Cultural humility - why is it important to social work?

Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 17 October, 2022

In recent history indigenous communities and people from minoritised ethnic groups from around the world have been rising up demanding both the recognition and respect of their culture and rights.

Among these are the Aborigines in Australia, The First Nations in Canada, Native Indians in America and furthermore events that reverberated all over the world following the brutal killing of George Floyd in America in 2020 became a rallying call for mass action to challenge the power status quo in many societies. This status quo was manifested through many years of colonisations and subjugation of indigenous communities and a concerted campaign to ‘civilise’ them by forcing them to leave behind their culture and religion and assimilate to their colonisers’ cultures, religion and practices.

Social workers operate in this climate of ongoing changes in the world, where power dynamics shift, and new understanding is gained through ongoing reflection and reflexivity. Social workers are often faced with challenges of having to adapt and understand every new child and family who come to their attention. With this comes the need to understand their culture and practices to ensure they carry out their duties without further entrenching stereotypes and oppression.

Cultural awareness is about taking time to consciously reflect on the similarities and differences between people from different groups. This awareness includes considerations of issues related to power, privilege, and oppression. Social workers are required to be particularly aware of the interplay between culture and the concerns for which service users are seeking help.

Coming from South Africa to work in the UK as a social worker was a serious culture shock and I had to think carefully about what I was doing and the meanings for the child and their family. My first introduction to cultural relativity came with realisation that things like eye contact – something I had never thought about - was so central in building relationships. Avoiding direct eye contact in my culture is about showing respect to the person senior to me or someone I am not familiar with. In the British or Western context, however, eye contact is an important part of building rapport, and is a lens through which the service users determine if you are worthy of their trust or not.

Cultural awareness on its own is not enough without cultural humility, sensitivity and responsiveness. Cultural humility is about social workers seeing themselves as learners, not viewing themselves as experts in other people’s cultures. You can do this through researching and asking people themselves what you need to understand about their culture.

One of the cases that has always stayed with me over the years as a social worker has been that of 21-month-old Tyra Henry from the London Borough of Lambeth. Tyra was placed with her grandmother after it was determined that her mother was not able to meet her needs. Her grandmother struggled to look after her without any support and respite from social services. In desperation and in great need of respite, she offered Tyra to her stepfather who ended up biting, scratching, and hitting her, ultimately smashing her skull and murdering her.

The resulting serious case review report that came out in 1987 found that the white social worker who had been responsible for the case had operated on her flawed understanding of a black grandmother. She had believed a misinterpreted stereotype of a Black grandmother who was assumed to be "endlessly resourceful, able to cope in great adversity, essentially unsinkable". The reality is that the grandmother was overwhelmed and struggled emotionally and financially with little support from social workers who had stereotypically believed she would cope as all Black families are believed to have a strong support network.

The social worker in question did not mean to harm the family and the belief was based on what she believed to be a strength of the family. But it was based on a belief of Black families and the role played by the grandmother. The social worker did not explore things further to see if this was the case with that family. This suggests lack of cultural humility. Oppressive systems are often characterised by failing to individualise people and put them in ‘familiar’ boxes that represents your view of them, not necessarily what and who they really are.

To practice cultural awareness, social workers need to be aware of their own cultural characteristics (values, worldviews, language, belief systems, traditions, norms), as well as those of the people they are serving. Without self-awareness, social workers risk imposing their values, beliefs, and judgments on others.

One of the most notable examples of indigenous communities standing up for their rights and demanding that their voices be heard, and their culture recognised, was the Māori indigenous people of New Zealand. They were losing their children to the monocultural welfare system that failed to see the role of the child in relation to their family. Power was therefore transferred into the hands of professional ‘experts’ (like social workers, police, doctors), with families considered at best to be unimportant and, at worst, an interference to the decision-making process about the welfare of the child.

This uprising led to the introduction of the Family Group Conferencing model. This model is about giving the kinship network the opportunity to make decisions on matters relating to their children before external solutions are sought. FGC is now one of the leading ways to work with families in a way that acknowledges their culture internationally.

Through the Professional Capabilities Framework and social work values and ethics, the social work profession continues to commit to learning and treating people in an anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive manner. This acknowledges that the social work profession does not know everything, that learning can only come from humility and respect for the dignity of each person worked with. It is important that social workers continue to grow in their cultural humility and allow themselves to grow their knowledge of working across cultures.

This is why Children and Families Across Border's (CFAB) upcoming International Child Protection lecture on Decolonising Social Work – which I will be guest lecturing at - is so important. CFAB is the only UK charity with an international children’s social work team and the only UK member of the International Social Service (ISS) network. They identify and protect the most vulnerable children who have been separated from their families in complex and often dangerous situations due to conflict, trafficking, migration, family breakdown or asylum-related issues. CFAB are committed to upholding the rights of children – regardless of their country of origin – and this lecture is part of many specialised events and training to help equip social workers.

The International Child Protection lecture is on Tuesday 15th November at 9.30am – 11am and will cover cultural humility, unconscious bias and the decolonisation of social work.

Mthoko Sampson is a senior lecturer at the University of West London