitangi:

Child, Youth and Family acknowledges its duties and obligations to the tangata whenua as a Crown partner to New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi. We are committed to ensuring that services we deliver and purchase are fully responsive to the needs and aspirations of Maori, and that our actions are consistent with the Principles for Crown Action on the Treaty of Waitangi. Our commitment is reflected in a key result area – improved outcomes for Maori, the alliances and partnerships we have built and continue to foster with iwi and Maori social services groups and communities, our human resource policies, and in our work programme (especially the development and implementation of a strategy for improving outcomes for Maori children, young people and their families) (CYF, 2008).

In relation to the social policy part of this standard the CYF’s social workers are aware of the legislations of Aotearoa New Zealand and how other aspects of the law:

Child, Youth and Family’s statutory role is defined by the following legislation:

The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989

The Adoption Act 1955

The Adult Adoption Information Act 1985

The Adoption (Inter-country) Act 1997(CYF, 2008).

Child, Youth and Family services are an excellent example of how an agency has set guidelines and policies around the standards set out by the SWRB and ANZASW to implement competent practice by their social workers.

In the next part of this essay I will identify and describe the constituent elements of Te Ao Maori – the Maori world view. To understand the Maori world view we must examine what are the Maori behaviour and conduct in social relationships or korero tawhito are; then what the Maori social structures of whanau, hapu, iwi mean and what the three classes of Maori society are, and what mana and tapu mean for Maori people who are the tangata whenua of Aotearoa. Korero tawhito are they ways in which Maori behave and conduct themselves in social relationships:

Korero tawhito reflected the thought concepts, philosophies, ideals, norms and underlying values of Maori societyaˆ¦ The values represent ideals, which were not necessarily achievable but something to aspire to (Ministry of Justice, 2001, p.1).

These underlying values of Maori society are the ways in which Maori people socially interact with each other. The next step in understanding what the Maori world view is, is to understand Maori social structures:

The Maori social structure was based on decent, seniority and the kinship groupings. Maori recognised four kin groups:

Whanau – the basic unit of Maori society into which an individual was born and socialised.

Hapu – the basic political init within Maori society, concerned with ordinary social and economic affairs and making basic day-to-day decisions.

Iwi – the largest independent, politico-economic unit in Maori society. An iwi would be identified by its territorial boundaries, which were of great social, cultural and economic importance (Ministry of Justice, 2001, p.2).

The kin group a person belongs to affects their world view because it influences their place within society. The fundamental concepts of mana and tapu are those which govern the framework of Maori society:

Mana was inherited at birth, and the more senior the descent of a person, the greater the mana. Tapu invariably accompanied mana. The more prestigious the event, person or object, the more it was surrounded by the protection of tapu. The complex notions of mana and tapu reflect the ideals and values of social control and responsibility. The analysis of mana endeavours to identify the role of mana in relation to responsibility, leadership and birthright. The examination of tapu illustrated how tapu operated and affected the everyday lives of Maori (Ministry of Justice, 2001, p.6).

In examining the elements of Te Ao Maori I have examine the different concepts of Maori behaviour and conduct korero tawhito, the Maori social structures of kin and class and what mana and tapu mean.

Theory 300
CRITERION FOR CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE THEORY/MODEL OF SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

Identifies and is based upon beliefs and values of Pacific Islands culture.

Explains problems and concerns in a manner that is relevant to Pacific Islands understanding.

Uses Pacific Islands helping traditions and practices.

Incorporates a Pacific Islands understanding to change the process.

Can differentiate aspects of the behaviour which are associated with Pacific Islands cultural patterns from those resultant

in dominant palagi cultural interpretations.

Avoids cultural pathological stereotyping.

Encompass macro and micro levels of explanations and interventions.

Incorporates the experiences of the community and individuals in New Zealand Society.

Can guide the selection of appropriate knowledge and practice skills from other cultures.

(Adapted from Meemeduma, P. (1994). Cross cultural social work: New models for new practice, Advances in social work welfare education, Montash University.)

Ethics 300
Skills 300

The Social Work Registration Board of Aotearoa New Zealand released in 2007 a policy statement in regard to the competence of registered social workers to practise social work with Maori and different ethnic and cultural groups in New Zealand. The release of this document was to set the levels of competency that are needed for social workers to work effectively in a positive way to empower those who are disadvantaged by society. As Mason Durie comments, cultural competence about the acquiring of skills to achieve a better understanding of members of other cultures (SWRB, 2007, p.5). To be competent when working with other cultures one must understand the differences and similarities between other cultures and know what is culturally appropriate and inappropriate; the social worker needs to respect the client’s culture and use recourses available to them to effectively work with the client to achieve the best possible outcome

Bicultural code of Ethics

In the next part of this essay I will critically examine Tsang and George’s (1998) – Integrated Conceptual Framework for Cross-cultural Practice of attitude, knowledge and skills. I will do this by describing the three elements and examining these elements by assessing their significance and importance in social work practice with mana whenua. To understand what the significance and importance of Tsang and George’s conceptual framework in relation to mana whenua we must first examine what mana whenua are:

Mana whenua(noun):territorial rights, power from the land – power associated with possession and occupation of tribal land. The tribe’s history and legends are based in the lands they have occupied over generations and the land provides the sustenance for the people and to provide hospitality for guests (Maori Dictionary, 2008).

Now we know what mana whenua means the next apart is to describe the three elements of the framework:

Attitude Commitment to justice and equity

Valuing difference

Other-directed: Openness to cultural difference

Self directed: Critical self-reflection

Knowledge Specific cultural content

Systemic context of culture

Acculturation and internalized culture

Dynamics of cross-cultural communication and understanding

Skills Management of own emotional response

Professional intervention within institutional contexts

Communication, engagement, and relationship skills

Specific change strategies (Tsang and George, 1998, p.84).

The concept of attitude relates to the social worker’s own behaviour and their use of self as a tool when working with clients, the concept of knowledge relates to the knowledge theories behind cross-cultural practice and knowledge learnt from a practitioners own experiences. The concept of skills relates to the practical aspect of working with clients. To use the element of attitude when working with mana whenua, one needs to be aware of their own limitations, lack of knowledge and understanding of other cultures:

This awareness has both self-directed and other-directed implications. The other-directed expression of this awareness is an openness to cultural difference and a readiness to learn form a client. Such openness is based on acknowledgement and positive regard for the cultural differences that exist between the client and the practitioner, respect for client cultures, and readiness to accommodate alternative world views or ways of life. The self-directed expression of this awareness is a readiness to engage in self-reflection, including the examination of possible cultural biases, assumptions, values, and one’s emotional experience and comfort level when challenged with difference (Tsang and George, 1998, p.84).

For a social worker to be aware of their own limitations and lack of knowledge is the first step in establishing a working relationship with mana whenua, their own ability to acknowledge the differences and similarities between their own culture and their client’s culture is a huge component of their attitude when working with their clients. Supervision is needed in this context for the social worker to be able to discuss with others their own reflections and feelings associated when working cross-culturally, for personal and professional growth. Knowledge is the next element in which the cross-cultural practice framework discusses the four elements of knowledge:

We can identify four areas of cross-cultural knowledge. First is the knowledge of specific cultural content as captured by the cultural literacy model. In agreement with Dyche and Zayas (1995), it is probably not realistic to expect cros0cultural practitioners to be knowledgeable in a large number of cultural systems. It may be more practical for practitioners to focus on the other three kinds of knowledge: the systemic context of culture, acculturation and internalized culture, and the dynamics of cross-cultural communication and understanding. Consistent with an ecological perspective adopted by many social workers, cross-cultural clinical practice is understood within the broader systemic context of current structural inequalities, racial politics, histories of colonization, slavery, and other forms of racial oppression (Tsang and George, 1998, p.85).

For a worker to work effectively cross-culturally they must understand and have knowledge of other cultures, historically, ethnically, their value and belief systems, their customs and day-to-day living. To have a comprehensive understanding of a client’s total living and life experience a practitioner must have an appreciation of the effects of their socio-political systems. In this context in New Zealand it would be effective for social workers working with mana whenua to have knowledge of the Treaty of Waitangi and what it means for Maori people and the political aspects that go with it. The final element of Skills in Tsang and George’s model related to the specific skills a social worker needs when working biculturally with the mana whenua and cross-culturally:

Social work skills are specific courses of action taken by practitioner to achieve positive changes needed by their clients aˆ¦ Appropriate attitude and knowledge in cross-cultural practice, therefore, must be translated into specific professional behaviour which addresses practitioner, client, institutional and contextual realities. A variety of skills have been recommended by authors in cross-cultural practice, covering professional behaviour within institutional contexts; communication skills, specific interviewing skills such as ethnographic interview, relationship-building skills, and change strategies (Tsang and George, 1998, p.85-86).

Practice skills can not be effective without the social worker having a sound understanding of knowledge and the appropriate attitude when working with mana whenua. Skills are the practical component on Tsang and George’s model, and when working with mana whenua the practitioner must use the appropriate skills from their knowledge base for their work to be effective. Their interactions with their clients are an important part of their role as a social worker. Mana whenua need social workers with the specialist cross-cultural skills. In this part of the essay I have examined Tsang and George’s model of attitude, knowledge and skills by describing the three elements and examining the elements by assessing their significance and importance in social work practice with mana whenua and other cultures.

Evidence 300

It is important to have a set service standards and programs that ensure provision of high quality services in our health service system so as to achieve health care that is of high standard and beneficial to the people. It is for this reason that in 1996, the government of Australia developed the National Standards for Mental Health Services (Fenna, 2001, p.80). Ensuring that the standards were fully implemented provided an important chance for the improvement of the value of mental health care. The standards were intended to be used as a guideline in order to develop new services in mental health care or to improve the existing mental services ensuring they attained to recommended quality standards (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997, p.68).

Additionally, the consumers of mental health services or their carers can use these standards to have a clue on their expectations from the health service (Australian Council on Healthcare Standards, 1995, p.78). These standards were developed to meet the National Mental Health Policy that the Australian government had formulated in order to enhance the treatment and care of all the people who were suffering from any mental health problem (Althaus, Bridgman & Davis, 2007, p.23). The standards lay a greater weight on the outcome of the patients with mental health problems and their carers in order to uphold their human rights and provide empowerment to them. The standards were set in agreement with the United Nationaa‚¬a„?s Principles on the Protection of People with Mental Illness (Australian Health Ministers, 1991, p.67).

Among these principles are as follows; encouragement of the people with mental disorders to attain the highest quality of life as compared with healthy individuals, the positive outcomes for the patients of mental illness and their carers was to be the center of attention for the standards and the recognition of all the perspectives of the patients, that is, their spiritual, emotional and physical needs. These standards have served to improve the quality of care to the consumers of mental health services (Rosen, Miller & Parker, 1993, p.23). This essay critically analyses a mental health service on how well it meets the standards in their day to day activities.

Mental health service

CRS Australia is an organization whose presence is being felt in many communities in Australia. Presently, there is high competition for the limited job opportunities that our economy is able to support. This has led to a huge backlog of learned people in wait for job opportunities. Many college leavers are finding it quite difficult to secure that dream job that you have been anticipating for throughout your educational life (Meagher, 1995, p. 73). As a result, stress builds up and at times this has led to various mental disorders. CRS has come in place to provide a contact between the job seekers and the employers. It helps job seekers who may be having any disability or health conditions to acquire some job positions and also provide guidelines that ensure the job is maintained.

The job seekers are guided to break any barriers they may encounter in finding employment. The organization also works together with employers in finding qualified candidates for the vacant posts in their workplaces. Also, they offer technical advice on the safety measures to be observed in the workplaces and give assistance in the management of any worker injured on duty. It offers its services to any person who has the will and is able to acquire guidance from it. For the job seekers it has over 170 offices distributed across Australia where any person can contact them and he/she will be offered with the appropriate guidelines on what to do and how to get that needed job. It has helped a lot of people who are full of praise for it. For the employers it offers a wide package including guiding them to select the qualified employers and offering expertise in areas like risk and hazard reduction to reduce work place injuries. This saves their institutions from the high compensation charges that they may be forced to pay the workers in case they get injured during the work service (Allan, Briskman, Pease, 2009, p.77). Any company is welcome to CRS to seek its services which are offered without discrimination.

National Standards for Mental Health Services

These standards are grouped into three sections where the first seven standards are concerned with issues that are accepted universally concerning human dignity, the human rights of the people with mental illness and their acceptance in our societies. The next three standards focus on the organizational structure of the mental health service with an emphasis on the connections existing between different departments of the mental health sector (United Nations General Assembly, 1992, p.12). Finally, the 11th standard illustrates the care delivery process beginning with initial contact with mental health services to their final contact. We now focus on the first and third standard in relation to CRS Australia to determine how well the organization has worked in meeting the standards.

The first standard is concerned with protection of the rights of people who have mental disorders or mental health problems by the mental health services which they are offered (Commonwealth Department of Health & Aged Care, 1997, p.16). Compliance with the legislations and all the regulations by the staff of mental health service to ensure the rights are upheld is of importance and therefore given the first consideration. Application of this standard ensures that the mentally disabled people are not discriminated against in being offered essential services so long as they are in a capacity to work efficiently (United Nations, 1991, p.56). CRS on its behalf is entitled in ensuring equal opportunities are offered to job seekers when accessing job opportunities. According to CRS Australia (2010, para. 2-4), 20% of the population have an exposure to a mental health problem during their life time.

As an organization, CRS has experts staff that guides people in managing their mental health conditions in order for them to acquire a job or if they are in one maintain their positions. They have helped many people with mental health problems which are at often accompanied by various injuries some of which are physical and hence have caused a disability in them. With an inner understanding of the hard and tiring process of dealing with mental health problems, CRS has programs on disability management which are suited to job seekers. They work together to ensure that their clients are able to secure that job which they desire thus making it a reality for many job seekers who have mental problems a reality (Mendes, 2008, p.56). Once a person has acquired a job, there are sometimes psychological injuries that come as a result of the type of work that a person is doing. This result into work related stress which often cause low productivity by the employees, ever rising rates of absenteeism or job absconding, bad relations between the staff and the employees in the work places among others (Swain, & Rice, 2009, p.76). This causes a high employee turnover which is detrimental to an institutions reputation. CRS Australia has come in to solve these problems through its experienced psychologists, counselors and the social workers. The organization assesses the situation to find out the kind of assistance needed and determines the appropriate changes to be made in order to minimize the psychological problems or injuries.

In addition, CRS do take into account the goals and ambitions of the people with mental disorders in relation to their jobs. They are able to offer private and confidential information to the consumers of their services concerning their rights and privileges in their work places so as to retain their jobs. This is offered in a language that is freely understood by the concerned parties. In any case a legislative action is sought to resolve any tussle the consumers and their carersaa‚¬a„? written consent is freely sought (Myers, 1995, p.19). By so doing CRS has served and supported the welfare of people with mental conditions and illnesses and thus improving their wellness in the society. It also monitors their progress in their areas of work identifying any work related problems they are encountering and giving appropriate solutions and guidelines on how to tackle them. The act of seeking employment for them or the endeavors to sustain their employment ensures they are empowered to take care of themselves and this gives them morale. It also serves to curtail any form of discrimination that may exist in job acquisition process and thus upholding the rights of the consumers as described by the UN principles for the protection of people who are mentally handicapped.

The third standard for mental health services is concerned with ensuring the consumer of mental health services and their carers are involved in the processes of planning of the mental health service being provided (Commonwealth Department of Health & Aged Care, 1997, p. 19). Also, it ensures that they actively participate in the implementation and evaluation of the services provided. CRS Australia is tasked with provision of interventional measures both at the early stages and later after the injuries have occurred. It provides a platform where the consumers are involved giving their views on where they think should be improved so as to reduce their levels of mental stress (Wade, & Weir, 1995, p.99). The job seekers are taken through counseling sessions where their views are sought so as to help them find solutions to their problems. In the work places, the people under these services are also asked to provide their opinions on how to reduce the mental injuries that they are suffering from. They give their opinions which are then incorporated with policy guidelines to come up with in born solutions to the health problems. The consumers are in a position to feel as part of the solution to their problems and hence are able to adhere to the recommendations that come up (Andrews, Peters & Teesson, 1994, p.30). The MHS offered by the CRS is inclusive and supports a number of activities for both the consumers and the cares. It has evaluation criteria for the consumers to determine the level of support that they are able to acquire and what is needed to improve their conditions in a much better way (Rapp, 1998, p.79).

In addition to these, CRS is able to provide trainings to the consumers on how to improve their workplaces in order to reduce physical mental injuries which can heighten their problems. Employers do seek the services of CRS in promoting work safety measures through the trainings they offer. CRS is also able to monitor the progress it has made in ensuring equal opportunities for all in employment. In its efforts it is able to make workplace visits to assess the progress of the employees they are able to send to the various institutions (Rapp & Goscha, 2006, p.101). In case any deviation from the principles is noticed it offers appropriate guidelines in order to protect the rights of people with mental disabilities.

Conclusion

In conclusion, CRS Australia has been instrumental in assisting people with mental disabilities or injuries to secure a place in employment and consequently be in a position to maintain their places. The organization has been able to attain the specifications of the Australian government and the private sector in providing mental injury management, assessment and any other measures intended for prevention of mental injuries (Australian Council on Healthcare Standardsaa‚¬a„? Care Evaluation Program, 1995, p.50). CRS has been able to be in a position to attain the standards set for mental health services. With an emphasis to standard one which is concerned with ensuring equal rights to people with mental disorders and problems. By offering employment chances to the mentally handicapped, CRS is able to ensure the mentally handicapped are not discriminated when it comes to employment. This has served to empower the mentally ill patients. They thus are able to care for themselves and reduce their over reliance on their carers for financial and wellbeing help. CRS is also able to attain the standard number three of ensuring that the consumers and their carers are involved in the mental health service. CRS is therefore effective in provision of mental health service especially in offering employment.

School shootings are one of the common events that achieved a level of cultural symbolism and make fear within students, their relatives, and school personnel. It is not shocking that these shootings are still happening, since the source of the problem is sophisticated. School shootings promote depression and anxiety within schools and encourage the idea that schools are unsafe for many students; in this paper I will discuss the course of action in Virginia Tech and my role as a school psychologist during the crisis.

On April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech experienced a terrible and unforgettable event in the American university history. An Asian student shot and took the lives of 32 students and faculty, staff. He left behind injured individuals and people with psychological problems, and then he killed himself. Moreover, victim’s families, friends and the university community have suffered horribly.

As a school psychologist in Virginia Tech, I think it is very crucial to collect the data about the student who killed the victims in order to know more about the real causes that led him to shoot people and kill himself after. This will help to deal with students’ behavior to avoid and stop real causes before they get more complicated. The student murderer was skinny and looked younger than his age. He did not participate in class and did not want to speak. The professors reported that he was mentally ill and he asked him to seek counseling. I believed that it is important to work with students who have same symptoms like this person who needed an early diagnosis.

I believe that mental health clinics receive a big number of antisocial behaviors which is the most common disorder in our daily life. I think that early diagnosis of serious aggression that can be Conduct Disorder which begins as aggression in the early childhood and developed during adolescence and adulthood, it is very vital to know about these cases in order to help those individuals since they were diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Conduct is a disorder that refers to people who deal with specific behavioral and emotional problems during the childhood. People diagnoses with this disorder cannot focus and they have a hard time to follow rules. They are often referred as bad people or delinquent, ignoring that they mentally ill.

Course of action

Schools must be protected and safe places for children to study, however after this shooting event, a number of students and their families still feel threatened and their lives in danger by armed and dangerous classmates. As a member of school community we need to discuss our plan and how to deal with current students, families, professors and the other members who experienced the incident and help them to overcome and continue benefit from school. I believe that it is very interesting to work with survived students to trust us and discuss our plans to offer a safe place to learn. As school staff, we need to “work with parents and public safety providers (local police and fire departments, emergency responders, hospitals, etc.)” (National Association of School Psychologists, 2006) The school community needs also to enhance, and renew the school procedures to keep school building safe. Work with students to be able to discuss and talk aloud if something happened that makes them feel uncomfortable, worried or scared. Teach the students that everybody play a big role to maintain the school safety. School community needs also to offer “crisis training and professional development for all staff based upon needs assessment”. (NASP, 2006)

Anger and violence are progressively more significant issues to school psychologists and other professionals today. Those educators faced the effects of learning problems and social adjustment issues. It is very significant to provide monthly workshops for all students to identify their feelings and help them to know how to manage their feelings of anger, especially if they are taking drugs or having mental illness will be helpful. It is very important to teach and make students stay away from drugs and alcohol. Added to this, being away from guns and other weapons will be helpful as well. Teach students in early age that violence is not a solution to handle problems. Therefore, provide counseling sessions to all students, especially those who are struggling with anxiety, depression, or other emotional concerns that they cannot handle.

William Pollack, a Harvard Medical School psychologist, stated in the incident of the Columbine shooters “needed help, and what they got day after day was no one noticing. They were left alone. Adolescents, even though they say they want to be alone…they really want some kind of connection with an adult who understands and cares.” (USA today, 2009) As a school staff, we need to work on our safety programs as well. We will need to lock doors, provide security cameras and call systems. We need to encourage and build up the respect between staff and students, students and students. Respect the students’ potential and performance is very vital also. The interaction between counselors or professors and students is very important to be able to recognize students’ feelings and alert any serious emotional issues or mental health problems.

“Check and connect” is a good strategy to provide to school staffs in the workshops. In this approach, every day, one professor or more should talk about a specific student’s case.

As the initial responsibility we have as school staff, we should help people experience the event in an appropriate context. We need to provide counseling and psychological treatments and we have to work with them to be able to continue their studies and help them to achieve their goals as they came for the first time and may be better. We have to work with those people who were in the event on the traumatic that may happened and they will think about all the time. We need to be able to help them to forget it and start a new personal and educational safe life.

It is obvious that people who commit this kind of things and shooting usually have mental disorders such as severe depression or other emotional problems. Those individuals usually feel unwanted and badly treated by others, they are dissatisfied in their academic performance and goals, and therefore they go for suicide and shooting in order to do revenge. Moreover, these students always prepared for their plans previously and they talked about their purposes in advance. Hopefully, we will have time to know about their plans and help them recognize their feelings to be able to intervene early. That is why I believe that we need to build up confidence and communication with students and promote them to ask for help whenever they feel that they need it.

As people working in schools, the event is hard to experience, but we may be able to better control the school and in preventing more shootings. Moreover, students who are under medications for anxiety, depression or other concerns and are currently in university, they need to be in contact with their doctor, therapist as well as their family. It may be also appropriate for students who have faced a prior traumatic event as well.

I believed that school shooting is one of the biggest issues that need more than a single solution; poor parenting and early identification are big terms to think about dealing with such incidents. Most shootings in schools occurred primarily because of revenge against society.

Specific people such as parents, friends, and roommates know how to help professionals to diminish specific psychological outcomes of a traumatic incident by using observation as a method to watch students who are at greater jeopardy and assist directly. Awareness of the issues that can lead to cruel psychological distress may assist adults to differentiate those students who need mental health assistance.

As school community, we should plan cooperatively to invent a safety within schools to decrease violence by utilizing various approaches in order to meet each school’s needs. For an effective result, it is helpful to include the following components such as making “school-community safety partnerships, establishing comprehensive school crisis response plans” (NASP, 2006) As a course of action, schools should adopted new laws and strategies to cope with this new style of showing such brutal aggression in instructional establishments, such as forbidding violent behaviors by issuing a disciplinary rules and punishments against individuals who are attempting to be involved in aggressive behaviors in schools settings. Besides, schools need also to offer a proper and effective counseling therapy for people who still under the shock of a shooting incident and help them to overcome the crisis time. As far as community is concerned, it should be a priority to protect students who experience aggressive events and make them regain confidence to pursue their academic and emotional life. Improving classroom environment is also presented in our school plan by endorsing such a positive school discipline “School climate is a relatively enduring quality of the entire school that is experienced by members, describes their collective perceptions of routine behavior, and affects their attitudes and behavior in the school” (Camilla &Sandra, 2007). Our program fights racism and intolerance and implements strategies to accept people from different cultures; in school program, the community promotes consultation, appropriate social skills, rising security in schools, and use disciplinary method to punish individuals who did not respect the school policy. Utilizing prevention programs for all students is one of the vital strategies we have in our program like talking about the federal law. Basically, we also implement some specific interventions in order to support students’ positive emotional development and educate them to utilize non-violent methods to decipher their personal concerns. Support students who show early signs of violation behaviors at schools and encouraging peer relationship by utilizing communication and mediation programs to resolve conflicts.

School-based mental health services are very wanted recently. As school community, collaborating with parents and policy makers we should scrutinize issues that can account for events in which a massacre happened in the establishment setting in order to assist students to accomplish their aims in schools and help them to identify their personal and social issues.

During the crisis, as member of school community, we were looking for manners in order to stop these events to re-happen. School Psychologists national association (NASP) team stated that, “Crisis has been frequently recognized as a time of potential danger as well as potential opportunity.aˆ¦ If our profession is able to manage the danger that is, manage the immediate crisis and quickly return the system to normal functioning then there exists a tremendous opportunity to stimulate long-term systemic change. Once seen as effective and credible, the psychologist has infinitely more opportunity to move the system in the direction of prevention” (Kathy, 2008).

School psychologists can be a terrific source to the institutional community in the improvement of efficient mental health services to discuss students and families’ needs. It is also fundamental that school psychologists become very important and positive individuals in endorsing their task as mental health service providers and programs in schools.

My role as a school psychologist

As a school psychologist, I need to be able to identify student in need for extra help and aid in recognizing proper referral sources in the community. I would also use the psychological triage as a technique to establish the crisis intervention cure. The use of this approach is particularly significant when the psychological trauma victim surpasses the number of available people who can intervene.

According to National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), there are various things that we can do as people working in schools that may insure that schools are secure places for students and enhance the comfort level of individuals such as inform parents by the school safety policies and calamity avoidance efforts. As a school psychologist, I need to be active within schools, communicate with students and their parents. I need also to visit classrooms frequently. Work on students’ behavior and help school community to teach students the appropriate and expected behaviors, provide interventions and supports. Talk and make a link with community colleagues to evaluate emergency response plans and discuss the needs that may be noticeable to the current crisis. “Highlight violence prevention programs and curriculum currently being taught in schools and emphasize the efforts of the school to teach students alternatives to violence including peaceful conflict resolution and positive interpersonal relationship skills. Cite specific examples such as Second Step Violence Prevention, bully proofing, or other positive interventions and behavioral supports” (NASP, 2006).

My role as school psychologist as well is to prevent those individuals who homicide others and suicide. An article by NASP stated that society needs to ease closer relations as a replacement of watching television and using computers in the rest of the evenings, visit friends, classmates, and neighbors, walk you dog or go for picnic will help to stop murders to realize their plans and crimes. As a course of action, we should work on the relationship between students, their professors, and other school workers (NASP, 2006)

My role as a school psychologist also is to examine the psychological disorders of students who appeared to be at risk such as those individuals who may have post traumatic stress syndrome, depression, Schizophrenia, and other mental health problems. It is very significant to early diagnosis those people with the previous disorders in order to be able to intervene and help them to live normal people and act responsively.

My job as a member of the community is to be aware of some people who refuse to talk about their experience in the past and hide their traumatic events. In this point, I need to be able to help survivors of this horrible crisis to talk about it and assist them to be able to identify and discuss their feelings from it. I need to be able to aid those people by using psychotherapy sessions and advanced techniques. As a school psychologist, I can be trusted to help with delicate personal and family situations that interfere with schooling. I can also help prevent future problems when I intervene with learning problems early on, and I can also recognize that changes in the school environment and at home can improve the quality of life for children and their families. For most victims, cognitive-behavioral therapy is the best treatment that I can use in order to change distorted and possibly harmful perceptions of post-traumatic stress, severe anxiety, depression, pleasant mental imagery, and relaxation techniques. Other counseling and therapy techniques may help those people achieve a good perceptive of the illness and the factors that protect against it. There are also stress inoculation training and visualization techniques that can be used as treatment to help those victims in our school setting. All these treatments need to be taught to survivors in order to practice it on their own. I need also to share with them my feelings, experience, and signs to help decreasing feelings of fear and helplessness.

In terms of intervention, as a school psychologist I should work and consult with teachers in order to choose, implement, and evaluate interventions that best work for the different needs of different students. As expert I need to be able to teach students, teachers, parents, and other professionals’ problem-solving strategies to address issues related to students’ academic, behavioral, and psychological problems after the incident. I need also to be able to assist teachers, parents, and other professionals use data-based decision making to improve student and systemic outcomes. Besides, I have to help teachers understand the unique needs of students, especially those diagnosis with mental health problems. It is very important to consult with those individuals’ doctors and counselor as well in order to keep in truck, know more about their current situations, and help them to release their pains. NASP promotes that “school psychologists to take a leadership role in developing comprehensive approaches to violence reduction and crisis response in schools” (NASP, 2006). Since school psychologists are capable to involve in the whole school personals in enhancing and applying positive behavioral interventions that support social-emotional development of students. School psychologists are also important members who are skilled by using and implementing different intervention strategies that may decrease violent behaviors within school settings and with different students. As a school psychologist, I can discuss with other school members the implementation of social skills activities and other techniques used in order to educate students how to solve their personal issues. My other role is to offer consultation process to promote schools form calamity planning teams. As part of the evaluation program, I need to reduce aggression activities among students and help those who were presenting during the incident physically, psychologically, and social seclusion. As far as my role, I will help school to response to this emergency case. As a school psychology, my role also is to be well aware of the advantage of the early intervention and prevention efforts.

“Traditional crisis caregivers include emergency response professionals, mental health providers, medical professionals, victim assistance counselors, and faith leaders” (NASP, 2003) those professionals are all well skilled to handle different cases and to help sufferers to manage their life and handle their problems. Teachers and administrators are the most people who interact with our students; however some of them did not get any training to offer mental health services and intervention. As a school psychologist, I think that will be very helpful to provide trainings and help those professionals to be able to intervene.

These roles of school psychologists are very vital elements as plans of school safety. To guarantee that school psychologists are well trained to offer leadership in school violence prevention. NASP helped school psychologists to get the necessary comprehension and skills to apply aggression prevention and the crisis in schools during their programs and through their life experiences.
Summary

Very serious violent problems occur in school settings and have sophisticated causes, unknown sources and valuable consequences. Besides, fights, sexual harassment, and bullying that occur every day in all school establishments in the world. We started to experience shootings people at schools and suicide. These affected the schools environments, safety, and made many students, relatives and school staffs to undergo horribly. Thus, the efforts to decrease aggression at school settings need to be multi-faceted.

School settings are trusted to protect children and keep them secure during the school day. Teachers, principals, and all school staff do big efforts to keep students safe and away from any danger. Many students trust schools and they feel happy and comfort in the school staffs who save them from harms and protect them. There are various cases and huge number of shoots and suicide in school settings, therefore schools and professionals community need to prepared in order to have a minimum damages and handle crises, in order to keep students and staff out of harm and able to learn and teach.

In my opinion, I think that a successful and effective program will guarantee the safety of all students and school staff. It is crucial to create programs that lead to stop and reduce aggression and responding rapidly and efficiently whenever violence happens. Aggression decrease plans have to also affect on all student approaches to violence, educate them and school workers to be able to solve their skills in an effective away, and help the school to make an environment that encourages acceptance and tolerance between students and staff.

School safety programs are very efficient when we involved other groups of violence prevention efforts such as “local law enforcement, juvenile probation, public health personnel, and other parent and community groups” (NASP, 2006) This will help to reduce aggression and anger among students in order to ensure life of all children and youth and improved their performance to achieve their goal. I believe that all families, friends, and school staff have the responsibility in this massacre, by ignoring the murder mental health history and let him lived in the campus as a normal student. The safety group of the campus has also a big responsibility and failed to intervene in the appropriate time to stop the killing show was happening. The uncontrolled guns are big issues as well that led to kill those innocent students easily. All school psychologists have the responsibility to give hands to educational institutions and involve in the methodical group structure and problem solving process. They have the responsibility to analysis the data and identify students’ problems. All these plans should be discussed in objective data of school databases.

Typically my role as a school psychologist is that I cannot make diagnosis, but I can provide data by using various number of assessments tools like doing observations, interviews, and consulting with parents and other professionals. There are very big numbers of interventions that can be used by school psychologists to assist those individuals in order to comprehend their goals and try be able to deal with it.

In general, most of us will agree that not everyone is suitable to be a crisis helper because there is no one trade that can suit for all. I personal feel that it is irresponsible to give a conclusion of whether is everyone suitable or not to be a crisis helper before exploring what qualification or characteristic does a crisis helper require. Hence, in this essay, I would like to briefly discuss about the definition of crisis, resources for crisis intervention and the qualities of a crisis helper before giving my conclusion.

Crisis Definition

Although there are many definitions of crisis, Richard. K. James presented 6 in his book, Crisis Intervention Strategies. They are: 1) Crisis is because people important life goals face obstacles. 2) “Crisis results from impediments to life goals that people believe that they cannot overcome through customary choices and behaviors (Caplan, 1964, p. 40)”. 3) When people know that they have no responses to handle their situation, the situation is consider a crisis. 4) When, due to a situation, one cannot control his life consciously and it immobilizes him, a crisis is formed (Belkin, 1984, p. 424). 5) “Crisis is a state of disorganization in which people face frustration of important life goals or profound disruption of their life cycles and methods of coping with stressors. (Brammer, 1985, p. 94). 6) Crisis develops in four distinct stages: (a) a critical situation occurs in which a determination is made as to whether a person’s normal coping mechanisms will suffice; (b) increased tension and disorganization surrounding the event escalate beyond the person’s coping ability; (c) demand for additional resources (such as counseling) to resolve the event is needed; (d) referral may be required to resolve major personality disorganization (Marino, 1995)”.

Kristi Kanel uses Trilogy definition to reflect the three essential parts of a crisis. “The three parts of a crisis are these: (1) a precipitating event; (2) a perception of the event that causes subjective distress; and (3) the failure of a person’s usual coping methods, which causes a person experiencing the precipitating event to function it a lower level than before the event. ( Kanel, p. 1) “

Through Richard and Kristi crisis definitions, we realize that crisis can be a situation that has disrupted a person life cycle or a person having malfunction coping mechanism. Situation that person A has considered as a crisis may not be a crisis to person B because everyone’s coping ability is different. The situation that causes Person A to be stressful and anxious may not create the same degree of stress and anxiety for person B; hence, for a crisis worker to handle a client successfully, he needs to have sharp analysis and quick reponse. The eventual goal of a crisis helper is to help the client to return to a precise level of functioning. As a result, although anyone who is trained can be a crisis helper, he may not handle the situation well due to crisis’ versatility.

Crisis Intervention Helpers’ Qualities

The first step in cultivating the skills needed to help people in crisis is to construct a definition of crisis. Crisis worker must “tune into” a client’s level of mastering reality in order to set up realistic goals and problem- solving strategies.

In Lindemanns (1944) work with survivors of the Coconut Grove nightclub fire of 1943, he discovered that premature cessation of the expression of feelings is harmful. Therefore, it is essential for crisis workers to allow clients to express emotional actions. However, crisis workers must also ensure that the expression of these feelings is not harmful to the client or others. Crisis workers must be aware that whether the expression of emotional reactions to crisis events is it healthy (Myer, 37)

Crisis workers must be willing to share the client’s pain. Empathy that demonstrates to clients shows crisis workers understand their frame of reference in the crisis situation. (Myer 38) Care must be used to guard against allowing crisis workers’ personal issues to influence the assessment process. For example, a crisis worker, while a child, may have seen his or her mother abused by the father or another person. As a result, the crisis worker may become angry whenever abuse is an issue. Being a crisis helper, he must not handle the client’s situation personally; therefore, the ability of assessing the client thought and action is important.

Assessing clients’ cognitive and behavioral reaction to a crisis can be troublesome for crisis workers. Simply knowing that a client has seemingly done nothing or has made several unsuccessful attempts to resolve the crisis is not enough. Crisis workers must see beyond the content of what clients report to truly understand clients’ reaction. (Myer 86) Too often, crisis workers have difficulty distinguishing their perceptions from clients’ perceptions of the crisis. ( Myer 57)

After knowing clients’ cognitive reactions and the life dimension that is affected by crisis, it helps crisis workers target their intervention efforts. However, crisis workers must also evaluate the severity of clients’ reactions in order to determine if this area should be addressed first and how direct the intervention process should be. ( Myer 73)

Ethical and legal concerns are particularly relevant in the assessment of behavioral reaction because during the assessment process clients may disclose information about child or elder abuse, sexual abuse of minors, suicidal ideations, intent to harm someone else, or other equally disturbing material. Crisis workers can be caught off guard hearing this information; once it is disclosed, what are they to do? ( Myer 86)

Certain personality traits may interfere with coping and also with accepting intervention. Some people have problems accepting help or being strong. Others are paranoid or avoid conflict. These people present challenges to counselors, in contrast to clients who are open and trusting.

According to Kanel, there are factors for a crisis helper to determine whether a crisis presents a danger to his client or his client needs additional help. A trained crisis helper not only needs to be psychologically trained, his personality and experiences can also be a great asset during crisis intervention. Thus, not everyone can be a crisis helper well.

Resources for Crisis Intervention Work

Not everyone who experiences a stressor in life will succumb to a crisis state and no one is certain why some people cope with stress easily whereas others deteriorate into disequilibrium. ( Kanel, 7). But, Kanel writes that material resources, personal resources, and social resources seems to determine the level of an individual coping mechanism after a crisis. ( Kanel, 7)

Material resources are money, shelter, food, transportation, and clothing. Money may not buy love, but it does make life easier during crisis. For example, a poorer woman with minimal material resources [money, food, housing, and transportation] may suffer more in a crisis than a woman with her own income and transportation. A woman with richer material sources has the choice of staying at a hotel or moving into her own apartment. She can drive to work; she can afford to pay for counseling sessions. ( Kanel, 7)

After her material needs are met, the woman can begin to work through the crisis. Her personal resources, such as ego strength, previous history of coping with stressful situations, absence of personality problems, and physical well-being will help determine how well she copes on her own and how she accepts and implements intervention. ( Kanel, 7)

Ego strength is the ability to understand the world realistically and act on that understanding to get one’s needs and wishes met. Many times a crisis worker will be called on to be the client’s ego strength temporarily (as when a person is psychotic or severely depressed) until the client can take over for himself or herself. These clients can neither see reality clearly nor put into action realistic coping behaviors. They need someone to structure their behavior until the crisis is managed successfully, often with medication, family intervention, and individual counseling.

Social resource

Conclusion

Some clients may display extreme emotion to a minor incident; others may exhibit an almost undetectable affective reaction to a significant crisis. In addition, people react differently to different crises. Just because a client reacts with anger in one crisis does not mean that he or she will react with anger in another crisis (Myer 52). Client may be overwhelmed by the situation and find it difficult to vocalize any feelings; perhaps, they may vent their anger to the crisis worker. If the crisis worker is not prepared, he or she may be bewildered by the client’s display of feelings. Hence, “the intensity of the client’s emotional expression may result in the crisis worker feeling uncomfortable and out of control” (Myer, p. 37)

According to Myer, crisis worker need to be prepared to face clients’ raging screaming or sobbing uncontroably. During crisis intervention, crisis workers must use their knowledge of human behavior, sensitivity to cultural norms, and their clinical experience to make sound judgments. As a result, I agree that it is not everyone suitable to do crisis intervention work because not everyone can handle intensity of the job scope.

The case of Sabina Akthar is a tragic case, which shows negligence of the Crown Prosecution Service(CPS). Sabina Akthar and Malik Mannan had married through arrange marriage in Bangladesh. When Akthar found out that her husband had a mistress, problems occurred in their marriage. Akthar had faced domestic violence from her husband and as result made complaints to the police. Mannan was arrested and about a month later he was released on bail. Mannan’s bail conditions included clauses such as; he was not to contact his wife or visit her home. After Mannan had broken his bail conditions on several instances he was re-arrested. However on this occasion he was released without charge and also his bail order was dropped. After Mannan was released he carried on sending Akthar text messages in which he threatened to kill her. Few days after these messages Mannan had stabbed Akthar from her heart, which caused Akthar’s death. After the young woman’s death the Crown Prosecutions Service accepted that they were negligent in the way they have handled the case and apologised to Sabina Akthar’s family (Guardian 2009).

The British Crime Survey’s (BCS) measurement of the culture effect on domestic violence is different to the police statistics. According to statistics the culture effect on domestic violence plays an important role here.

The aim of my research is to define how culture has an effect on domestic violence in the United Kingdom amongst the white ethnicity. Due to the experience I have gained through volunteering in the Coventry Refugee Centre I have gained knowledge about different countries and the cultures those countries have.

In the United Kingdom victims of domestic violence are mainly women and children. For many women their home is where they suffer abuse at hands of somebody who is really close to them. Most victims of domestic violence face long term physical and psychological damages. The person who abuses them does not give them any chance to make their own decision; therefore after a while some victims believe that there is no way out of their sufferings and gives up on trying to escape.

This research seeks to determine the impact of cultural effect on domestic violence in women and children in United Kingdom.

Key literature

Domestic violence also known and expressed as fie beating or intimate partner violence usually coexists with child abuse about half of the time (Hamel. J, Tonia L. Nicholls 2007). Husbands who beat their wives are much likely to apply for permanent residence for their undocumented wives than husbands who do not beat their wives. Therefore immigration status appears to be another way in which abusive husbands control their wives in the UK. Abusive husbands often threaten their wives with deportation if they do not comply with the husband’s wishes. Frequently undocumented abused wives are afraid to cooperate with child protection authorities for fear that their husbands might retaliate by turning them into immigration authorities. Women who cooperate with investigations of child abuse and or domestic violence have unusually good access to legal permanent residency but they are unlikely to be aware of this. Battered immigrant women face several impediments to seeking protection and services. These impediments including language barriers, negative perceptions of the law enforcement and legal system, fear of deportation, cultural and religious issues and discrimination (Gabriel 1994).

When it comes to the culture effect on domestic violence Uganda has the highest crime rates of domestic violence, 41 % of women reported being beaten or physically harmed by their husbands. This can be related to the economic factors and conditions as well as different life styles and cultural variation in Uganda.

According to the statistic the media has been considered one of many contributing factors in domestic violence. It has been criticized for its portrayal of violence in movies, television and printed form resulting in the desensitization of people with regard to their tolerance of violence. On the other hand the media has also been used as a modern communication tool in increasing public awareness of domestic violence and increasing support for ongoing research, funding education and prevention and treatment programs and support for improvement in the laws the criminal justice system and the public policy.

The impact of income inequality and social structure may also create more domestic violence towards women. Men’s unemployment or part time employment has been associated with increased rates of domestic violence. (Natalie, Sokoloff and Pratt 2005). Recent study found that unemployment was a significant predictor of violence. This suggests some men might perceive employment as a critical component of their masculine identity and resort to violence as an effort to regain lost status.

Some studies report that middle class Asian women are more likely to experience domestic violence than white middle class women among some ethnic and racial minority groups are attributable in part to poverty. Some research has suggested that the discrepancy between employment and income places women at risk. When women earn more than men or have a higher education qualification and employment skills, many men feel psychologically threatened and some use violence to reassert power in their relationship.

Many immigrants coming to England to find a better life to live for themselves and for their children but the barriers the immigrant face are really tremendous. New culture that they face as well as language barriers their husbands take advantage of this and start intimating their partner’s that their husbands may report their views to the UK immigrations service. Different countries and cultures may have their own values and attitudes toward a woman place family, marriage, sex roles and divorce and women may not notice that the domestic violence is against the law they may not know that they have the legal option to end the abusive relationship.

Domestic violence can occur in families from all cultural and ethnic group and beliefs and intervention policies and practices in treating battered women should accommodate their diverse cultural backgrounds. The British Crime Survey statistics shows that one in five women has experienced domestic violence in their lifestyle and many of these women ended their relationship because of abusive relationship. . According to the survey shows that woman chose to stay in abusive relationship because of fear if the women attempts to leave they will be tracked down and beaten or killed because of this the most women think that any prison time would be temporary and the subsequent and consequences even worse.

Methodology

My research approach will reflect a subjectivism. I believe this perspective is most appropriate for my investigation because people got their own ideas and it will be in subjectivism way the result that I will get in the end it will not be based on one interview. My methodology will be based on interviews, qualitative, subjectivism and interpretivism. Every interview that I will do will have different view and different ideas in it.

I will be dealing with human views rather than materials. In order to finish my dissertation I need to understand how women are expected to behave within different cultures, believes and religions. For example as I have spent two years at the Coventry Refugee Centre as an interpreter and a case worker this has given me a good knowledge about diverse people and I understand their opinions and feelings. Therefore I believe the experience that I have gained within that work environment will be very helpful to me while I am conducting my interviews.

To update my literal review I will also use secondary data. As my secondary data resources I will use books and contemporary articles. This will enable me to widen my knowledge and understanding of the general theory aspects on culture effect on domestic violence. I will also get some help from the Coventry Refugee Centre by going on their websites and also by speak to them face to face when needed. This secondary data will help me to design the interview questions in order to get the best answers.

For my research I will also do face to face semi-structured interviews to understand the effect of culture on domestic violence. I will also use internet searches. I have applied to volunteer within the victim support scheme. I am hoping that the experience I will gain from this work placement will give me the opportunity to find out more information about victims of domestic violence which will help to finish my dissertation. I will do some interpretivisim to assess the meaning of domestic violence. This will provide me a good feedback about the domestic violence and the trust in the police and Criminal Justice System. These questioners will provide me some quantitative data. In order to get answers that are representative and non-biased these questioners will be given to randomly selected women.

The qualitative result that I have gained from the interviews will be used in two ways. First of all I will compare them to the secondary data which is the theory aspect of the research. Secondly I will compare the questionnaire results (practice). Through comparing these data I will examine the views on domestic violence. As the results that are gained through the interviews will be qualitative, which means these statistics will give me an opportunity to analyses the results in order to create some charts, graphs and pies. As I worked as an interpreter and a case worker at the Coventry Refugee Centre it is easy for me to access into the centre and get the support that I need. I have decided to choose my participant through my work experience place, because my topic is based on culture effect on domestic violence and there are many women who been victims of domestic violence in their home countries. I will hopefully do my interview at the Refugee centre and I will inform my participants that everything that they say throughout the interview will be confidential and that no one will be allowed to see the answers that they have given in the questionnaires. However there are some difficulties to do this interview for example some of the participants may not speak English. Therefore I will also try to arrange an interpreter for them where needed in order to finish my research proposal.

Ethnical issues

Researching about domestic violence is not easy. While I am doing my research there are several ethical issues which I need to pay close attention to not to cause further distress to the participants. For example some question may cause distress to participants if they are asked in a certain way. Therefore I will need to design my questions in a way which my participants will not feel uncomfortable to answer them. Conducting a research on domestic violence might be a stressful investigation. This is because the topic is a very sensitive topic as it is not psychologically easy for people to talk about their tragic experiences. Therefore this study might cause potential or further pain and harm to the individual who have or still experiencing abuse by reminding them events that they do not wish to remember. It may also expose incriminating information and expose individual to risk. Consequently I need to be fully prepared to deal with the likely effects of the research. For example the effects of my research on participants on their families and on the researchers themselves (conduction such research may be distressing) may be defeated by a debriefing session at the end of the research. In this debriefing session participants will be able to speak to professional psychiatrists about their experience within the research. During this session participants can discuss any particular concerns they have about the research.

Another example of a sensitive issue is false memory and recovered memory. This is a debate which has been going on over the past 20 years. A famous memory psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has written about the validity of recovered memories of childhood abuse. According o Loftus’s studies these memories commonly come to light only after therapeutic sessions with people who use techniques such as guided imagery to explore early life experience. This domestic violence research is socially sensitive because there are potential consequences for people who have claimed to have recovered memories and for their families. Therefore to complete my research I need to consider including some ethnical guidelines document. I will sign this document and included in my proposal to state that I have tried to deal with ethical issues as best as I could.

Also the questions that I will ask during the interview have to be approved by my tutor. I will also ask my participants to sign a consent form which will state that the interviews done are totally confidentially and that they are willing to take part in this research. Data that will be collected through the interviews will be confidential therefore I will be keeping this data with me at all times until my research is complete and I will not let anyone else to see it.

I will be dealing with woman with cultural views, being sensitive to other cultures is easier said than done. Cultural sensitivity has nothing to with the art and music of a culture and almost everything to do with respect, shared decision making and effective communication. Too often researches ignore these values, the life style and the cognitive and affective world of the subject. soz jus on the phone to ma man. bu ma cwk is on my laptop n im on my pc bu jus write bou wha research method u gna use like for mine im doin case stdies n interviews n lyk u gta say whether u gna use qualitative method or quantitative methods n why u using those methods das it reallyysoz jus on the phone to ma man. bu ma cwk is on my laptop n im on my pc bu jus write bou wha research method u gna use like for mine im doin case stdies n interviews n lyk u gta say whether u gna use qualitative method or quantitative methods n why u using those methods das it really

Reflection

I have learnt too many things about the research method and technique that are used in it. Having completed this research that is based on culture effect on domestic violence improved my argument skills in a paper. Through using and collecting data and with example of statistics my arguments have become much better than how it was used to be.

My researching skills also improved in a positive way during this research proposal. In previous researches for my study I used to get stuck on how to gather information but now I am able to use largely different resources I can now understand the topic more widely and it also helps me to make a better argument. In my opinion this research is my best research paper that I have done in my life. The grade that I will get for it might not show a good grade but what I learned from it will benefit me for my future researches. I spent about two days just for doing the actual research. It will be useful for the next year when it come to the dissertation by using these new techniques that I have learnt from this research proposal, hopefully then I will be able to put my points across more effectively and clearly. How to write a research proposal will benefit me in future lessons in my life. Due to the experience that I have gained while preparing this proposal I will be able to give good examples about the topics that I will be preparing a proposal for in my future academic life. I will also be able to give and create a better arguments and counter-arguments in my future research proposal.

To do my dissertation I have to stay focus on my chosen topic in order to complete it by using different skills that I have learned from this research proposal.