Socw 6456 - Addressing Ethical Issues

Addressing Ethical Issues: Case Study #1

February 11, 2018

SOCW 6456

Cassandra Brock

        Culture refers to defining and distinguishing a person that includes his or her ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, language, values, goals, and life experiences (Murphy, 2008). Therefore, understanding cultural considerations are crucial a social worker and his or her counseling approach and the effectiveness of it. Being aware of our client's culture identity will help us better serve our clients, and find the appropriate resources to help them. Working effectively with different cultures is a necessary skill for social workers especially when working with anyone in a culturally diverse environment.

        There are several steps you can take to work effectively with people from different cultures as a social worker. Becoming self-aware is important because you need to watch your words and actions, what words may seems appropriate to you may not be a cultural norm to another person. It may take a while for you to get used to working with people from different cultures therefore you have to use patience. When working with a different culture the perspective maybe different because of the cultural differences and you need to be careful of sending the wrong message to your client.

        The case that I chose for this assignment is of Nitin and Priya. Nitin and Priya are first generation Indian-American immigrant. There son was raised in the United States. They do not want to participate in therapy but has been compliant for their son’s sake. The way their son views the issue is that they are being overly controlling in his choices of college. He wants to go to a certain school for arts, but his parents want him to go to a different one for science, religion, or some thing of that sort. Some ethical issues that are present in this case study are arguing over which college their son wants to attend and telling him it is not part of who he is.

        Social workers should have a knowledge base of their clients’ cultures

and be able to demonstrate competence in the provision of services that are sensitive to clients’ cultures and to differences among people and cultural groups (NASW, 2008). As a social worker working with this family, I would first need to learn about the Indian-American culture and what a caste system is. Social workers continually strive to increase their professional knowledge and skills and to apply them in practice. Social workers should aspire to contribute to the knowledge base of the profession (NASW, 2008).