Culturally Grounded Methods of Social Work Practice PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL WORK IS A WESTERN INVENTION, BUT OFTEN IT IS

PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL WORK IS A WESTERN INVENTION, BUT OFTEN IT IS taught as if its methods of interventions are culturally neutral. Because of this oversight, not only do practitioners run the risk of implementing interventions that are ineffective due to a lack of cultural fit between the intervention and the targeted population, but they also miss opportunities to incorporate culturally grounded ways of helping. For example, agencies and providers often target language as a key aspect of cultural diversity. A child welfare agency may develop policies to place foster children in families by matching the primary language spoken by the child while deemphasizing assessments of other relevant cultural factors. Although the agency workers are following an important component of a culturally grounded approach, reliance on language-matching addresses just one dimension of a successful culturally grounded intervention. When the desired results are not attained, there is a tendency to blame the client rather than to assess the cultural relevance of the service delivery system. The assimilationist model perpetuates the myth that if clients were just a little more like the white middle class, everything would be fine. Social workers must remember that the ultimate goal of any social work intervention is to serve, not to colonize (Aponte, 1994). Workers who are culturally unaware can easily become instruments of assimilation, misinterpreting difference as deviance or as a deficiency, and failing to recognize the strengths coming from culture that keep individuals and their families healthy. Since the inception of the profession of social work in nineteenth-century England, most social work practice and research have focused on one-on-one interventions. Such models may feel natural and comfortable to many white middle-class clients and clients from other backgrounds who are acculturated or assimilated to mainstream culture. However, this individualistic approach may feel foreign or uncomfortable to others. In addition, definitions of well-being and happiness may vary between communities, and the means and approaches to intervene in times of crisis may vary as well. Although the profession is now practiced globally and with clients from different cultural backgrounds, the cultural relevance of this traditional intervention