by Philip Monte Verde

This post is the beginning of a five part series on cultural responsiveness in action. For an introduction to cultural responsiveness, click here. These posts are intended to be 'strategies' we can use, but more importantly point to an improved way of thinking. While written for social workers through the lens of refugee work, the lessons, it is hoped, are appropriate for all sorts of professionals.

To access the complete series, click here.​

Collaboration

The beauty of cultural responsiveness is that it is not one directional. It is not those with power dictating what the marginalized should do, nor is it the reverse blindly true. Rather it is a synthesis of the strengths of people on both sides of the bridge.

Cultural responsiveness is a critical review of many aspects in society that adds in the knowledge of those historically not listened to, and blends it with the knowledge of those with strong existing voices.

It has been noted already how culturally responsive social workers engage with less-heard, marginalized groups, but this is only half. In the author’s experience, engagement with other groups and organizations fills in the missing half. In my city (Rochester, New York) there are no lack of groups and organizations doing work with stated or implied goals of assisting people in poverty, including refugees.

These include government run organizations (like neighborhood service centers, economic development agencies, community development agencies etc.), religious organizations, refugee specific groups, schools, health care agencies, legal assistance groups, and university run programs. These groups and organizations have done a significant amount of good.

But of course agencies can always do more. There are a number of barriers to agency success, such as limited time, resources, or local knowledge, but the author has seen how they can often be overcome with collaboration. There are at least three different approaches a social worker can take to issues around collaboration or sharing of knowledge. In addition, these approaches can be seen as blueprints for promoting cultural responsiveness more generally.

First, if a worker is in an agency that is resistant to collaboration or is just swamped in ‘cases’, they can advocate with their superiors for change. This might often lead to a degree of resistance, or outright refusal, from higher management. But the selling point is that in the long term, collaboration can lead not only to a reduced workload for the agency, but to a better quality of life in the people they serve.

Next, there are other agencies in the city or area one is working in. They may resist overtures for busyness or political reasons, but if there is one thing social workers are adept at more than other professionals it is working with resistance.

Here the community-building minded social worker can imitate a river passing through the resistance of layers of rock: Water tries many different routes through the stubborn mineral and eventually finds the smallest fraction of an opening. Through persistence that opening widens into a channel and you are through.

If contact cannot be made in other agencies with the leaders at the top, perhaps it can be made elsewhere. For example, fellow social workers at other agencies can be engaged with and encouraged to follow their own social justice instincts on their side.

Finally, there is collaboration and information sharing with agencies in other cities. We are blessed in this information age to have access to stories of success from around the country and the world. Take a specific issue as an example: through engagement, resettled refugees have mentioned that not being able to afford driving lessons leads to them not being able to pass driving tests. This of course means they cannot drive cars and are reliant on public transportation to get to job interviews or work.

A solution is to contact refugee focused agencies in other cities to see how they have overcome this issue. Do they teach refugees to drive directly, and if so how do they overcome liability issues? Have they gotten local driving schools to donate class time to the cause? The people who work at these agencies in other cities have years of accumulated knowledge, and presumably an interest in social justice broadly.

​Distance overcomes the struggle of local agency competition, and contacting numerous agencies is equivalent to water pushing through many crevices of the rock to find its opening.

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by Philip Monte Verde

This post is part of a five part series on cultural responsiveness in action. For an introduction to cultural responsiveness, click here. These posts are intended to be 'strategies' we can use, but more importantly point to an improved way of thinking. While written for social workers through the lens of refugee work, the lessons, it is hoped, are appropriate for all sorts of professionals.

To access the complete series, click here.
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Respecting Culture

The Declaration of Independence states that it is self-evident that all men are created equal. In practice, it has taken years of social strife to ensure that all Americans are truly considered equal. This has been accomplished through movements on abolition, suffrage, worker’s rights, civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and more.

The very fact that those social movements have occurred demonstrates the American appetite for equality, especially equality of opportunity. Whether equality of opportunity truly exists is beyond the scope of this article.

There is a certain arrangement of roles across gender, age, and other identities in American professional environments. Professional environments have hierarchies in order to stay efficient, and there are certainly unofficial hierarchies around class, race, and gender. But though biases remain, officially we recognize people of all ages, races, genders, sexual orientations, abilities (etc, etc) as being equal. 

Non-Western cultures may not share our exact view of equality. Many Africans view homosexuality as taboo (Mususa, 2017). Many refugees from southeast Asian countries want their children to stay close to the family rather than pursue careers that would take them away from home. In our gut, if we were raised in the American culture, we may judge people whose values are so different from ours. But to judge and to treat others differently is not responsive and it is not practical. 

Demonstrating judgement in a person’s culture is a quick way to get them to turn away from you. Social work asks us to “advance human rights and socio-economic justice.” It may be tempting to look in judgement at, for example, how many husbands in Afghan refugee families insist on gaining their consent before speaking to their wives or daughters. This urge must be resisted if one hopes to get the sort of community buy-in needed to advance human rights and socio-economic justice.

This is a sensitive subject, and the author acknowledges his white and cis-male privilege when writing about it. But to judge a non-Western group is to assume we know better than them, and that is a slippery slope to walk on.

​Above all else, fighting the culture of marginalized people is a battle waged on the marginalized side of the bridge. Advancing rights and justice requires meeting people where they are at, gaining a community buy-in, and walking arm and arm across the bridge to confront institutions of power.

References
Mususa, P. (2017). Homosexuality is still taboo in many African countries. The Nordic Africa Institute. Retrieved from: https://nai.uu.se/news-and-events/news/2017-11-17-homosexuality-is-still-taboo-in-many-african-countries.html
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by Philip Monte Verde

This post is the beginning of a five part series on cultural responsiveness in action. For an introduction to cultural responsiveness, click here. These posts are intended to be 'strategies' we can use, but more importantly point to an improved way of thinking. While written for social workers through the lens of refugee work, the lessons, it is hoped, are appropriate for all sorts of professionals.

To access the complete series, click here.
​
Humor and Engagement

The world is a serious place. While we may focus on the strengths of the communities we partner with, as empaths we are always aware of the weight that sits people. The reality is people do not tend to interact with social workers when life is going swimmingly. It is counter-intuitive in these situations, but if we are looking for strategies to mitigate harm and build on strengths, not taking life seriously is a strategy worth taking seriously.

As nonessential as it may seem, humor is an ideal place to begin a discussion on responsiveness. It cannot end injustice on its own or heal broken bones, but in many cases laughter is the best medicine. Knowingly or unknowingly, we have created many social work environments where dominance and subservience is implied.

A typical example would be a social worker in a desk chair, with papers and a computer and other accouterments that signal expertise. In front of the worker is a desk that has the function of holding said expertise accouterments, but the symbolic effect of creating a barrier. On the other side of the barrier is that person we have come to call Client. They have, generally speaking, come to your office seeking help from you. We may not see ourselves this way, but to the client our papers and computers hold solutions to their problems, making us the gatekeepers.

This can be a tense situation, especially for refugees. Refugees have had a harrowing time with authorities. Some authorities have upended their lives, some have saved their lives. The author has seen time and again people sit down in that chair across the desk with a look of uncertainty. Nothing seems to put a person, refugee or otherwise, at ease like humor.

It may be momentary, but joking lifts the weight off of people’s shoulders. Psychologically this is easy to understand; when the village is on fire, no one cracks jokes. Here are jokes, so the village must not be on fire. This is backed up in the research.

Laughter has been found to stimulate organs, decrease heart rate and blood pressure, and aid muscle relaxation (Wilkins, 2009). Another study suggested that the release of endorphins that comes with laughter acts as a natural painkiller (Dunbar et al., 2012).

Where I worked with resettled refugees for two years laughter became essentially our default way of beginning interactions. There is something beautiful about making jokes that are so simple that they can be told to people who speak limited or no English. One can follow along with people’s facial expressions, first confusion at what is happening, followed by understanding, and then laughter and relief. The tension seems to lift off like steam from boiling water.

In stupid, basic jokes we make clear that this is a place of safety and community, bridging the cultural and even language divide.

References
​Dunbar, R.I., Baron, R., Frangou, A., Pearce, E., van Leeuwen, E.J., Stow, J., Partridge, G., MacDonald, I., Barra, V., & van Vugt, M. (2012). Social laughter is correlated with an elevated pain threshold. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 279(1731), 1161-1167.
Wilkins, J., & Eisenbraun, A.J. (2009). Humor theories and the physiological benefits of laughter. Holistic Nursing Practice. 23(6), 349-354.

by Philip Monte Verde

I worry a bit about what we do or do not emphasize in our thoughts or in conversation. This may be a cognitive bias in humans, or perhaps it is just our politics coming out. But it can cause real harm and should be looked out for.

The example that sticks out most to me is the hot button topic of 'welfare fraud'. Presumably this is an actual thing that happens. Anywhere there is an availability of money or resources there is a good chance you will find someone gaming or cheating the system. Because this is a thing that happens (though I've never actually seen it), it is hard to argue against fighting it.

But we must be careful when discussing this topic with someone who is harping on it. Whether it exists or not, or what to do about it is not what we should be paying attention to. We should be asking why is this the thing that is getting emphasized?

When fraud is what is being discussed, missing is a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of welfare from the perspective of its recipients, or from a societal good. There is also the glaring point that fraud takes place at all income levels. Fraud and the stealing of taxpayer money happens in countless ways, under countless names.

Welfare fraud is emphasized not because it is a serious problem, but because it is a surface level reason for cutting welfare funding. It can cast a shadow of doubt in a reasonable person's head. Because the fraud aspect is being discussed, it makes it seem that it is a larger problem than it is. It plays on the implicit bias and fears of the middle class of the 'others' from below stealing their money and resources.

The welfare fraud debate is not meant to be a debate but a planting of the seed of lawlessness and anarchy as a legitimate fear. It is emphasized not as a policy point, but as a mind worm that crawls inside your ear and convinces you that money and power are better off sealed at the top. That those at the bottom are criminals coming for your stuff.

These emphasis biases can be found all over the place if you look for them. If we are in a negative, cynical mood, we look for evidence that confirms that the world is crap. These 'debates' prime us to be in just such a mood.

The lesson I guess is just to look out for these sort of things. To avoid getting lost in debating a point with someone, but rather ask why are we talking about this? What is going non-analyzed as a consequence? 

by Philip Monte Verde

​Previously this blog discussed the concept of cultural responsiveness. Cultural responsiveness is both a mindset and and active way to bring justice into the human world. Linked here are five strategies on how think and act in a culturally responsive way. They are based on the author's experience as a social worker partnering with resettled refugees in the United States. But their lessons can be broadly applied to wherever people interact.

For an introduction to cultural responsiveness, click here. 

Part 1: Humor and Engagement
Part 2: Respecting Hierarchy 
Part 3: Collaboration
Part 4: Listening
Part 5: Adaptability

​by Philip Monte Verde

The protests around the killing of George Floyd have brought a lot of things into the public conversation. Though first and foremost about police brutality against black people, the wider conversation involves power, biases, and inequality. Discussions about race, long taboo especially in well-meaning white communities, are being had at an unprecedented rate.

The fact that these protests and conversations are happening in the first place speak to the upheavals in culture. Long suppressed, so-called 'minority' groups are speaking louder and louder. This is a great thing, and it has implications for social work. It drives home the point that we and our organizations need to not only recognize other cultures and power imbalances, but we must seek to change our own behavior. This is done both for reasons of social justice, and to better serve and partner with others. 

The actions a social worker can take in their partnerships with people from other cultures is known as cultural responsiveness. 

Bridging the Divide 

To understand what cultural responsiveness responds to, we should picture a canyon with two sides. On one side are the people in power: government, agencies, schools, businesses, wealth, etc. On the other side are the people out of power. Those that are oppressed and marginalized, but loaded with strengths and assets. An efficient society, one with humanity running at its best, would fill the entire canyon in with steel, removing all distance, difference, and barriers. That is the ultimate goal, but to start with a bridge must be built.

Social workers, among others, are the ones that build that bridge and run back and forth. Cultural responsiveness asks us to first acknowledge that as professionals we live primarily on the power side of the canyon. It is the world we know our way around best. The pavement between the power side and the start of the bridge is smooth and well maintained, with no barriers to access.

On the opposite side, the opposite is true. The road is loose gravel at best, pockmarked with holes. Systemic racism, segregation, redlining, and dis-empowerment have made sure of this.

What does travel through to this side are primarily service delivery ‘trucks’. Many have tried to send community development ‘vehicles’ in, but their success has been relatively limited. We all know of success stories, but these rags to riches tales are usually the exception, and often a narrative pushed in order to promote the 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' fallacy.

Cultural responsiveness critiques the bridge; it is what points to the ground and says “the divide can not be repaired because the people cannot get across the bridge.”

Community Partnership

Theories of cultural responsiveness emphasize the need to demonstrate and build, communicate, and respond. To demonstrate and build, in our metaphor, would be to seek permission to set up camp on that other side of the bridge. This shows people that you do care deeply about their well-being beyond mere survival, and builds trust by validating peoples’ culture and strengths (Gay 2002). Vitally, permission to demonstrate and build must be granted by the community, rather than imposed on them.

Next comes cross-cultural communications. Social workers are carriers of messages from the power side. But these messages were historically crafted by those whose primary experiences occurred on the power side, and are not always well-received or clearly articulated. It is up to social workers as the bridge runners to adjust our communication, not the responsibility of the ‘recipients’.

Adjusting ourselves to communicate cross-culturally has an additional benefit. In the process we shift away from the expert-client relationship of telling into a more egalitarian relationship that includes listening. Cross-cultural communication does not just mean learning the words of a language, but beginning to understand a person and a community’s “ways of knowing, being, and doing” (Green, Bennett, & Betteridge, 2016, para. 7).

Demonstrating caring, building trust, perfecting cross-cultural communication, these are all ways of responding. We have crossed over to the other side of the bridge and will necessarily return to the power side changed. We return with knowledge of the culture and strengths of the people we met.

We have thought critically and reached conclusions on how the services that those on the power side would like to transport over can be delivered with efficiency. But more importantly than that, culturally responsive social work labors along side the community to fill in the pot holes, erode the barriers, and pave the way for those on the ‘other’ side to access the power side.

References
Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education. 53(2), 106-116.
Green, S., Bennett, B., Betteridge, S. (2016). Cultural responsiveness and social work – a discussion. Social Alternatives. 35(4), 66-72.
Monte Verde, P. (2020). Culturally Responsive Social Work with Refugees. (Unpublished master's thesis). Nazareth College, Rochester, New York.

by Philip Monte Verde

So much of my thinking generally is in support of I don't know. Yes, to be sure, I like to critique and note where ideas and practices fail. And no, I do not usually fill that newly created gap with new answers. Perhaps you could argue "what good are you doing then Philip? Others are out here trying, what are you adding by tearing down?"

I don't know, and that is ok. Individual solutions don't have to be up to me nor, and this make come as a relief, up to you. It may feel like there is pressure to have an answer, but that is in your head. We are a world of nearly eight billion, if you or I do not have the solution, there are others who can take a stab at it.

This is why I believe strongly in ideas like cultural responsiveness and diversity of thought. It's not just that it is 'fair' to let other people lead fulfilling lives, but that we reap benefits when they do. Bringing in additional perspectives from other cultures has been shown time and again to lead to the answers that I or you personally do not have. It is a way to curb group think, and freshen up old ideas.

I do not know the answer to the many serious questions that exist now and those that are opened up by new critique. But someone does, or even better, a group of someones can figure them out. Rather than answer the questions, I would prefer to facilitate environments where diversity of thought can emerge.

Questionable decision making in the past has come back to haunt us in many serious ways. Those decisions were often made by a narrow body of people. Opening up to new answers and new ways of doing things is I don't know, maybe the answer?