Ethno-Compassion

Cultural integration is like a passage of space in-between.

There are several terms used in Social Work to explain the importance of culture, tradition, history, folklore and language. As a child of parents who immigrated to Canada from Italy following World War II, I am very familiar with the struggles of new Canadians settling in a foreign country without one or both dominant languages. Of course, we learned English and some conversational French at school. Our parents also learned English to communicate with new neighbours and friends. Our cultural traditions and practices remained central to our new life in Toronto. These early experiences were foundational to my professional life as Social Worker and Academic. This highly personal experience as “others” is viscerally familiar. The expectation to appropriately translate words, read signs, and express ourselves with less passion, exuberance, and joy was an ongoing struggle for me. I worked to help bridge two worlds without ever compromising my parents, or my own, sense of respect, dignity, and intelligence. Sometimes, an accent, especially a heavy one elicits surprising responses. The view that people are rude if they raise their voice or speak in a demanding tone in an effort to be better understood is one such example. In the early 1990’s, popular social work theories included culturally and multiculturally sensitive social work practices. The view that people had implicit knowledge, rituals, traditions, and values related to their own cultural heritage was a starting place for clinical social workers. The view that people invited you to understand their cultural perspectives and practices was highly valued as both protective and progressive at that time. In my view, it is not possible to understand a person’s emotional sense of self without positive regard and affirmation for one’s culture, ethnicity, or race. Ethno-compassion seems to express these concepts best, especially when working with newcomers and second generation Canadians. Lisa Romano-Dwyer PhD, RSW

Perseverance

Visualizing your goals helps to ensure success !

Perseverance is a key attribute of success. It is the resolve to get something done. Reflective practitioners develop a set of professional goals and work to achieve these with the support of colleagues and friends. Social Workers have a variety of effective practice-approaches for use with people. Some approaches are effective with certain identified problems, people, and events, and others are not. Developing a sophisticated clinical repertoire occurs over several years and in a variety of settings where social work is offered. It is common to resonate with and develop approaches that more easily fit with your own perspectives, values, cultural beliefs, and folkloric traditions. Clinical discretion is often a theoretical melange of the personal, the political, and the other. Professional and personal values are able to co-exist well in social work without conflict. The other here refers to a client system consenting to intervention, and not to a particular person or population per se. There is no way to expunge the clinician from the clinical work at hand. In fact, a clinical social worker is a mediator or tool through which substantive work happens. It is this very point that makes social work an intense profession that requires clinical supervision and a thoughtful philosophy of care. Social work is a discrete profession that recognizes the importance of people in the work. Building a healthy boundary for this important emotional work to happen is a vital social work role as it provides the strong base upon which people are able to work through their own healing.

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Achieving your goals

Once graduating from a post-secondary institution with a diploma or degree in social work, your career begins. Similar to constructing a building, each year in social work inspires new professional goals, aspirations, and dreams. Social Workers engage in continuous professional learning that enhances work with people.

In Ontario, the OCSWSSW refers to this shared practice standard as our collective engagement in a continuing competence program https://www.ocswssw.org/the-continuing-competence-program/general-information-ccp/

As reflective practitioners in private practice and otherwise, it is also been my experience that excellent clinical social workers are most likely to stay abreast of cutting edge techniques, newest theories, and evidence-informed approaches. We are often seeking professional development opportunities that provide a healthy balance of theory and practice. Much like passing a driver’s license exam, social work involves the gradual development of skills, techniques, and practices founded on a confluence of theory borrowed from sociology, cultural anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, and medicine. Over time, social workers achieve both technical and clinical goals that build unique approaches to care. In my view, clinical approaches are less formulaic, exacting, or precise than purely technical ones. In the early days, we spoke of ourselves in terms of clinicians as artists and not technicians. It was a way to clearly delineate social work from other counselling professions that relied more heavily on surveys, self-report questionnaires, and formal assessment tools. Enigmatic philosopher Gadamer refers to the art of healing in medical care, thereby supporting the view that there is more to technique when providing direct care to people seeking therapy. Have you thought about your new year practice goals this year? What do you plan to do differently from last year if anything? What are some of the ground level professional experiences that have helped you to get to where you are today?

#socialwork #therapy #professionaldevelopment #competency #continuousimprovement #certification #philosophy of care #clinicianas artist #philosophyofcare #gadamerianphilosophy