As a social worker, the idea of being culturally competent is a vital and important one. Many of the clients that we will work with through our careers are going to be different from us in more ways than one. Being able to understand how to appropriately and effectively work with clients who are different than us is a significant part of the profession. Cultural competence also spreads out into being important in regards to the agency an individual works for. Agencies need to make sure that their staff is trained and understand cultural competence in order to serve the client populations to the best of their abilities. The two articles being reviewed for this assignment both show issues of a lack of cultural competence within the realm of the
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Nybell and Gray (2004) discussed how for the social welfare agency, using the theory of culturally competent organizational change and drawing on tactics from mainstream organizational literature will emphasize a model of organizational change and a set of rational, technical, and educational strategies for change (p. 18). By using this, the goal would be to try and create an agreeable fit between diverse individuals and the organizational goals (Nybell and Gray, 2004). They also discussed how just this would not adequately redress the social injustice within the workplace and it is something that is very hard to achieve. Another perspective discussed was a model of change that accepts that conflict is an inherent part of all organizations would be more appropriate multicultural development (Nybell and Gray, 2004). This kind of model would place more emphasis on “using or exposing negotiations among units; among people of different social, racial, or gender categories or statues; and between workers and management cadres” (Nybell and Gray, p. 18). There needs to be better communication and teamwork between the workers in the agency, seeing as the diverse individuals do not feel valued. I feel that using critical race theory would also be important in addressing cultural competence within the social welfare agencies in this article. By looking at the article through the lens of critical race theory, the reader can still see that people of color are being overpowered by the systems they work for. By using this theory, it can be seen how those minority workers and the minority clients are still being enslaved by the way society views them, but it can also help by seeing that in helping the agency achieve cultural competence it is addressing this issue. Change needs to come within the agency and how they view cultural competence
Nybell and Gray (2004) discussed how for the social welfare agency, using the theory of culturally competent organizational change and drawing on tactics from mainstream organizational literature will emphasize a model of organizational change and a set of rational, technical, and educational strategies for change (p. 18). By using this, the goal would be to try and create an agreeable fit between diverse individuals and the organizational goals (Nybell and Gray, 2004). They also discussed how just this would not adequately redress the social injustice within the workplace and it is something that is very hard to achieve. Another perspective discussed was a model of change that accepts that conflict is an inherent part of all organizations would be more appropriate multicultural development (Nybell and Gray, 2004). This kind of model would place more emphasis on “using or exposing negotiations among units; among people of different social, racial, or gender categories or statues; and between workers and management cadres” (Nybell and Gray, p. 18). There needs to be better communication and teamwork between the workers in the agency, seeing as the diverse individuals do not feel valued. I feel that using critical race theory would also be important in addressing cultural competence within the social welfare agencies in this article. By looking at the article through the lens of critical race theory, the reader can still see that people of color are being overpowered by the systems they work for. By using this theory, it can be seen how those minority workers and the minority clients are still being enslaved by the way society views them, but it can also help by seeing that in helping the agency achieve cultural competence it is addressing this issue. Change needs to come within the agency and how they view cultural competence