Chapter 4:
Understanding Populations
This chapter offers
several tasks to be completed when working to identify a population and the
needs of the population chosen.
The tasks discussed in this chapter are: developing cultural humility, seeking diverse perspectives,
searching the professional knowledge base on the target population, selecting
factors that help in understanding the target population, and developing a
working hypotheses of etiology about the problem.
The authors discuss
the importance of having cultural humility as part of task 1. This differences between cultural
humility and cultural competence are also defined. Basically, cultural competence is learning and becoming more
educated about the different cultures that one may be working with. Whereas, cultural humility is an
ongoing process of self awareness. It is more an in depth discovery within one
that helps them to learn about the differences but also to focus on working in
collaboration with community members and providing equity within the
relationship.
Task 2 outlines the
importance of seeking diverse perspectives. This includes talking to those who have actually experienced
the issue that is being examined because they are the expert and can truly
report the feelings, struggles and challenges that have occurred. Those individuals have valuable insight
not only to the issues but also to the strengths of the community or population
that is being served. Also, the
author points out again that it is extremely important for the researcher to be
involved in the community. There
are four research approaches discussed (Table 4.3) to provide more insight to
this idea. The research approaches
are: Participatory Action
Research, Needs/Assets Assessment, Empowerment Evaluation and
Demystification. The author also
encourages the researcher to identify an ally within the community to assist
them in developing rapport and educating them about the population that is
being helped. This task also
emphasizes the importance of using frameworks or other theoretical ideas that
have been previously proposed to help understand the population better. One such idea is that of dual
perspective which believes that one must look at an individual as being part of
two systems, the nurturing system and the sustaining system. The nurturing system is that of the
individual’s values which have come from their immediate family whether that be
parents, siblings, aunt/uncles, etc.
The sustaining system is that which influences the individual from the
outside of their family and are the values that are represented by the
individual's culture. Additional
terms such as double consciousness and intersectionality are also discussed
within this task.
Task 3 discusses the
importance of reviewing the professional literature that is available in order
to gather as much information and education as possible on the identified
population. This should also
include examining what interventions have worked on similar populations in the
past or what has not worked. Also
important in the literature review is learning about different theoretical
perspectives that have been discussed and determined if they are useful to
apply to the target population in order to have a better understanding of the
functioning of the community. Task
3 also identifies the importance of understanding human growth and development
and applying that in the context of the population. As discussed in this section it is important to not view
adults and children or adolescents as the same because they may all be at
different areas of development whether that is emotionally, physically,
socially, etc. The different
types of discrimination are also discussed in this section including sexism,
racism, classism, heterosexism, ageism and ableism.
Task 4 focuses on
selecting factors that will assist in understanding the target population
better. After one has reviewed the
professional literature and gathered information from those residing in the
community or those of the target population, it is crucial to then consider
what the needs are of those individuals.
There may often be many needs and many issues that are related or seen
as a cause to those issues. The
social worker must then determine what the most important of those needs are
and the most effective intervention.
Finally, task 5
involves determining what the hypotheses is and what the causes may be
regarding the problem that is effectively going to be changed. It is crucial to analyze what the
population has reported and what the problem is that has been identified when
determining what the hypotheses is and developing a possible cause of that
problem. By developing a hypotheses
the social worker can then begin to focus on interventions that will alleviate
or make some change in the issues that the population or community are being
affected by.
I loved this chapter because of its focus on cultural humility. I remember reading once in a book by C. S. Lewis that humility was "freedom from thinking of oneself at all." I think it is interesting how, in contrast, the book describes cultural humility as a sort of self-awareness and process of discovery. When I put these two definitions together, I find that in putting away selfishness and focusing on others, I am able to see my own thoughts, feelings, etc; lying either in contrast to or complementing others. Starting with the exterior can often help give us an awareness of what is going on in our own hearts and minds. I consider humility one of the building blocks of social work, whereby making others happy by thinking of them first can make me happiest and teach me most about myself, including what kind of social worker I want to be.
ReplyDeleteI remember this chapter and it was a good read. The cultural humility, diverse factors, and all of the aspects that go into social workers viewing their clients as human beings and understanding them is awesome. As social workers we need to understand our clients and analyze the things that we do not understand that affect their community. All of these factors remove the guards of both the clients and social workers.
ReplyDeleteI think this article really did a great job of showing what social workers need to do to become culturally competent. As social workers we need to be aware of the individuals we work with and the unique obstacles that they face, the same is true in communities. I can't go into JVL saying I know exactly what to do to improve this community without researching it and speaking with residents. When working with communities especially I think it is important to look at the history of the area and how it has had an impact on the neighborhood.
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