The Importance Of Cultural Competency In Social Work

Introduction The purpose of this thesis paper is to gathered information in regard of having any bias within my work field of social work. I am a graduate student working on a master degree in the area of the social work field. It is important to be self-aware of own self in order to assist client when receiving services. Being culturally competent is very important when it comes to have cultural competency skills. I will be discussing different topics in order to skin any bias that could impede in providing services to diverse population. Included is a self-awareness test that will assist in visualizing spectrum values in my own self. I have included results of my testing in order to assist with any bias.

Continuum of cultural competence I grew up in a very diverse family and with Christian belief. My parents were very diverse in their skin colors, but both were Hispanics. My father skin color was dark and my mother skin color was light. As I remembered from my childhood, I was taught to respect other people whether they were different skin color, culture religious belief and disability whether mental or physical health problems.

One of the point that captured my attention while reading the article(Cross, 1989) was that my parents expressed commitment in valuing diverse population, but had no clear plan in cultural competences .Always oppressed and marginalized. My parents taught me that even though we were a minority we could approximate the dominant group by social status and cultural assimilation (Cross,