Day2MakunguAkinyelaJacquelineSparks

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Leveling the Field Building Socially Just Partnerships Makungu Ankiyela Jacqueline Sparks Everything I Know about Therapy I Learned in Kindergarten • Early education sets the pattern for most of our power imbalanced relationships. • Paulo Freire identifies several myths guiding traditional education that shape our attitudes and practices in such relationships. • Exchange “teacher” for therapist and “student” for client as you think about these. 1

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Transmission or Communication? • Freire made a distinction between transmission of knowledge (one-way monologue) and communication of knowledge (two-way dialogue). • Traditional education begins with dependence on “Banking” practices. • Traditional education depends on several powerful myths. MYTHS OF TRADITIONAL EDUCATION • The Teacher Teaches and the Students Are Taught: This myth sets the teacher and the student at rigid opposing stations which implies that teachers have nothing else to learn and that students bring nothing of significance to the learning situation. 2

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 MYTHS OF TRADITIONAL EDUCATION • The Teacher Knows Everything about the Subject and the Students Know Nothing: Again this unrealistic focus on the teacher as “absolute expert” places an undue burden on the teacher and encourages little expectation from students. This also encourages mystification of the profession of teaching as a means of avoiding teacher responsibility for student failure. MYTHS OF TRADITIONAL EDUCATION • The Teacher “Thinks” and the Students Are “Thought about”: The logic of this myth is that “thinking” is an individual and personal action which is not motivated by any outside forces. The teachers thoughts are not shaped, challenged or encouraged by the situations, question, opinions or thoughts of the students who of course have no thoughts on the subject until the teacher provides them with thoughts. 3

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 MYTHS OF TRADITIONAL EDUCATION • The Teacher Talks and the Students Listen...Meekly: In traditional education, the good student is the quiet and meek student. Good students do not ask challenging questions. Though a good student may ask questions for information. In the traditional classroom, the good student pays close attention while the teacher provides information through lectures and later through questions which can only be answered in one correct way and only if the student listened well. MYTHS OF TRADITIONAL EDUCATION • The Teacher Chooses the Curriculum Content and the Students (Who Were Not Consulted) Must Adapt to it: Curriculum content is shaped by the cultural, economic, gender and political outlook of the designer. Teachers tend to rely on curriculum which coincides with their own cultural, economic and gender comfort level. 4

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 MYTHS OF TRADITIONAL EDUCATION • In traditional education settings it is not unusual to have the culture of the classroom curriculum, be out of sync with the culture of the students and the surrounding neighborhood. The culture of the classroom is often chosen by the teacher because it is comfortable (familiar) for the teacher and the teacher gives no consideration of the cultural comfort of the students. MYTHS OF TRADITIONAL EDUCATION • The Teacher Is the Subject of the Learning Process, While the Students Are Mere Objects: The subject of a story or sentence is what the story/sentence is about. Professionals often tell their own stories (how dedicated, good, caring they are) at the expense of the stories of participants. The student-participants are only objects to highlight the teachers stories. 5

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Think About It • With two or three colleagues discuss ways in which your early education may have influenced your work with clients. • What were positive educational experiences you had where you felt that your were in a dialogue with your teacher and class? What were the elements of these experiences? • How can these experiences be applied to your therapeutic work? The extent to which helping services privilege the “culture of the neighborhood” is a social justice concern. The extent to which we adapt to clients’ cultures instead of the “culture of Mental Health” is at the heart of socially just practice and socially just partnerships. 6

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 The Culture of “Mental Health” “Mental Health” policies and procedures structure the interactions we have with consumers and clients in fundamental ways. Establishing socially just practices and partnerships requires a re- examination and transformation of “Mental Health” infrastructure. Social Justice “[Social justice involves] promoting access and equity to ensure full participation of all people in the life of a society, particularly those who have been systematically excluded on the basis of race or ethnicity, gender, age, physical or mental disability, education, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or other characteristics of background or group membership. (p. xiv).” Lee & Hipolito-Delgado (2007) 7

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Socially Just Partnerships • Access • Equity • Full participation Access • Location and space – where we meet communicates assumptions about who is in charge and who has power • Language – clinicians require adaptation of clients and consumers to their preferred language and way of speaking • Cost – what we have to offer is simply not possible for many 8

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 • Schools Location • Churches • Community Centers • Homes • Playgrounds • Town Halls • Libraries Meeting in non-traditional locations balances power, de-mystifies helping processes, and helps create mutual partnerships. Space & Position We can become separated, both physically and emotionally, from those who seek our help. Our space communicates that we guard against, contain, and categorize; it creates a relationship. 9

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Language Privileging clients’ preferred ways of communicating is crucial for socially just partnerships and practice. Consider • Can your place of practice accommodate locations of service that best fit clients’/consumers’ needs? • Is the physical environment of your service accessible, inclusive, and comfortable for consumers? • Are services provided in the consumer’s native language? • Are forms and paperwork translated in the consumer’s native language? • Do forms, paperwork, and talk use technical jargon? 10

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Cost Payment mechanisms dominate the freedom clinicians and consumers have to fashion partnerships that are egalitarian and consumer-driven. • Clients without insurance are involved in state-funded services that may take punitive or highly structured approaches to service delivery • Clients with insurance must be subject to diagnosing procedures and prescriptive treatments Consider • Can consumers afford to use your service • Does access to your service come with strings attached for those who can’t pay “out of pocket.” • Are there ways to offer services that are more affordable for consumers and that respect their wishes for the type of service they receive? • Are there ways to influence third-party payors to recognize the importance of client voice and choice in service provision? 11

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Equity • Expert Knowledge vs Local Knowledge – client expertise is often not valued • Procedures – clients are assessed and intervened upon, placing them in passive, follower positions. • Resources – lack of • Helper-Helped – few resources may be the means exist for clients to primary barrier to reaching be resources to goals. professionals and to others. Expert vs Local Knowledge Defining “clinical expertise” is critical in defining the type of relationship formed with consumers and clients. 12

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Calculative thinking computes ... it races from one prospect to the next. It never stops, never collects itself. It is not meditative thinking, not thinking which contemplates the meaning that reigns in everything there is ... Meditative thinking demands of us that we engage ourselves with what, at first sight, does not go together. -- Martin Heidegger, Memorial Address Procedures Psychological assessment and prescribed intervention can inhibit our engagement with a person and his or her story and forming a connection and respectful partnership. Procedures The File has a number – it is not a person and it is not a family and it is not a relationship, it is something abstract that is ten steps removed from real experience—a snapshot of what we can remember at any given moment from our years of training. 13

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Consider • Do clients and consumers feel that their knowledge of their world and situation is of primary value? • Do clients and consumers feel that they must defer to you as “the expert?” • Do assessment and paperwork procedures fully integrate client opinions, worldviews, and preferences? Resources Without taking into account social and economic barriers, professionals may set undoable goals for clients, diagnose client deficit instead of resource deficit, and overlook the role practitioners can play in accessing resources. 14

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Advocacy “action taken by a counseling professional to facilitate the removal of external and institutional barriers to clients’ well-being” (Toporek, 2000, p. 6). There are ways to turn the tables in the helper-helped Helper- Helper-Helped relationship. • Establish, from the beginning, the need for client input in the process • Seek client knowledge and expertise routinely • Acknowledge how clients and consumers teach us and change us for the better • Collect and disseminate client knowledge when services are concluding • Serve as a connector in linking clients and consumers with one another into helping partnerships 15

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Consider • Are client and consumer resources considered when goals are set? • What procedures and policies are in place to access resources? • Are there procedures and policies that aim to influence social and political structures that are barriers to consumers and clients? • Are there procedures and policies that “turn the tables” and utilize the expertise of clients and consumers? Full Participation and Socially Just Partnerships • Full participation cannot happen without consideration of access and equity. • Without mechanisms to routinely invite and utilize client ideas and preferences, clients will always be “second fiddle.” • How do we let clients in on the “inner circle?” 16

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Systematic inclusion of client and consumer voice is a powerful way to ensure that clients have a seat at the head of the table. Consider • Is there a way to formally include client feedback throughout all service delivery? • Do management and supervisory persons value and insist on inclusion of client voice? • Is formal, ongoing client feedback central to all assessment and intervention activities and paperwork? • Is the inclusion of client voice via formal feedback central to staff training? • Can formal ongoing feedback influence third- party funding decisions? 17

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Socially Just Partnerships Socially just partnerships are those in which all participate fully, each person has the capacity to impact the process and its outcome, and all benefit and learn from one another. Examples & Strategies Ideas for Transformation 18

www.heartandsoulofchange.com June 18, 2010 Bibliography • Duncan, B., & Sparks, J. (2010). Heroic clients, heroic agencies: Partners for change. (2nd Ed. E Book), www.heartandsoulofchange.com. • Freire, P. (1968). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. • Goodman, L. A., Liang, B., Helms, J. E., Latta, R. E., Sparks, E., & Weintraub, S. (2004). Training counseling psychologists as social justice agents: Feminist and multicultural perspectives. The Counseling Psychologist, 32(6), 793-8 • Lee, C. C., & Hipolito-Delgado, C. P. (2007). Introduction: Counselors as agents of social justice. In C. C. Lee (Ed.), Counseling for social justice (2nd ed., pp. xiii–xxviii). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association. • Toporek, R. L. (2000). Developing a common language and framework for understanding advocacy in counseling. In J. Lewis & L. Bradley (Eds.), Advocacy in counseling: Counselors, clients & community (pp. 5–14). Greensboro, NC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling and Student Services. 19

Day2MakunguAkinyelaJacquelineSparks

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