My choices to disscuss
Racism and colorism
Workers who are black women
Social workers engage with diverse populations and must have a professional level of cultural competence to interact respectfully with clients, such as being aware of biases in language and history. At the macro level, social workers serve as social justice advocates for vulnerable populations and collaborate with communities, organizations, and leaders to promote policy decisions to improve justice for affected groups. Advocates may participate in panel forum discussions to explore diverse perspectives in social justice issues and determine culturally informed approaches to social work practice.
As a social worker and advocate for a specific population, your agency has asked you to prepare for a social justice panel discussion focused on national-level issues. Your panel will examine the intersection between social oppression and culturally responsive social work practice for a selected population. The forum’s coordinators have shared their general questions with participating panelists to aid them in preparing for the discussion, which are listed below.
Preparation
Choose one of the following forms of systemic oppression for the focus of your panel discussion:
Racism and colorism
Homophobia, transphobia, and cissexism
Misogyny, sexism, and sexual harassment
Xenophobia
Ableism
Ageism
Choose at least one of the following examples of a population affected by the selected example of systemic oppression:
LGBTQ+
Workers who are women
African American men
Immigrants
Older adults
Adults living with a disability
Note: Identity is multilayered, so the examples noted above should not be considered mutually exclusive. You can choose, for instance, to focus on older aged members of the LGBTQ+ community or on workers who are women living with a disability.
Assessment Deliverable
Write a response to the panel prompts below in 525 to 700 words as if you were a social worker preparing for a forum discussion on national-level social justice issues for a specific population affected by systemic oppression.
Cite the course textbook and at least 2 scholarly sources in your responses.
Panel Prompts
Question 1: Answer the following in 90–175 words (Worth 40 pts):
Describe the disenfranchised or marginalized population and form of systemic oppression you chose as the focus of your research. Give 2 examples of ways that a social worker can promote social justice and collective empowerment when working with this population.
Question 2: Answer the following in 90–175 (Worth 40 points):
Explain how you might apply power and privilege as a social worker in macro-level practice with the selected population. Describe consequences of oppression that are more likely to affect the population and explain why.
Question 3: Answer the following in 90–175 words (Worth 40 points):
Explain the role of self-awareness in a social worker’s ability to recognize unconscious bias, avoid microaggressions, and promote cultural respect. Give 2 examples of microaggressions that the selected population might encounter and explain how social workers could handle each situation with cultural competence.
Question 4: Answer the following in 90–175 words (Worth 40 points):
Explain how cultural awareness and cultural humility can help promote trust and overcome barriers to culturally responsive social work practice with this population. Describe actions that a culturally responsive social worker might take to promote trust with this population. Explain how the tenets of the NASW Code of Ethics Standard 1.05 Cultural Competence apply to interculturally competent social work practice.
Question 5: Complete the following (Worth 20 points):
List APA citations for the scholarly sources cited in your responses. Following are citations for the textbook and the NASW Code of Ethics, as examples:
Austin, M. J. (2014). Social justice and social work: Rediscovering a core value of the profession. SAGE Publications.
National Association of Social Workers. (2021). NASW code of ethics. https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English
