Managing Racial or Ethnic Biases
As the country becomes more ethnically and racially diverse, social work agencies and organizations have been presented with a huge responsibility in ensuring that their practices embrace diverse backgrounds and cultures. Furthermore, several analysts have projected that due to increased immigration and birth rates, racial and ethnic minorities will take up most of the country’s population. The existence of a diverse population presents numerous challenges, including prejudicial beliefs, stereotypes, and beliefs. These forms of ethnic or racial discrimination have had a significant implication on clients’ health outcomes. In this essay, I discuss a personal experience with racial bias in my professional workplace. This instance was highly complicated since it involved a biased supervisor. Various agencies have set specific policies, regulations, and codes to ensure that they act responsibly and professionally. After reviewing the chosen course of action for the dilemma, I explore what I should have done differently to handle the situation. Overall, this essay presents strategies that can be used to manage racial and ethnic biases adequately.
Keywords: racial or ethnic biases, social work, and human services, cultural competency, ethics
Managing Racial or Ethnic Biases
Social workers and individuals under human services regularly interact with people from different backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences, both in the community and workplace. During one of my client encounters, I came across an elderly Latino woman suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The patient remarked that she had not received her weekly medications for two months due to the long waiting process. When I consulted my supervisor, I was advised to disregard the patient since she probably was an illegal immigrant. The client’s family presented legal documents to prove that the patient was a citizen. However, this evidence did not sway the supervisor, and more excuses sprung up to why she could not receive her prescriptions. At that moment, I was unaware of the right action to take since the prejudiced perpetrator was a person of authority. Ultimately, I chose to discard the case since I felt that my job was under threat.
After further research, I believe that given the same situation, I would have acted differently. According to Diller (2019), the first step to attaining cultural competency as a professional is developing an awareness of different cultures and their values, meaning of health, communication, and so on. From my experience, the supervisor was probably not well-acquainted with the Latino community and lacked sufficient and accurate information on providing equitable care. Educating the supervisor or providing further information on the patient’s culture would have been helpful. Also, consulting other trusted individuals in the workplace to obtain different perspectives on the problem is recommended (Corey et al., 2019). Since it would have been difficult to argue or go against the supervisor’s order, I should have sought help from other professionals, especially those with appropriate clinical expertise. This way, I would have ensured that the patient’s right to equitable health services was fulfilled.