Training Culturally Competent Practitioners: Student Reflections On The Process

A major aspect of cultural competence is developing critical self-reflection skills. Critical self-reflection is a culturally competent practice that positions practitioners with the ability to recognize and respond to the influence of power, privilege, and oppression within client interactions. Contributing to the existing literature on cultural competence, this article posits that teaching critical self-reflection is an essential aspect of training culturally competent practitioners. To investigate this connection, researchers qualitatively examined the retrospective accounts of 15 human services students who critically reflected on an assignment: exploring how they were personally impacted by issues of power, privilege, and oppression. Findings unveiled students’ perceptions of developing culturally competent critical self-reflection to be characterized by working through resistance, exploring personal biases, and developing empathy. Implications suggest that instructors seeking to train culturally competent human services practitioners should strategically integrate opportunities for students to work through resistance, explore their existing biases, and develop empathy

Dismantling the Master\u27s House: Epistemological Tensions and Revelatory Interventions for Reimagining a Transformational Family Science

Using Audre Lorde\u27s The Master\u27s Tools as an epistemic guide, we propose two practice interventions for family science (FS) transformative praxes. The first, inspired by the thought of philosopher Charles Mills, challenges FS practitioners (research, practice, and policy) to explore differences in peripheral and positivist & post‐positivist (P&PP) ideologies responsible for differences in beliefs regarding the salience or non‐salience of power differentials within FS. The second, inspired by the thought of philosopher Rudolph Carnap, encourages FS practitioners to consider differences in peripheral and P&PP practitioners\u27 understandings of what FS is at its core, and the beliefs and actions guided by their divergent core understandings. Both revelatory practices are intended to transform FS in such a way that its praxes are informed by these ways of practicing, and so that embodied understandings of the importance of pursuing anti‐racist and social justice objectives within FS become manifest

Transformational Family Science: Praxis, Possibility, and Promise

We advance a transformational family science as an engaged practice that may serve social justice and an anti‐racist project. Our companion paper proposed epistemic revelatory interventions through which family science may re‐imagine itself. We highlight pillars of a transformational family science that (a) build with epistemological and paradigmatic stances of peripherals; (b) infuse an ethic of reflexivity, accountability, and responsibility in the pursuit of knowledge claims, and their validation; and (c) engage a critical interrogation of difference and power relations and the disruption of systemic and structural inequalities in which they are aligned. Informed by epistemic praxes, transformational praxes include inquiry, knowledge production, theorizing about structured inequalities, power differentials, and differences bound to social categories and social identities, as well as pedagogy and professional training. Transformative applications that are compensatory, reformative, restorative, reparative, and transformative may be used in multiple ways to advance social justice, anti‐racism, and social transformations

Clarifying the Identity of Human Services Through a Content Analysis of Programmatic Accreditation

Throughout the United States, accrediting bodies serve as voluntary self-regulating entities designed to ensure accountability and quality assurance at the institutions that seek accreditation. To examine the impact of accreditation on the field of human services, a mixed-method content analysis was utilized. The 50 human services programs accredited by the Council for Standards on Human Services Education (CSHSE) as of July of 2018 were examined. Researchers also employed a triangulated approach to understand these programs through an analysis of Carnegie Classifications, regional accreditation agencies, and institutions programmatic websites. Results offer insight into how the CSHSE influences the professional identity of human services thorough: (1) variations in the length of time programs have been accredited; (2) regional distinctions between accredited programs; (3) and the titles of programs accredited by the CSHSE

Designing Program Evaluation Outcomes to Mirror Council for Human Services Education (CSHSE) Standards at the Baccalaureate Degree Level

The article highlights the designing program evaluation and its maintenance with the Council for Human Services Education (CSHSE) standards at the baccalaureate degree level in universities & colleges. Topics include that CSHSE requires all accredited human services educational programs to articulate strategies for improving their programs and its importance in the accreditation process