Overcoming Assumptions

One of the things that I love about the Twin Cities is how culturally diverse it is. And not only are the Cities culturally diverse, they also lack the extreme racial segregation of some of their neighbor cities in the Midwest. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau published a report on racial segregation a few years back and six out of the top ten most segregated cities in the U.S. were right here in the Midwest. Minneapolis-St. Paul didn't make that list, but Milwaukee landed itself in the number one spot (for those interested, the others were Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Newark, Cincinnati, Buffalo, NYC, Chicago and Philadelphia). So for me, living in a neighborhood where I can see a young black man walking down the street without automatically wondering, "What is he doing here?", is a breath of fresh air.

Yet, living and working in a multicultural environment also means that sometimes I'm confronted with things that I don't understand, or things that make me feel uncomfortable. I'm grateful for that, because those experiences help me to become more self-aware. Through confronting our feelings about certain issues, we are able to examine them, understand them and hopefully move on. One of the things that I've had to come to terms with over the past year is my feelings in regards to the veiling of women. Minneapolis-St. Paul, as many of you know, has an extremely large Muslim population, mostly due to the large number of Somali immigrants. In fact, Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the United States. Many of the Somali women living in the Twin Cities follow the practice of wearing the "hijab" -- the traditional head covering. For a long time, I held the sentiment that women who wore head coverings were oppressed and must not be very intelligent. Because from my ethnocentric point of view, a liberated and intelligent woman would never choose to cover herself like that. Then I moved here. There were four or five Muslim women that I served with in AmeriCorps, all of them wearing some form of a headscarf. As I got to know these women, I had to set aside my assumptions because I realized that they were extremely smart, funny and strong individuals. Almost all of them were college educated, most spoke at least three different languages ...

Now at Wellstone, I am having a similar experience. When I attended the very first staff meeting I was shocked to meet two staff members (AmeriCorps volunteers in fact) who were wearing the full veil. One of them has a space for her eyes, but the other has a veil covering her entire face. I had never seen this in person before. I had thought that you had to go to Afghanistan to see something like that. My next assumption was, "Oh, well they must be recent immigrants." Then I spoke with one of them and discovered that she had no accent, implying that she obviously has lived here for most of her, if not her entire, life. So suddenly I find myself going through the same thing over again. I had made my peace with the hijab, but now suddenly here's this burqa. Is there really a difference? Theoretically I don't think so. In terms of interaction, I am having to work on my feelings of discomfort that arise when I am speaking with someone with a veil completely covering her face. In our culture we are so used to looking people in the eyes when we speak with them. You don't realize how important this is until you are speaking with someone and you can't actually see their face. It feels very strange. But I'm working on it.

The best thing, I think, is to be aware of our feelings. In our efforts to be "politically correct" and "culturally competent", so often we want to pretend and tell ourselves that we aren't uncomfortable. But there is no shame in admitting discomfort or confusion. I'm not saying that it's necessary to go up to someone and tell them that they make you uncomfortable. I'm simply saying that it's good to process our feelings about things, or talk to a friend about it. Mira and I were just talking tonight about the veil issue, which is what prompted me to write this blog entry. Once we process our feelings we can begin to make an actual effort to overcome those feelings. If we're never really honest though, we'll never be able to get past it.

What's the point of cultural competence -- of understanding and accepting practices that are different than our own? Some people get confused and think that it means we have to agree with everything. I don't have to agree with the practice of wearing the hijab to be respectful and accepting of the women who wear it. I don't agree with the theology behind separating men and women, and I'm sure that I never will. However, I was raised in a progressive, fairly secular manner. It's not fair for me to judge other people based on my own cultural values. It's not right for me to view those women as oppressed. It's all about looking at the world and other people from a strengths perspective, rather than a deficits perspective. When we accept others' differences, we are able to see their strengths. When we focus on the differences, we get stuck there and we end up judging. And when we judge people we miss out on important opportunities to learn, to understand, to form friendships and to love.

Article worth reading:

Twin Cities: Vibrant with Diversity

Fun Fact of the Day

I'm learning so much these days, and I've decided that I'd like to share some of these learnings with all of you. So from time to time you can expect these "Fun Fact of the Day" (FFOTD) posts. Since social work involves a lot of trauma and psychopathology and other sadness, these "fun" facts might not really be that fun. For that I apologize. But hopefully they'll always be interesting!

My first FFOTD involves the effects that trauma has on the body's stress response system. Normally when we undergo a great deal of stress or anxiety, our body's stress response system releases hormones (such as adrenaline, cortisol, etc.) that create a number of physiological changes. This is typically known as the "fight or flight" response, in which the body prepares itself for action. One of these changes is an increase in heart rate. Now the interesting fact has to do with a study done on a group of Branch Davidian children -- survivors of the infamous incident that occurred in Waco, Texas. It was discovered that the group average for resting heart rate was 134. An adult's resting heart rate can be expected to be between 60-80 (even lower for those who are very physically active). In children it is higher, but a group average could be expected to fall between 80 and 90. Again, the group average for the traumatized children was 134. Think about how "at rest" you would feel if your heart rate was 50 beats per minute higher than normal.

Here's the "take away" message from this fun fact: Children under chronic stress have a good reason to act agitated or aggressive. Their bodies are in constant states of arousal, which makes it difficult for them to behave in manners that we would consider "appropriate." Many times children living in poverty or in violent communities or other stressful situations can be aggressive, poorly behaved, etc. Is it really any surprise? They are in a constant state of "fight or flight". But what is our natural reaction to their behavior? Punishment and words such as "You know better than that!" Really, they don't know better. They're doing the best that they can to survive. I'm not saying that the solution is to allow poor behavior to continue, but we can't just punish it and expect it to go away. What needs to happen is that traumatized children have to be taught different strategies. For example, a clinical social worker who is working with a traumatized kiddo who hits when another child gets into their personal space might say, "It seems like you were trying to tell Susie that she was getting too close to you. That was a good try, but that doesn't work. It doesn't work because it's not okay to hit other people. Let's think of some different ways that you could have communicated that to Susie." Now this isn't going to automatically fix things. It takes training and practice. The child literally needs to learn new responses, responses that don't come naturally to him.

I wanted to start out by sharing this particular subject because it relates really well to some of the work that I will be doing this year. A lot of the kids I will be working with at Wellstone have poor emotional regulation and get very easily aroused. One of our jobs is to work with those students to teach them strategies for regulating themselves and for being successful in the school environment. At different points in time I'll try to write some entries with case examples, so you can understand some of what I'm doing. But first I wanted to give you all some rationale for our intervention methods. So I hope you enjoyed the first ever FFOTD! I'll try to throw in some less depressing ones from time to time as well :)

Camp Fire USA

If you haven't read my past three posts ("I'm back!", "School days" and "Wellstone") then head on down and read those first!

So since most of you knew about my job interview and prospective position as a youth club leader with Camp Fire USA, I thought I better address that. The interview went really great, and I think that they really wanted me as a leader. However, the trouble was finding sites for me that would fit with my schedule (which was admittedly limited). So I am not going to be working with Camp Fire. However, after having started school and my internship, I think it's probably a good thing that I didn't get the position because I just don't know how I would have managed it. I am having a hard enough time now.

Once I realized how crazy my schedule is already, I went and looked over my budget and finances. My financial aid, alongside the extra money I bring in each month from tutoring and baby-sitting, is definitely going to be enough to cover me for the semester. I'm going to have to stick to my budget, but I should be just fine. So right now I'm going to focus on school and my field work. I still have my Saturday night baby-sitting job with Paxton. Last week I started up my tutoring job again, which is just an hour every Thursday. That's with a now 6th grade boy named D'Angelo, for those who aren't already familiar with that position.

Next semester I might look to pick up another few hours of work somewhere, but for now I think I have enough on my plate already.

Wellstone

If you haven't read my previous two posts ("I'm back!" and "School days"), scroll on down and read those first!

As everyone knows by now, my field placement for the year is at Wellstone Elementary School in downtown St. Paul. I'm working with the school social worker, Julianne. I started on August 31st, with the first staff meeting and then had my first official day as an intern on Wednesday, September 9th. As the year proceeds, I'll speak more on my official duties. For now I'll just go over the basics.

First of all, Wellstone is a K-6 magnet school. The magnet is "basic skills", so the focus is on math and reading proficiency. There are about 650 students. About 40% are African American and African (mostly Somali), 40% Latino, 15% Asian and 5% Caucasian and other. One of the reasons we have so many Latino students is that we have dual immersion classrooms at every grade level, where the primary instruction is in Spanish. Another important thing to note is that about 90% of our students are in the free and reduced lunch program. So the poverty level is pretty high among the student population. We have a high number of kids in Special Ed and with IEPs (Individualized Education Program). The kids that we work with are ones with social work services on their IEPs.

Some of the things that I will be doing this year are working with groups. So far Julianne and I have had our first 5th grade boys group and 6th grade girls group. I'll also be helping with the dog therapy program (more on that another time). I'll be learning how to do IEPs, functional-behavioral assessments, etc. I'm also going to get a handful of students that I'll eventually be doing individual work with. For now I'm working with Julianne, learning how she does things and learning about the students and the school. I have my own office space as of last week, so I've been working on getting my materials together and getting settled in. I'm there two and a half days a week: all day Monday and Wednesday and Friday in the morning.

I think it should be an amazing learning experience!

School days

If you haven't read my previous post (I'm Back!), scroll down and read that first!

Yes, my classes have begun! September 8th was the official first day of class. I started up on the 10th, with a full day of class. I have two classes every Thursday: (1) Advanced Practice with Children & Adolescents for three hours in the morning and (2) Program Evaluation for two hours in the afternoon. Every other Thursday I have a forty-five minute field seminar between the two.

Children & Adolescents is taught by the wonderful Anne Gearity, who is a clinical social worker in independent practice. She also is a consultant for the day treatment program at the Washburn Center for Children (where Mira works). I had heard wonderful things about her from Mira, who took her class last year. So far she seems like an excellent instructor, with a lot to teach. This class basically focuses on child and adolescent development and how to work effectively with that population based on principles of development.

Program Evaluation is taught by David Hollister, who is a very nice man, very well-versed in the area of evaluation. This course focuses on teaching us how to create and complete an evaluation for a program within an agency or organization to see whether or not it is effective.

I also have class on Saturday morning for three hours. That class is called Resilience and Risk and is taught by Jane Gilgun. Resilience and Risk is focused on child psychopathology. It looks at what are the risk factors in childhood and adolescence, and also what are the protective factors. In other words, how can we work with children to overcome their risks and pathologies?

My last class is Monday nights for two hours. Advanced Practice with Diverse Populations is taught by Oliver Williams. He has both an M.S.W and a Master's in Public Health (M.P.H.) and is the director for the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community. This class is fairly self-explanatory. I am hopeful about this class. In our first session, the instructor noted that he was tired of focusing on the philosophical aspects of diversity and cultural competence and that it was time to move on to the practical. So we are supposedly going to focus on application of principles of diversity.

So far things are going pretty well. The reading has been pretty manageable, and overall very interesting. I just completed my first paper, a cultural competency self-assessment and agency assessment for my Diversity class. Overall, I'm really happy with how the program is going, and am already learning a lot!

I'm back!

Sorry for the serious lack of blogging over the past couple of weeks. So much happened at once and I got overwhelmed by the idea of having to write it all. Then, as often happens in life, things continued to happen, thereby creating even more things that I wanted to write about. But if I don't start now, it's never going to happen. So to make things seem more manageable for myself, I'm going to break this up into several smaller posts centered around common themes. That way it can be more organized and easy to follow as well. So look for the following posts, coming very soon (possibly by the time you've read this!):

School days
Wellstone
Camp Fire USA

As well as anything else I might think of along the way.

Thanks everyone for your love and support :)