2.6 Respecting diversity and responding to difference
Social workers need to recognise that respecting diversity and valuing people, which is also about working in a way that counters the unfair or unequal treatment of individuals or groups on the basis of their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. This is referred to as ‘anti-discriminatory practice’.
There is a growing body of law that seeks to prohibit and punish a range of discriminatory behaviours in various kinds of social settings, for example in the provision of services and in employment opportunities. For social workers, valuing diversity entails more than this: there is a professional obligation to challenge discrimination of any kind, whether legislated against or not. You will not find legislation protecting people against discrimination on the grounds of class, culture or income, but such discrimination does exist. You may have heard comments such as ‘they’re a problem family’ or ‘another one from the local council estate’ or ‘they are part of the ‘underclass’. Such terms and language are discriminatory in nature because they are generalist and derogatory, and social workers should challenge the use of this kind of language.
Activity 5 Discrimination
In this activity you will consider how you would deal with discrimination when it is not specifically legislated against. We all have bias, whereby we react in certain ways to certain situations.
You will consider whether or not the social workers in the video below were discriminating in their approach to working with Roma families.
Watch the BBC programme ‘Gypsy kids taken from home’ (Stacey Dooley Investigates, 2018), then answer the following questions.
Transcript: Video 3 ‘Gypsy kids taken from home’
- Do you think that the social workers discriminated against the Roma families?
- If yes, do you think that this was deliberate?
- Were the social workers aware of their bias?
- If you were working in this situation, how would you approach the families?
Comment
It is clear from the clip that the social workers had set views about Roma families in general. Their starting point appeared to be that the Roma people would lie and that they should not therefore believe anything they were told. You may have also got the feeling that the social workers believed that the children were better off away from their parents.
The social workers were aware that they held these beliefs, they were a common belief, and all were comfortable in sharing their views, not only with one another but with Stacey Dooley and the viewers. The views of the social workers were discriminatory, they had formed a judgement based upon characteristics they believed all Roma people have rather than basing their views on the facts. They also began their work with the families with this mind set which would make it very difficult for the Roma families to be able to show the social workers that they were capable of looking after their children. It could be said that the families were prejudged and were found lacking.
The difficulty is that whilst the social workers were clear about their own views, they appeared to lack insight into how discriminatory their stance was and the impact that it would have upon their decision making. As social workers you have to be aware that you will have conscious and unconscious bias. This means you will have prejudices that you are aware of and those that you are not. An open relationship with colleagues and supervisors is crucial in bringing the unconscious bias to your attention and an ability to reflect upon your own views and practice is crucial in identifying and addressing the cognitive bias. It is important that practicing in a non-discriminatory way does not mean treating everyone the same. Differences in values and cultures must be addressed and acknowledged in order to work in a fair and non-discriminatory role.
In the next activity you will do an interactive online quiz which will help you to reflect on the meaning of social work values from different perspectives.
Activity 6 What do social-work values mean to social workers and service users?
Comment
Understanding the different ways in which people define or interpret values is crucial to effective social-work practice. How the values are defined may depend on the individual’s experiences and will vary from person to person. There may be multiple and conflicting definitions. While undertaking this activity you will have gathered that there are different ways of thinking about each of these values, which may depend on whether you are considering the view of a service user or a practitioner. In order to apply these values in practice, social workers need to have an awareness of the different meanings of values to different people. Social workers can then discuss these meanings with service users, their colleagues, so as to reach an understanding of how they can apply these values in practice.