PART A: Three scenarios
- A family with a child who is deaf refuses to let him learn sign language
Answer: A. What diverse beliefs, values, minority status, or customs are operating in this situation that might explain or clarify the client’s behavior or choices?
- A family chooses to home school their children and refuses to cooperate with the governmental guidelines regarding the education of their children.
Answer: D. What additional information or skills would you need to be competent in this situation?
- An elderly woman who could benefit from mental health services declines them.
Answer: C. How might these situations be misunderstood if you are no familiar with the beliefs and customs of the client?
PART B: Discussion board
Social conflicts are part of humanity because people have various thoughts and ideas about things and others. However, sometimes, social conflicts can lead to misunderstanding especially when it involves the ways in which people behaves towards one another. I am a victim of social conflict something that has made me misunderstand the core aspect of my identity. I was born in Taiwan which means that I am an Asian. However, this does not limit who I am as an individual. There have been several incidences where I found myself asking who I am as an individual. This is because of the fact that I have been moving across the world for some period of time. When I was 15 years, I lived in Canada where I schooled for a period of time. Later, at the age of 18 years, I moved to New York City where I did my IB degree. Currently, I identify myself as an Asian American since I know more about the American culture compared to the Canadian culture or Asian culture.
However, most of my social workers identify me with my appearance and not who I am as an individual. For instance, some do call me Chinese while others even make fun of me because of my appearance regardless of the fact that I speak perfect English like them and behave like them. They simply assume that I have different culture and belief which is not similar to them. There are some who even try to explain things to me as if I do not understand what they are saying yet I am fully aware of the American culture and language. The fact that they do not accept me as an American Asian makes me feel horrible about who I am. Most of the times, I try to ignore them in order to not cause any kind of problems.
As a social worker, my advice to a client who finds himself in the same situation where they are being judged by their appearance making it hard to understand their identity is that they should simply ignore them. It is always good to have a positive attitude towards everything because it is the only way in which they can achieve what they want. These personal experiences might also be affecting some of the clients especially the ways in which they interact with me. There are many incidences whereby some clients look at me like I am a stranger who cannot understand their needs because they see me as a Chinese. Most of the time, I welcome the clients with a smile and try to speak to them. When they hear the way I talk, most of them develop confidence in me promoting good communication and understanding. However, there are some clients who are full of prejudice and the ways in which I deal with them is by avoiding their attitude. I try as much as possible to speak to them and understand their problems. My role is not to try to explain who I am as an individual, but to help people as a social worker