2.1 Chapter Overview
Elizabeth B. Pearce
2.1.1 Standard 34 from “Ethical Standards for Human Services Professionals”
Human service[s] professionals are aware of their own cultural backgrounds, beliefs, values, and biases. They recognize the potential impact of their backgrounds on their relationships with others and work diligently to provide culturally competent service to all of their clients (NOHS, 2015).
Understanding your own identity and background is critical to being able to help others, whether their experiences are similar or quite different from your own. We as human services professionals must also understand how historical actions, laws, and practices impact us today. In this chapter, we examine the ways in which human services work is related to settler and colonization practices and laws in the United States. Keep your own identity in mind as you read.
What has been taught as social work and human services history has focused on White activists and social service providers as the leaders of this field, when in fact, Indigenous and Black people have implemented helping practices within their own communities for far longer than the fields of social work and human services have existed.
This chapter describes practices developed within Indigenous and Black communities as well as the early leaders who formalized human services and social work practices in the White dominated culture. Then we will look at the current practices and focuses of human services and how cultural humility and decolonization are intertwined.
2.1.2 The Contributions of Scholars from Kansas University School of Social Welfare
The first two sections in this chapter: “Understanding the Historical Context of Human Services in the United States”, and “Integrating and Honoring BIPOC Contributions” draw heavily on the work of three scholars: Kelechi Wright, MEd, LCPC, LPC; Kortney A. Carr, LCSW, LSCSW; and Becci A. Akin, PhD, all associated with the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas. They are pictured here, shown in figures 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. Their seminal work “The Whitewashing of Social Work History: How Dismantling Racism in Social Work Education Begins With an Equitable History of the Profession” appeared in the openly licensed Advances in Social Work peer-reviewed journal in 2021.
Figure 2.1 Kelechi Wright, MEd, LCPC, LPC is a doctoral student at Kansas University School of Social Welfare; Figure 2.2. Kortney A. Carr, LCSW, LSCSW is an Associate Professor of Practice and a doctoral student at Kansas University School of Social Welfare ; and Figure 2.3 Becci A. Akin, PhD. is a Professor and the PhD Program Director at the Kansas University School of Social Welfare.
I, a white author and scholar, am indebted to these authors who openly licensed their work. This made it possible to adapt their wisdom and expertise to the human services profession for an introductory textbook. To my knowledge, this perspective does not appear in any introductory textbook; this adaptation has the potential to make an equity-focused contribution to the foundational knowledge of beginning students.
Kelechi Wright’s, Kortney A. Carr’s, and Becci A. Akin’s journal article has the potential to profoundly impact the future of human services and social work education. I am deeply grateful to them for the creation of this tool that will impact many generations of college students and faculty.
2.1.3 References
National Organization for Human Services. (2015). Ethical standards for human services professionals. https://www.nationalhumanservices.org/ethical-standards-for-hs-professionals
2.1.4 Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Overview
2.1.4.1 Open Content, Original
“Chapter Overview” by Elizabeth B. Pearce is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
2.1.4.2 All Rights Reserved?
Figure 2.1
Figure 2.2
Figure 2.3