Self-Assessment Quiz Question #9 Multicultural perspectives in providing healthcare include all of the following EXCEPT: a. Provides opportunities for two persons from the same cultural perspective to disagree wherein one is right and the other is wrong. b. Takes a broad view of culture by recognizing variables. c. Uses methods and strategies and defines goals constituent with life expectations. d. Views behaviors as meaningful when they are linked to culturally learned values. Mental and behavorial health professional roles Culturally humble clinicians need to work toward understanding themselves and their patients within the context of privilege, oppression, and marginalization. A healthcare professional’s work engages patients as equal partners and addresses social inequalities and injustices on institutional and societal levels. The culturally humble healthcare professional sees their role in the provision of “therapeutic interventions” and addresses systems that serve to oppress marginalized communities to promote optimal well-being for patients, communities, and society. The healthcare professional can fulfill many roles. Because multicultural patient care is closely linked to the values of social justice, the need for a social justice orientation in patient care is apparent (Sue & Sue, 2021). Social justice counseling is defined as a philosophy and professional action to change societal conditions that eliminates disparities and provides equity of access and opportunity for disadvantaged or marginalized groups in areas such as education, healthcare, and employment which have a significant impact on quality of life (Sue & Sue, 2021). The social justice perspective requires healthcare professionals to assess and intervene with a perspective that balances the individual patient and the system(s) in which the patient is experiencing difficulties (Sue & Sue, 2021). The healthcare professional can act as advocate and actively speak with and, when necessary, for members of populations who are oppressed by the dominant society. These populations are confronted with institutional and societal oppression. Healthcare professionals can also be effective as “change agents” working to transform oppressive features of the institutional and societal environments. Rather than attributing patient problems to Institutional and societal accountability: Social justice Healthcare delivery takes place within and reflects the larger culture. Although healthcare delivery can certainly aid in the wellness of patients, it does not occur in a vacuum. Wellness cannot be achieved when social injustice is present. Traditionally some healthcare professionals may have considered issues of social justice outside the realm of their practice; however, if social justice is relegated to a select few, oppression will flourish and efforts to heal communities will be blocked. The healthcare professional practicing within a social justice framework would not locate the problem within the individual but would look to the environmental factors that contribute to the actions and reactions of the individual (Sue & Sue, 2021). Social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities. Social justice depends on economic justice. Proponents of social justice explain that there must be fair and compassionate distribution of economic growth. Social justice requires that all persons be provided with access to what is good for the person and in associations with others.
individual deficits, the healthcare professional works with the patient to identify external contributors to the problem and to remediate the consequences of oppression. Further, critical self-reflection in the context of cultural humility includes analysis of power differentials and how those differentials may play out on both individual and institutional levels (Fisher-Borne et al., 2015). Practicing with cultural humility suggests that healthcare professionals go beyond the confines of their offices to address differences in power and privilege that affect patients in very tangible ways. Mental and behavioral health professionals need to be self- aware and realize that patients react positively to healthcare professionals who display personal warmth, authenticity, credibility, and respect and who strive for human connectedness. Practicing with cultural humility provides the following. A promising alternative to cultural competence . . . as it makes explicit the interaction between the institution and the individual and the presence of systemic power imbalances. It further calls upon practitioners to confront imbalances rather than just acknowledge they exist. Cultural humility challenges us to ask difficult questions instead of reducing our clients to a set of norms we have learned in a training or course about “difference.” We believe that asking critical questions . . . challenge our own practice as well as our organizations and institutions and will provide a deeper well from which to approach individual and community change and effective long-term practice (Fisher- Borne et al., 2015, p. 177). According to the principles of social justice, all people have a personal responsibility to work with others to design and continually perfect societal institutions for both personal and social development (DeBlaere et al., 2019). It is imperative that healthcare professionals ask themselves key questions that facilitate the acquisition of social justice. Examples of such questions include the following (adapted and updated from Fisher-Borne et al., 2015, p. 176): ● How do my behaviors within patient interactions actively challenge any power imbalances and involve communities experiencing marginalization? ● How, as healthcare professionals, do we address inequalities? ● How am I extending my responsibility beyond individual patients? ● How am I advocating for policy and practice changes at institutional, community, state, and national levels? ● What institutional structures are in place that address inequalities?
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Book Code: SWUS1525
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