Evolving Demographics and the Helping Professions

(6 CEUs in Cross-Cultural Practice for Full Day; 3 CEUs for the Half-Day Course) Course Description This course picks up on and continues from the concluding points of the two other half-day Cross-Cultural Practice workshops in this program. The central topic is the unfolding change in the cultural composition of the United States and how this change informs the work of those in the helping professions. While all three courses are offered as, and indeed are, distinct and stand-alone courses, they are also natural complements to one another.

People in the helping professions see working for positive social change, which includes addressing the causes and effects of oppression, as a significant part of their mission. With that in mind, this course focuses on the ways in which evolving demographics in the United States and beyond inform this mission. Culture, economic status, language, and the like inform the access of people to essential resources such as affordable housing, education, and health care, and the effects the challenges of access are further informed by the unfolding changes in the cultural composition of America.

An enhanced understanding of this connection between culture, emerging demographics, and access to resources can only strengthen the powers of practitioners of the helping professions to meet the needs of clients and to address social problems. With this in mind we will continue to pay particularly close attention to how an improved understanding and appreciation of clients’ cultural and social backgrounds, as well as societal attitudes towards these backgrounds and to the emergence and growth of particular communities, can further enhance the ability of the helping professional to effectively meet clients’ needs and to address broader social challenges.

Learning Objectives

Participants who complete this course should be able to:

• Identify and explain various kinds of diversity among people

• Articulate the shared understanding in the helping professions of the nature and value of diversity in people, as expressed in the NASW Code of Ethics

• Discuss the emergence and growth of particular communities and of societal attitudes towards such emergence and growth

• Identify ways in which an understanding of culture can help those in the helping professions to better serve client populations, in a variety of settings

• Give examples of the effects of cultural diversity on access to essential resources such as affordable housing, education, and health care

Course Outline

I.    Introduction

A.  Keynote: No longer a majority by 2050

B.  The official stand of the profession on cultural diversity, as expressed in The Code of Ethics of the NASW

C.  Changing demographics: two examples

II.    Culture, evolving demographics, and access to resources: some general issues

A.  Evolving demographics, evolving needs

B.  Diversity of needs

C.  Communication by clients of specific concerns

D.  Culture-bound challenges and variations in prevalence of specific concerns (includes DSM-IV-TR appendix)

E.   Discrimination, then and now

F.   Acceptance, tolerance, and welcoming

G.  The significance of language, vocabulary, and terminology

H.  Adjustments in all quarters

 III.   Understanding and welcoming demographic change

A.  Familiarization (with an illustration from DSM-IV-TR)

B.  Removing the myths

C.  Critical thinking about culture and evolving communities

D.  Empathy

E.   Awareness of commonality

F.   Addressing suspicion, mistrust, and fear

IV.   Beginning to remove barriers to access to essential resources

            A.   Communication and its facilitation: three pathways

            B.   Research and experience

V.    Cultural interaction

A.  Evolving directions in public policy

B.  Two social virtues: cultural sensitivity and imagination

VI.  Concluding thought: “You can’t stop what’s coming - and why would you want to?”

Bibliography and suggestions for further reading

Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers.  Approved by the 1996 NASW Delegate Assembly and revised by the 1999 NASW Delegate Assembly.  www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp

DSM-IV-TR:  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  4^th edition, text revision.  American Psychiatric Association, 2000.

Three Special Articles in the The New England Journal of Medicine, 353:7, August 18, 2005. Online edition: http://content.nejm.org/content/vol353/issue7/index.shtml

Beauchamp, Tom L., et al, eds. Contemporary Issues in Bioethics. 7^th ed. Belmont, CA:  Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2008.

Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice:  Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982.

Hillerman, Tony. The First Eagle. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.

Kant, Immanuel. “What is Enlightenment?” In Perpetual Peace and Other Essays.  Ted Humphrey, translator. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985.

Mappes, Thomas and Jane Zembaty, eds.  Social Ethics:  Morality and Social Policy.  6^th ed.  New York:  McGraw-Hill, 2002.  See especially Chapter 5, “Pornography, Hate Speech, and Censorship”, and Chapter 7, “Social and Economic Justice”.

Nussbaum, Martha. “Judging Other Cultures: The Case of Genital Mutilation”. From Sex and Social Justice. (Oxford, 1999) Reprinted in Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau, eds. Reason and Responsibility. 13^th ed. Wadsworth, 2008.

Shanahan, Timothy and Robin Wang, eds. Reason and Insight - Western and Eastern Perspectives on the Pursuit of Moral Wisdom.  2^nd ed.  Belmont, CA:  Wadsworth (Thomson Learning), 2003.

University of Michigan News Service. “U. S. Supreme Court Rules on University of Michigan Cases”. June 23, 2003. www.umich.edu/news/Releases/2003/Jun03/supremecourt.html

David L. Prentiss, PhD

Good Thinking Works, 2009

www.goodthinkingworks.com