Strengths Based DMC Curriculum

1. Strengths Based DMC Curriculum Patricia Parker, CSW Presenter National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice University of Iowa School of Social Work 100 Oakdale Campus, W206 Oakdale Hall Iowa City, Iowa 52242 Phone: 319/335-4965 Email: pa_parker@msn.com

2. Definition of Competence “Competence” implies having the capacity to function in a particular way, to have skills, to have a level of mastery in a situation. It is something to be achieved. This is why the word “competence” is preferred to the more passive terms of “awareness” and “sensitivity”. The Levels of Understanding: • Cultural Awareness is knowledge-based. • Cultural Sensitivity is feeling/attitude-based. • Cultural Competence is behavior/skill-based.

3. Defining Culture, Race and Ethnicity Working definitions of culture are: • A set of coping skills and survival strategies that have evolved over time to help a group of people transact successfully within their environment or • A way of life in society, consisting of prescribed ways of behaving or norms of conduct, beliefs, values, and skills.

4. Culture cont. • Culture includes: institutions, language, values, religion, ideals, habits of thinking, artistic expressions, patterns of social and interpersonal relationships, community, roles, food, heritage, history... While many cultures are related to race/ethnicity, others are related to other social variables such as profession (e.g., social work), job (e.g., child welfare), hobbies (e.g., snowboarding), socioeconomic status (e.g., poverty), sexual orientation (e.g., gay), and countless others

5. Race • Race is a biosocial construct andrefers to the way a group of people defines itself or is defined by others as being different from other human groups because of assumed innate physical differences. • It is based on an anthropological concept used to classify people according to physical characteristic, such as skin and eye color, and shape of the head, eyes, ears, lips and nose (Bennett, 1986).

6. Ethnicity Ethnicitygenerally describes groups in which members share a cultural heritage from a geographic region. • Ethnicity is based on national origin, religion, and/or race. Attributes associated with ethnicity include: • Group image and sense of identity derived from contemporary cultural patterns (e.g., values, behaviors, beliefs, and language) and a sense of history; • Shared political and economic interests; and • Membership that is involuntary, although individual identification with the group may be optional.

7. Elements of a Strength-based Service Approach • Non-deficit and Asset Building • Identifying and Assessing Strengths • Identifying and Assessing Culture and it’s Effect on Family Functioning • Solution Focused Philosophy and Skills

8. Focus Change in Context of Family and Community Two suggested approaches: • Ecological or Eco-systemic Perspective • Understand and know the child in the context of his/her family • Identify stake holders and support from the child’s community • Ethnographic Approach • Assessing the child’s strengths and needs from a cultural anthropological perspective

9. Uri Bronfenbrenner’s Human Ecological Development

10. Uri Bronfenbrenner Eco-systemic View of Children(1986) • A child's micro-system includes family, friends, teachers, coaches, and other persons important to the child. • Meso-system factors include the parents' workplace, parents' friends, and teachers' colleagues and supervisors. • Exo-system is composed of the institutions and organizations in the community that are relevant to child development, such as child care or educational institutions. • Macro-system comprises the mores, beliefs, and values of a society that influence child and family life.

11. The Ethnographic Perspective (J. Clark 2004) Ethnography is a social science method developed within cultural anthropology for studying communities in natural settings. “…ethnography and social work practice espouses a surprisingly similar goal: to understand the human experience as it is lived, felt and known by its participants (Goldstein 1994)

12. Historical Use of Ethnography Anthropologist use an ethnographic approach : • In 1852; Congress commissioned a report on the circumstances and prospects of Indian tribes in the United States • the New Deal; anthropologists in the U.S. Department of Agriculture examined the problems of rural poverty and the relationship of farming to community viability. • During World War II; institutes at universities were established across the country to teach foreign service officers, military personnel, and others regional history, language, culture, society, and politics relevant to national defense and U.S. participation in global affairs.

13. Ethnographic techniques are used to • define an issue or problem when it is not clear, when it is complex, or when it is embedded in multiple systems or sectors; • identify the range of the problem’s settings and the participants, sectors, or stakeholders in those settings who are not known or who have not been identified • explore the factors associated with the issue or problem in order to understand and address them or to identify them when they are not known; • describe unexpected or unanticipated outcomes; • design measures that match the characteristics of the target population, clients, or community participants when existing measures are not a good fit.

14. Cultural Competent Practice Beliefs • Families are diverse and have the right to be respected for their special ethnic, cultural, religious and other traditions • Practice and services are delivered in a manner that strengthens the family’s identity • Child-rearing patterns are influenced by cultural norms and mores • Every culture has positive attributes as well as challenges

15. “The road to cultural competence begins with an understanding of your own personal and professional cultural awareness” Don Lum, 2003(p. 75).

16. Cultural Identities History-Heritage American-Ethnic Cultural Identifications Secondary Groups Identifications Primary Groups Identifications Self/Family Micro-System Meso-system Exso-system Macro-system Chrono-system

17. Chrono-Systemic (Historical) Events Ethnic Cultural Identities SecondaryGroup Identities Primary Group Identities Family System Culture Group Identities

18. Exercise Cultural Group Identity • Complete the Cultural Group Identity graph on yourself. • Divide in groups • Choose a scribe/reporter • Share your graphs and the criteria you use to make your choices with your cohort. • The scribe will keep a list of the criteria use in by the members in each cohort . • The scribe will report your cohort’s list of criteria with the class.

19. What do I need to know about client families in the communities where I work? • What cultural groups live in your city? • What are the history of those group? • How have they survived and thrived? • What were their challenges? • How did they define them? • How did they over come them? Adapt? Change? • How did they define help? success? • What strategies and resources are still available to help them now?

20. DID YOU KNOW? • In 2005 • There were 69,141 African Americans in the state of Iowa (or 15,089 Families) • 58.2% increase since 1980 • The median age of AA is 27.1 for Iowa 38.6 • The median income for AA families is $29,668; for families in the state of Iowa it’s $54,971 • 59.9% of AA who rent; for Iowa 26.9% • $62, 100 median value of homes owned by AA; $82,500 for the state of Iowa • AA men earned $22,047, AA women $15, 874; for the state of Iowa; men earned $31,389 and women $20,535

21. The Green Help-Seeking Behavior ModelJ.W. Green, 1995 • The individual’s definition and understanding of an experience as a problem. • How and what is defined as a problem. • The client’s semantic evaluation of a problem • How they describe the impact of the problem on their quality of life and or daily functioning. • Indigenous strategies of problem intervention • What are socially appropriate processes. • Culturally-based criteria of problem resolution • What are acceptable solutions.

22. The Culture of the Oppressed Oppression occurs when one segment of a population keeps another segment from obtaining social, economic, political and related human rights through institutional practices and social stratification. Oppressed groups in America: • All were exploited for their land and cheap/free labor • Treaties and laws were made to block their participation in the U.S. as equal citizens • Force to live in segregated communities, given, sub-standard education, unequal employment, housing and medical care. • These social/political conditions were detrimental to their family systems forcing them to change cultural norms and roles while struggling to maintain their beliefs and values. • Equal Rights were gained through legal and social struggles.

28. Oppression in American History Ethnic Groups Institutionally Oppressed: • African Americans: • U.S. Constitution of 1787 blacks could not vote and counted in the census as 3/5 of a person. • Asian Americans: • Chinese Exclusion Act and the Alien Land Laws of the 1910s (which deprived Asians of the right to own land) also made them “aliens ineligible to U.S. citizenship “.

29. Oppression in American History • Latino/a, Chicano/a Americans: • Puerto Ricans came or were brought to the U.S as jibaros, under-paid source of labor. • Manifest Destiny; a 1925 report by the Department of Labor warned that ninety percent of Latin Americans were of Indian blood and therefore inferior to whites. • Native Americans • In 1838 U.S. government moved 5 Tribes 800 Miles from their homeland to “Indian Territory”. The journey is known as the Trail of Tears.

30. Oppression In America • Hmong Americans: • recruited by the CIA to fight for us in the once-secret wars in Laos. • U.S. government pulled out from Vietnam and left them to face genocidal extinction by the North Vietnamese

31. Conceptual Framework Of Oppressed PeopleMartin-Thomas,1988 • External Locus of Control • Crisis Centered Lifestyle • Conflict Fatigue- PTSD • Cultural Paranoia • Adapted Behaviors/Compromised Values or • Repercussions for being culturally different

32. Culture Based Conceptual Shift in Thinking: Worldview • People who have to negotiate hostile environments define the behavior, motives and actions of their oppressor different than the oppressor. • Solutions offered by the oppressor are viewed as lose-lose propositions, intended to keep them in an oppressed state. • Victimized is not the same as victim-hood • Disenfranchised people are constitutionally liable to resist the normalizing rules of their oppressor. They consciously will not participate in their own oppression. • Resistance is power

33. Rueben Hill’s Family Stress Assessment B (Resources) X CRISIS! A (stressor) C (Perception of the event)

34. Reuben Hill and I. Hamilton McCubbin’s Theories of Stress and Family

35. H.I. McCubbin’s Protective factors and Recovery Factors

36. Exercise: Identifying Protective Factors • List five challenges your life or life style presents for you. • Examples; smoking, poor eating habits, stressful living environment, over taxing work environment or schedule • List five practices, routines or activities you have developed that protects you from the harmful effects of those threats

37. Factors that can effect a family’s ability to function at their optimal level… • Risk Factors • Those life elements that put the safety, permanence or well-being of a child and their family in danger. • Protective Factors • life events, experiences, or individuals that can reduce, moderate or eliminate the effect of exposure to risk factors. • Recovery Factors • Those supportive elements that work in concert with protective factors to restore or enable families to function at their optimal level

38. A Review of the Research “Primary and secondary prevention of delinquency rest on the principle of identifying individuals and environments at risk for delinquent activity before the behavior has occurred and then either removing risk factors or strengthening resistance to the risk factors.” Edward P. Mulvey, Michael W. Arthur & N. Dickon Reppucci, The Prevention Researcher 4 (2)

39. Protective Factors and Risk Factors 1. Protective factors are life events or experiences that reduce or moderate the effect of exposure to risk factors. 2. Recent research indicates the need for a broader perspective encompassing both risk factors and protective factors. 3. Protective factors function as a buffer highlighting the interplay between risk and protective factors. 4. The severity, frequency, and duration of both risk and protective factors affect the adolescent's ability to remain resilient against substance abuse.

40. Protective Factors and Risk Factors • Risk Factors: Puts families in danger of failure and social pathologies • Pejorative across generations. • Protective Factors: Enables families to thrive in spite of socio-economic or ecological circumstances. • Produces family hardiness and resiliency. • Protective Factors: Can eliminate or balance-out the effects of risk factors. (McCubbin,,et.al 1997)

41. Examples of Risk, Protective, Recovery Factors • Risk Factors: poverty, crime, violence, addictions, domestic violence, disrupted families. • Protective Factors: employment, education, reunified family, spirituality, AA, NA. • Recovery Factors: family counseling, supportive services, financial assistance, skills training

42. Protective Factors and Behavior Mislabeled • Greater emphasis placed on communicating feelings rather than thought. Not safe (disempowering) to allow people to know your thoughts • Mis-labeled as an inability to express abstract thinking • Social savvy preferable to book smarts, i.e.: the educated fool, has a lot of useless information. • Mis-labeled as not interested in school or learning • Mean pose in children (an aggressive glare, a warning) • Self protecting stare intended to communicate the person is not an easy victim or not open to being approached for social interaction • Mis-labeled as disrespectful and threatening

43. Interviewing skills you have that will help you identify cultural influences • Interviews that; • Clarify values and beliefs • Open ended questions • Family stories about adversity, trauma or resilience • Solution focused interviewing questions • Exception questions • Coping questions

44. The Strength Based Approach In 1998, Martin Seligman, Ph.D., a resiliency researcher and then President of the American Psychological Association, stated that the entire field of psychology is moving away from the deficit approach to a strengths-based model. Resiliency in Action: Practical Ideas for Overcoming Risks and Building Strengths in Youth, Families, & Communities.Resiliency In Action, Inc., 1999.

45. Strength- Based Beliefs • Families have the ability to overcome life’s adversities, with support. • Families that can hope can also grow and change. • All families have strengths that can be identified, enhanced and valued. • Interventions must build on the assessment of strength and resources as well as needs of the family.

46. Defining Strong Families • Strong Families have a “set of relationships and processes that support and protect families and family members, especially during times of adversity and change”. • Family strengths help to maintain family cohesion while also supporting the development and well-being of individual family members.(Kids Count, 2002)

47. Strong Families • A core belief of Family Centered Practice is that “all families have strengths.” Allen,1990 • Children do better when their families do better. O’Hare,2002 • The success of our efforts to help families in crisis depends on our ability to match intervention plans with families' strengths and preferences.Van den Berg, 1997

48. The Challenges Parents Face (Figure 1)

49. Where Parents Turn For Support (Figure 4)

50. Family problem-solving communication Equality Spirituality Flexibility Truthfulness Hope Family hardiness Family time and routine Social support Health Source: H. I McCubbin, et.al, 1997 Families Under Stress: What Makes Them Strong? General Resiliency Factors