Teaching guilt and shame in reeducation courses

Knowing the helper/healer/teacher and the beneficiary/student/client  have different cultures which affect learning and relationships is, of course, essential.  Missionaries know this; middle managers are either taught or learn it; a city teacher should study rural values if she wants to be rehired by the school board of farmers.  Doctors and nurses and aides should be learning this all through college and medical school.

For example, when I was a department head, I had to accept and understand some aspects of Muslim immigrant cultures—like why my female student employee was driven to work by a male relative and why she would never attend a social event with our staff. I also had some disabled student employees—one from India whose polio limp not only affected her work, but her arranged marriage. One student was on the autism scale and I needed to modified her schedule for less client contact. My male assistant was on his journey from Daniel to Danielle. The student whose problem was knowing more than the boss (could be cultural?) just had to find a new job.

There’s something different in the “reeducation” modules included in certification the last decade or two. The supervisor/employee is expected to relearn her own culture and be embarrassed and shamed by it.

The following are the learning objectives and course description in a federal government “cultural competency” for 5 hours of certified, continuing education course to meet various requirements for maintaining a professional license.  I’ve not sat in for the classes, so whether it qualifies for “cancel culture” or “critical race theory” I can’t say.   I’ve high lighted the buzz words that set off alarms for me.

Learning Objectives

After completing this continuing education activity, participants will be able to:

• Describe how culture, cultural identity, and intersectionality are related to behavioral health and behavioral health care.
• Describe the principles of cultural competency and cultural humility.
• Discuss how our bias, power, and privilege can affect the therapeutic relationship.
• Discuss ways to learn more about a client's cultural identity.
• Describe how stereotypes and microaggressions can affect the therapeutic relationship.
• Explain how culture and stigma can influence help-seeking behaviors.
• Describe how communication styles can differ across cultures.
• Identify strategies to reduce bias during assessment and diagnosis.
• Explain how to elicit a client's explanatory model.

Cultural and linguistic competency is recognized as an important strategy for improving the quality of care provided to clients from diverse backgrounds. The goal of this e-learning program is to help behavioral health professionals increase their cultural and linguistic competency.

Course Outline

• In Course 1, An introduction to cultural and linguistic competency, you'll learn what culture has to do with behavioral health care.
• In Course 2, Know thyself – Increasing self-awareness, you'll learn how to get to know your cultural identity and how it affects your work with clients.
• In Course 3, Knowing others – Increasing awareness of your client's cultural identity, you'll learn how to get to know your client’s cultural identity.
• In Course 4, Culturally and linguistically appropriate interventions and services, you'll learn how to build stronger therapeutic relationships with clients from diverse backgrounds.

The estimated time to complete all 4 Courses is between 4 – 5.5 hours.

Keep in mind, that today’s young professionals have been exposed to probably a decade or two of such classes.  I wonder if they see it as a blow off class sort of like our health classes in high school where they put worms in alcohol to show us about the dangers of drinking.  Even at 16 I knew the worms would die in a bottle of Coke. Social and behavioral manipulation can backfire.

Home - Think Cultural Health (hhs.gov)  This information was dated or updated in 2019, the Trump administration, and will be revised, deleted, or rewritten as Biden appointments move in.

How to take advantage of the pandemic to promote your own cause

In reviewing the OnCampus on-line newsletter for Ohio State University, I noticed two offerings under health, which I am assuming qualifies for some sort of special grant money to fight Covid19, since they are listed under that heading. The first concerns a dialogue, a favorite word for "you keep quiet and I'll talk"; the second an ethical obligation to become an ally of people confused about their sexuality.

It's impossible to imagine there is a "dialogue" in the traditional and accurate sense of the word if offered by IED, which doesn't promote diversity of thought, or the inclusion of conservatives but does promote equal outcome for unequal effort. IEDs exist in all colleges and universities and in the various departments--they are part of administrative bloat.

The "ethical" obligation for social workers to become an ally for LGBTQ is similar in planned outcome. "You will be with us, or you are against us."  We also know that the shift in emphasis is to the T, even within the BLM movement. The T and the G should be at odds with each other, but are lumped together.  The T says there is no such thing as a defined biological sex and therefore logically the G could be heterosexual if so desired.  To qualify for pandemic money, "safe spaces" training is included.  3 continuing education units for social workers. Sweet.

Preparing for an Effective Dialogue (Part 1)
Many staff and faculty members are interested in hosting dialogues around race and social injustice. Dialogue can lead to more insightful and well-supported decisions and can allow individuals to feel heard. But effective dialogue is not always easy to achieve. The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Facilitators Committee is hosting a two-part panel discussion series on preparing for an effective dialogue session. Part one is July 15 at 10 a.m.

New online course on being an LGBTQ+ Ally
The College of Social Work offers “The Ethics of Being an LGBTQ+ Ally,” a new asynchronous course that will provide participants a better understanding of the ethical obligation social workers have to advocate for and become an ally to the LGBTQ+ community. The course includes how to develop safe spaces for clients identifying as LGBTQ+. Three CEUs are available.

Green Continuing Ed

I don't know what you have in your profession, but I must see dozens of this type of continuing ed, workshop, conference, and license points stuff every month addressed to my husband (who doesn't do e-mail). This one is from the US Green Building Council. For a lot of bucks, they'll keep architects, engineers and builders up to the minute, month after month, class upon class, on how to market their company as a greenie.

That was close!

As an architect, my husband needs a certain number of continuing education credits each year to keep his license, and he has plenty, but was .5 short in one category--health, safety and welfare. One of the problems with finding anything out is that he doesn't use a computer, and all his newsletters have gone to e-format. So I'm the one who glances through them, and mentions things to him. (Like the architect his age who died when he fell off the ladder cleaning gutters.) But because he didn't know until 2 days ago about the 1/2 missing credit, I haven't really been paying attention. So yesterday I scanned the last few issues to see if we missed something, and at 4 p.m. an e-mail popped up about "only 4 spaces left." I thought maybe it was spam because I didn't recognize the sender's address, but I clicked on it. There it was: 3 credits for something today at 3 p.m., near-by, and inexpensive! I hollered downstairs, "I found something, but it's tomorrow!" I printed it off, he called, and the office was closed. So this morning about 9:15 he called--got an answering machine. She calls back in 5 minutes, and said she'd just had a cancellation (it was full). So he's in, and should have a good time previewing a new hospital in Dublin, Ohio.

3365 What puzzles me about libraries

Keep in mind that I was never trained to be a librarian in a public library (there are four types--academic, public, government and private/special/business). I didn't receive the official indoctrination, and never joined the American Library Association. However, I use the library maybe twice a week, and get great benefit from it.

What I've never understood in all my years of using a public library is why they are adjunct lyceums, chautauquas, amusement parks and community centers for meetings. It's not like our community has no outlet or opportunity for activities. Our suburb (and others in the Columbus area) has a "Life Long Learning" program, tax supported through the city, and federal grants, I believe. These classes meet in a variety of community buildings from churches, to fraternal halls and public schools. You can take accounting, furniture refinishing or Swahili--there's a huge variety. Various universities and colleges in the area also offer continuing education or credit for college courses. The local churches also offer both religious and non-religious programing on everything from politics to art to financial management, plus personal growth classes and lectures on marriage and parenting. The Columbus Museum offers classes as do local environmental and history societies. There are community art groups all over the place--the Worthington Art League, Dublin Community Arts Council, etc. who bring in speakers and programs. The mega-lumber sites like Lowe's and Home Depot offer home maintenance and interior decorating classes. The whole foods stores teach cooking and health classes. The local hospitals and medical networks send out quarterly announcements about their classes on everything from cancer to coping with stress. Every imaginable sport training and league is offered through the community programs, or you can go to a local sports mega-store and climb their indoor mountain. Our senior centers located throughout Columbus offer a wide variety of lectures, how-to-classes, and recreational opportunities.

So why is the public library offering writing classes, or music lectures, or quilting discussions, or this noisy gathering for middle schoolers:

The library “turns it up to 11” as we invite guitar heroes of all ages to join us in our first all-new videogame themed events. Play the Playstation 2 versions of Guitar Heroes 1 and 2 on our giant 12-foot screen as we transform our Theater into a Virtual Rock Venue, complete with sound system and lights. Sign up is limited to 50 and we expect to be “sold out.” We’ll provide snacks and everything needed to play. Feel free to bring in your own custom Guitar Heroes controllers.
UAPL program for winter

There may have been a time long ago--maybe during the Great Depression--when people didn't have much to do in their leisure time. But those days are gone.

I think it is time to privatize the libraries. They've lost their mission and are searching for something to do with their staff and money.