Multiculturalism
The scenario selected for this week’s discussion is Kimi’s case. Kimi is a fifty-seven-year-old divorced woman who has two independent adult children; thus, they live independently. Kimi is a member of the Algonquin tribe; hence, she believes in the tribe’s cultural believes and values. Recently Kimi has been experiencing disturbances inform of experiencing physic events enabling her to see of future events. When the psychic events happen, Kimi sees her relatives and friends’ lives being affected negatively, which is disturbing her mental health, compromising her overall health. Kimi is worried because she does not control the psychic events, and she is anxious about her friends’ and relatives’ wellbeing. Furthermore, Kimi is unable to sleep despite self-medicating with sleeping pills (Laureate Education, 2012). Kemi’s case is complicated because of her cultural beliefs and personal belief of self-medication. The multicultural consideration in the scenario is the client’s belief in seeing the future, which she gets from her culture, which believes that some individuals possess the gift of seeing the future.
Encouraging Supervisee to Embrace Multiculturalism
I would encourage supervisees to embrace clients’ cultural practices and develop interventions that incorporate the clients’ believes and culture by educating ton hem on the importance of aligning interventions with the client’s culture. I would also educate supervisees by telling them that sometimes using clients’ traditional remedies such as the help of a genuine medicine man may substantially improve their mental health (Potocky, 1997). Moreover, I may encourage supervisees to develop sensitivity in Kimi’s case by reminding them how cultural competency ensures that clients recover quickly. I would remind them cultural competency would also help them be more sensitive to the client’s culture, helping develop a sound therapeutic relationship. Consequently, the supervisees will practice multiculturalism, providing better services to clients, improving their mental and physical health significantly.
References
Laureate Education. (Executive Producer). (2012). Multicultural scenarios [Interactive media]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Potocky, M. (1997). Multicultural social work in the United States: A review and critique. International Social Work, 40(3), 315-326.