A Final Goodbye

As the semester comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect back on the last fourteen weeks of class. Reflect on the good, the bad, the challenges, the inspirational and learning experiences I have encountered while learning about Culture and Diversity. Course content was covered in of ways; guest speaker, movies, video/TV series clips, group work, individual assignments, and class activities. The objective of this course was to expand and increase our cultural competence, to challenge ourselves to try new experiences, gain knowledge and explore of different cultural experiences, understand our own cultural background and most of all to have the ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures. Cultural competence consists of four components (1) awareness of one’s cultural worldview, (2) attitude towards cultural differences, (3) knowledge of different cultural practices and worldviews and (4) cross-cultural skills. Developing and maintaining a cultural competence results in the ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across cultures.

Second week of class, we were asked to evaluate our cultural knowledge on the “Cultural Competence Spectrum.” I evaluated myself as the third stage Minimization “underestimate differences; similarities means ‘like me’.” At the beginning of the semester, I wasn’t sure how to respond to the course, whether I liked it or if I thought it was relevant. I quickly realized and learned how important it is to understand one’s own culture and other cultures. Throughout the course, I have enjoyed learning about different cultures and the content covered in class. Fourteen weeks later, when asked to re-evaluate my cultural knowledge I have found myself at the fourth stage Acceptance “recognizes and values differences” and the fifth stage Adaptation “skilled in communicating across differences and can take on other’s view.” I am now aware of cultural differences and developed a new understanding, knowledge and the skills needed to effectively and respectfully work people of different cultures.

We started the semester off with exploring our own culture. Personally, I was excited to research on my own culture and find out more about myself. My cultural background is Italian, Irish and Canadian. For this assignment I sat down with my dad, my mom and my grandmother all individual and asked then questions to get a better understanding of my culture. Growing up I was strongly influenced by my father’s culture, Italian as he is very connected with all aspects of his culture. This assignment provided me with the opportunity to explore my Irish and Canadian culture background with my mom. Overall, this assignment helped me to understand how my culture has shaped me into the person I am today by giving me direction, understanding and insight to the person I want to be.

Our second assignment of the year was our culture group project plan and presentations. From listening to my classmates and presenting on my own cultural presentation, I had the chance to learn and increase my awareness for being a Child and Youth Worker working with people of different cultures. My group presented on Amish Canadians, and I feel that I really benefited from the learning of this culture and group experiences. With this assignment, my group faced many challenges and unfortunately some of those challenges did not get worked out. When listening to my classmates, I learned valuable information on how to work effectively with children and youth from South Asian culture, Mediterranean cultures, new Canadians, African Canadians, Biracial Canadians, Hispanic Canadians, Muslim Canadians, and Canadian Aboriginals.

In the third assignment, we were asked to create and develop a Diversity Toolkit for a Child and Youth Worker to potentially use. My group and I decided to create a toolkit for working with biracial families based on the Poston's Multicultural Identity scale. Each of us picked one of the five stages and created interventions for each stage and combined them as a final package. I found this assignment very interesting and a good learning tool. As a Child and Youth Worker, I would use the toolkit my group created when working with a biracial family.

The fourth assignment was "Beyond my Cultural Comfort Zone," where we were asked to challenge ourselves to expand our cultural competence. For this assignment we were to participate in events and projects that push us out of our “cultural comfort zone.” The objective was to engage and interact with others from backgrounds that are different from our own and to develop an awareness of the culture.  For this assignment, I attended the Annual Aboriginal Festival in Hamilton. At the Festival, I collected bags of information (Aboriginal services, Post Secondary services, Aboriginal newspapers, Healthy eating, etc.) and compiled everything I collected into a resource binder that I can use in the future. I am excited to use this resource at my new job as a Clinical Support Worker for Broken Arrow, as they work with Aboriginal Children and Youth.

The last and final assignment of the semester was to complete a required amount of blogs. Before this class, I had never blogged before. This was a new experience for me, but this was a new way to express and share my learning. I quickly found myself feeling more comfortable reflecting and sharing my learning through blogging. I have found the blogging to be fun and creative, as I have learned to include YouTube videos, pictures, website links and etc. Over the semester, I have enjoyed using the blogging technique and I hope to continue blogging or use this technique myself with a client.

This semester, we had the chance to listen to many personal experiences, stories and perspectives from our guest speakers.  Our guest speakers included; Andy Legget, co-founder of Broken Arrow Residential Treatment Services, Colleen from the DSW department, Eric and Kym from the “Say It Out Loud” group in Belleville, and Aaron Walsh from Sir James Whitney. Each speaker had their own unique experiences and stories. Andy shared his experience working with children and youth from the Aboriginal culture, Colleen talked about working with child and youth with developmental (intellectually) delayed, Kym and Eric spoke about working with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and two-spirited youths, and Aaron talked about working with the Deaf children and youth among the Deaf community. I really found the guest speakers to help increase my learning and help me develop a sense of clientele that I will potentially work with in my career as a CYW. Unfortunately, I was not able to meet or see Aaron’s presentation but my classmates shared that it was a great presentation.

Throughout the semester, our professor would read parts of the book "If the World Were a Village" by David Smith. I found this book to have a great impact on me and very powerful. The objective of this book was to teach and create an awareness surrounding poverty, mortality, food and education is different all over the world. I feel that this book was a great way to display all the research that was discovered. I found it to be a very creative and unique way to display the research and statistics in a simple way.

In reflecting of my overall experience in this class, I feel that I have truly gained a great sense of knowledge and understanding of culture and diversity. I learned how I needed to understand all aspects of my own cultural background (values, ethics, traditions, perspectives, etc.) to begin to understand and work effectively with people of another culture. I learn how significant my cultural background and values play an important role in my future as a Child and Youth Worker. I learned that understanding one’s own cultural background is a lifelong experience and we all need to keep an open mind to learn about others and their culture. It is important to respect another person’s view whether we agree or disagree.

 

In the future, I plan to continue my learning of cultural differences and diversity. I hope to encounter working with individuals and their families of different cultures to gain more experiences and practice the skills I have developed as a result of this course. I promise to my future clients of different cultures that I will do my best to establish effective and respectful therapeutic relationships with them to best support them.

                Fourteen weeks have past and I feel confident and prepared to work with child/youth and their families of different cultures. I have challenged my cultural competence and tired new experiences to work effectively with people of different cultures. Most importantly, I have learned that…

DIFFERENCES DOES MATTER!!



PRESENTATION TIME

This week in class we continued with our Culture Presentations. Over the past few weeks we have been learning about different Cultures and what we need to know as future Child and Youth Workers working with individuals and families of different cultures. As CYW we need to be aware of different cultural lifestyles to work effectively with clients and their families whose cultural background differs from our own in a respectful manner. This week we had three presentations, First Nations, Muslim Canadians and Amish Canadians which my group presented on.

Within the last year or so, my learning regarding the First Nations Culture has increased and grown dramatically. A major part of my learning on First Nations is based on content covered in class, having Andy Leggett be a guest speaker, listening to my classmates experience at Quinte Mohawk School and working with a client who is First Nations. I was eager to gain more learning from my fellow classmates who did their presentation on First Nations people. Something I found very powerful about their presentation was about the racism and stigma that Aboriginal people encounter. The group talked about what were acceptable and unacceptable names to use when addressing First Nation people. Personally, I found this interesting because growing up I was never sure of the proper way to address an individual that was Aboriginal or what to call them. This was also interesting because some of the names the group talked about that would be consider being racist towards a First Nations individual such as “savage” I have experienced Native friends in the past refer to themselves as “savage.” I was very shocked when I had that many Aboriginal individuals find that offensive. I find it interesting that it is consider racism when a non-aboriginal person to reference an Aboriginal person as a “savage” but it is acceptable for an Aboriginal person to use that term when referring to themselves. As a future CYW potentially working with Aboriginal individuals and their families we need to be aware that they may refer to themselves in terms that we have learned are not acceptable for us to use. This is something that we will have to fully understand because it may be acceptable for them to refer to themselves in those terms but as a CYW if we do, it is seen as having a stigma towards First Nations people and being racist.

Overall, the presentation on First Nation Culture contributed to my learning. I feel this was beneficial to my learning because the information I learned I will be able to apply to future work opportunities. Now that I have a better knowledge and understanding of the Native Culture I believe that I will be better able to work with clients with an Aboriginal background and respect their culture.

Also, this week my group got to present on Amish Canadians. When we picked our topics at the beginning of the semester I couldn’t picture what an Amish person was or what they looked like. I remember asking my group members “are they the people that ride bikes and dress weird in movies?” my group respond with “you don’t know who Amish people are!” After that I was eager to learn about Amish Canadians. The first thing I did was go to the school library and take out every Amish book they had to read and find information on for the presentation. Throughout the weeks, I learned a lot of interesting facts about the Amish Culture and determine the information I needed as a future Child and Youth Worker.

Throughout my research, I was really surprised about how Work and Education are perceived in the Amish Community. Many Amish families make their living off of farming and farming related activities. They teach their children from early on that work is good and that it is enjoyable. At a young age the children are given small task to develop a sense of responsibility and as they grow the tasks get bigger. Among the Amish Community it is believed that too much education cases children to become “too worthy.” The children only attend school up until grade eight and a large majority of Amish teachers only have their grade eight education. Amish parents have the right to say how much and what kind of education that their children will receive. The children attended an Amish School that is within the Amish Community and it is generally a one classroom school with JK to Grade 8. I was really shocked and amazed by the information I learned about surrounding how Amish individuals perceive Work and Education among their community.

            Overall, I learned about how unique the Amish’s Culture/Communities are and I really enjoyed this experience in learning about Amish Canadians. I feel that this presentation was very beneficial to my learning and really opened my eyes towards different cultures.

Freedom Writers

            On Friday, we focused on the topic of Racism and we watched the movie “Freedom Writers.” I had watched this movie in the past but when watching this time around I looked at it with a different perspective. I look at Ms. Gruwell’s role from the perspective of the Child and Youth Worker versus the role of a teacher. Throughout, the movie I was able to see the realization between it and everyday life. In today’s world, we are still trying to hide and cover up that racism and hate crimes still exist. We walk around like we don’t know anything because we don’t want to get involved or be the one to bring it up in fear of what others may say or do.

I found it very powerful and meaningful the way Erin Gruwell challenged herself and her students when no one believed in them. Ms. Gruwell changed her teaching styles and techniques to best suit her students. Erin always made it about her student every second of every day. She listened and respected their stories to figure out how to teach them instead of letting them fall through the cracks. Erin had success because she not to listen what everyone else said to discourage her or even what they decided her students thought about themselves. Gradually, the students started to trust and respect Ms. Gruwell and listening to what she had to say. They began to look at their life in a different way, they accepting their past but watched to make a change for the future.

Erin jumped on the chances to break through to her class when a student draws a picture of another student in the class making fun of his big lips. She labeled the similarities between the drawing and the propaganda of the holocaust. She stressed to her students that their gangs were nothing compared to the Holocaust; that the Nazis took over counties, killed everyone they did not like or that they blamed for their problems. Erin then gave her student the story of Anne Frank to show her students that gangs were not the way to go. After giving the student Anne Frank’s story Erin provided each student with a journal for them to write their own story. Personally, I feel the idea of the journals was really good because it let each student share their story without having to feel pressured or judged by sitting down one-to-one with an adult. Allowing the students to make the decision of handing in their journals or not was a good way to determine her progress with them and show their trust in her.  I feel that Ms. Gruwell empowered her students more when she had their stories published.

Overall, the students in Ms. Gruwell’s class learned to look pasted the racism and how they were raised and where able to look at each other differently. They were able to see that they were all the similar even though they had their own unique stories. The students gradually learned to love and accept one another and to help each other grow and change for the better.

Personally, I don’t understand how people define their way of life base on hate crimes and being racism. I don’t understand how people can be proud of themselves for being involved in something that continues to separates different cultures, communities and countries. How can they encourage the people around them when they know that hate crimes are not okay or socially acceptable? How can we teach people that it’s okay to judge someone based on the colour of their skin or that it is okay to exclude them? But mostly of all, why are we letting this happen and why are we not trying harder to prevent racism and hate crimes from happening? When will it stop or is it something that will continue to destroy our world one day at a time? Sometimes it only takes one person to make a change and when they do it is great, but then what happens once they are gone. To the youths in classroom 203 at Woodrow Wilson High School that person was Erin Gruwell, in 1954 it was Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” or Jane Elliott’s “Blue Eye’s Brown Eye’s” experiment. They all had a powerful message to deliver and their message impacted many people but what happen to those messages?  



            In today’s society, the biggest form of racism I feel we are faced with is the racism towards Muslim’s because of 911. Many individuals judge and assume that all Muslim’s are terrorists because the events that occurred on September 11, 2001 were the result of two Islamic individuals hijacked the planes that flew into the World Trade Centres. Since that day, we assume that every person that wears a turban is a terrorist and we shouldn’t treat them with respect because they are responsible for the thousands of people that died that day or all the Canadian Soldiers that have died since the war started in Afghanistan in 2001.We all know that it’s wrong to discriminate, judge or stigmatize people based on their culture, colour of their skin, beliefs, values, gender or even because of the clothes they wear but we do it anyways. I don’t think it is fair that we just assume that every Muslim or Islamic person is a terrorist because they were a turban.

Overall, the movie Freedom Writers had many powerful messages that I will use, learn, teach and grow from in my future as a Child and Youth Worker. I will encourage the children and youth I work with that they can be whatever they want because they aren’t where they grew up or the neighborhood they came from. That there is more to the world then what they have seen and they can move on from those experiences and grow into the person they dream to be. Encourage and teach them that no one can judge or discriminate them on the things that they have been through because everyone is different and has their own story, and only they can write the ending. I want to empower the child and youths that I work with to be the best they can be and to push themselves even when they don’t believe in themselves because at the end of the day we are all human beings and deserve a chance.

ROADTRIP!

 This past weekend, myself and a few of my classmates (Josiah, Lexi and Damon) went to a Foster Care Appreciation/Conferences for Broken Arrow. The conference was held at the Fern Resort in Orillia with special guest Jack Phelan, the “guru” of Child and Youth Care. Attending the conference was a great learning opportunity for myself. At the conference, I got to work in small groups of foster parents, teachers and staff from Broken Arrow to discuss questions and share experiences that we have encounter. Overall, I learned a lot about Broken Arrow as an agency and what they do. I learned a lot about the foster care treatment from listening to the stories that were shared by different foster parents. During the conferences, I got to listen to Jack Phelan share his experience, theory and perspectives on working in the CYW field. After the conference, I had a chance to meet with many more great individuals who are dedicated to working with children and youth in our profession that had many great stories to tell. 

Jack Phelan: Jack Phelan is a Professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton Alberta. He is known as the “guru” of Child and Youth Work and has over forty years of experience in the CYW Profession. Jack was an amazing guest speaker and through this presentation you could see how passionate he is about his work. Jack is very intelligent person and is very eager to share his experiences and listen to others experience.

Jack led group discussion by asking each group to discuss a question that he provided, questions included “Accepting care and concern from the foster family is difficult for the child. Why is this?,” “ How can you figure out how much affection is too much for the child to handle. Any examples?” and “Describe some of the things you do to create an emotionally safe environment?” In our small everyone had a chance to answer the question by sharing a personal story, experiences or their thoughts. After each group had a chance to discuss the question Jack would bring us back together and answer the question by sharing his techniques and perspective.

Foster Parents:  I felt that the foster parents at the conference were very educational to my learning and were very genuinely caring people. Through listening to them talk and share their experiences in group discussion I was able to learn more about their role as a foster parent and really appreciate the work that they do. Many of them were very open and honest when sharing their story and were open to letting us ask them questions. It was interesting to learn about the different children and youth that they have worked with and some of the techniques they have used that worked or didn’t work. I found that the foster parents that I worked with didn’t just see me as a kid and treated me as a professional in the field. They asked me questions about working in a group home and seemed very interested in my experiences.

David Connelly: David Connelly is a Professor in the Child and Youth Care program at Seneca College in Toronto. I had a chance to work with David in our small groups and found his stories and experience inspirational. When talking I could tell how passionate David is as a Child and Youth Worker. After the conference, David talked with myself and my fellow classmates and took it upon himself to introduce us to some people at the conferences. David took us to meet Jack, where we all had a chance to talk about our personal experience in the field and hear more of their inspiring words of wisdom. The words that David shared throughout the day were very empowering for myself someone starting out in the field.

Shelley Oakman: Shelley Oakman is Social Worker/Senior Case Manager and owns her own company called Tuskers Case Management Services. Tuskers is an agency that is linked with Broken Arrow that deals a lot with the paper work and placing the child. Tuskers is “Children Aid” for the Aboriginal and First Nations culture. Shelley works very closely with Andy Leggett from Broken Arrow. Shelley is responsible for finding and interviewing potential foster care families when placing a child or youth, and as part of Shelley’s job is to flies with the children to Ontario. When working in our small groups I had a chance to work with Shelley as well. Shelley was able to share her experience in the field and gave us a better understanding of exactly what Truckers and Broken Arrow are looking for in their foster parents.

Overall, I had an amazing time at the Broken Arrow Foster Care Appreciation in Orillia. I would love to send out a great Thanks to Broken Arrow and Andy Leggett for inviting us and hosting us at this event. The learning was incredible and was a very good learning opportunity. I feel that I can take a lot of the inspirational words, stories and perspectives of everyone at the conferences and apply it to my work as a Child and Youth Worker. The individuals that I meant at the conferences were genuinely kind hearted people that truly care about children and youth and improving their lives.  I really feel that we need more Child and Youth Workers like David, Jack, Shelley and Andy in our field. At the end of the day I really felt like this career is where I am meant to be and want to be. I am proud to call myself a Child and Youth Worker.

Geographic Explorer Wade Davis video on Endangered Cultures

            Last week in class (Friday, October, 15^th, 2010) our focus was on The Impacts of Cultural Misconstruction on Education. Also, we discussed our experiences at the Quinte Mohawk School Harvest Festival that the class attended on October 8, 2010. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this trip to Quinte Mohawk School but I was able to hear about the opportunities my classmates got to experience while being there. From the stories I heard it seemed like everyone enjoyed that experiences and they all had positive things to say about the School. Many students shared that they had never felt so respected or accepted by anyone else compared to how the teachers and students treated them that day. My classmates shared that they found that the trip was beneficial to their learning and understanding of the First Nations culture.

            In class, our teacher shared with us a video from the TED channel to show us different cultures around the world. We watched a video of National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis share his stories of diverse cultures he has experiences in his travels around the world living with people from Native cultures. The title of the video we watched was Endangered Cultures.

            Personally, I had to watch this video again after class to get a full understanding of the information that Wade was sharing because I found that he spoke fast. After watching the video the second time I was really able to get a good sense of how different cultures in the world view themselves and their perspective of the world. This video increased my knowledge and understanding on many different cultures in the world as I was shocked by all the different cultures there are in the world. Seeing the photos that Wade had taken throughout his travel also helped me to get a good understanding of how unique and different the cultures really are. I was shocked to see the way people from different cultures present themselves and how individuals from the same culture look similar and can look so different from individuals of other cultures.

            While watching the video I asked myself many different questions about the things that Wade was talking about but a thought that kept coming back to me was “I wonder if other cultures are interested and care about learning our culture such as our western culture. Wade talked about one of the pressures and delights about living among the people in different cultures were living with individuals who haven’t forgotten the old ways. This made me wonder about how those individuals perceive our culture and the way we live. I wonder if they believe and think that we live similar lifestyles as they do. Today, almost all individuals part of the western culture dependent on some kind of technology to get through or carry out daily events. Many of us have TV’s and computers in our homes, we have cell phones, home phones, radios, etc. We use technology to learn about our cultures around the world, but how do they learn about our culture? Do they care to know about our culture? In our culture today our tradition of living is different then what it was 20, 25 or 30 years ago where these individuals live by surviving with their natural resources and what they have.

            I feel that this video has given me a better understanding and sense of the different cultures around the world. As a future Child and Youth Worker I may or may not encounter working with individuals from around the world or individuals that live by the “old ways” but to still have a small amount of knowledge and sense of how others live around the world will be helpful in my career. This video shows the uniqueness of how everyone lives a different life from what we believe, which relates to child/youth work because we have to remember that every child or youth is different and their story is going to be unique because no one experiences the same way of life as someone else does.

LINKS

TED Channel Website: http://www.ted.com/

Wade Davis on Endangered Cultures: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html

Andy Leggett’s share’s his experiences with us

On Friday, October 1, our class focused on the Aboriginal Communities and counselling First Nations children/youth. We learned about First Nation children and youth growing up in with complex social and family issues because of their surroundings when growing up.

Andy Leggett came to our class to share his experience of working with children, youth and their families in the Aboriginal Community. Andy is the Clinical Director of Broken Arrow Residential Treatment Services (BARTS) in Cobourg. I was excited to have Andy to come to our class and share his story with us because last year in my Child Abuse, Neglect and Family Violence course we had Alicia McMurray from Broken Arrow speak about Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse and Neglect Treatment and her presentation was very interesting and touching. After, Alicia’s presentation I became more interested in learning more about the Aboriginal Culture and working with children and youth.

I realized that First Nations people grow up and are raised in secluded areas and experiences complex situations and don’t receive the proper help and care they deserve. Personally, I grew up thinking that First Nations people chose to all live together in one area because of their beliefs. As a I got older I learned that this was not always the case and that many First Nations people lived in one area because of the way other people treated them and have disrespected the way they live. I have realized that some people believe that Aboriginal people don’t deserve our help because they have chosen to live the way they do. I don’t think this is right because I feel that every individual, whether they are a child, youth or adult deserve the proper help that they need and no one should take that from them. I don’t think that it is fair to treat them that way because then we are sending them the message that we don’t care about them. I struggle with trying to understand how people can judge and stigmatize First Nations people without even knowing what they experience in their life.

Currently, I work at a Residential Treatment Facility for children and youth and this summer we had a youth that wanted to learn about her Aboriginal background. The staff were on board with helping this young woman learn about her culture, as a staff working with her I was very involved with this process. During the summer I had the pressure of accompanying this youth and another worker to a local First Nations community in our area, to a few pow wow’s and to the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. Experiencing a pow wow was a very exciting for me because I had never been to an event like that before. Seeing all the person representing their different tribes, dancing, singing and interacting with one another was amazing and a good learning experience. Both myself and the other staff member where very engaged in the pow wow participating in the event with our client. At the end of the day one of women from one of the tribes provided our youth with her own cloak that she wore to the pow wow. Occasionally, this youth will dance around the house in her cloak with a huge smile on her face and talk about that day. I am very glad I got to experience this event with my client because not only was it a learning experience for my client but for myself as well.

Overall, I am very interested in the work that Broken Arrow does with individuals of the First Nations and would like to continue learning about their agency and their services. I am hoping to attend the training that Broken Arrow is providing to their Foster Parents on Orillia this upcoming month that Andy invited our class too.