VISIONARIES AND RISK TAKERS

I liked what it said in our text, (Hardcastle and Powers. 2004), that “social workers must be visionaries and risk takers, able to formulate fresh approaches and challenge the status quo” (p. 211). This is one of the reasons that I am becoming a social worker. I would like to assist others who are in oppressive and marginalized states, and do so in my internship, as well as in my life. In my internship, I help in empowering the homeless, looking for ways to reinforce their living situations, while helping them to see a safer, more predictable way of living than on the streets.
The violence that they experience is not from each other, but from those people who are looking to hurt or injure them-kids and others who fail to recognize themselves in each of the homeless ones. That is a big part of working with vulnerable populations, the fact that we are just one paycheck, or job, away from being in the same or similar situations. “There but for fortune go you and I” (Ochs, P. 1970). I see the homeless as very much abused by and negative toward society. As children, a lot of (in fact, most of the currently homeless), were mistreated as young ones. This continued throughout their lives-in domestic violence situations, in the despair that follows from this treatment, and wondering if they have a right to protest the society in which they find themselves in-a society which is fraught with injustices: crimes of white collar workers; wars which have devastated nations and peoples; drugs, both legal and illegal, which have wasted the best and brightest of minds; medical “advances” which have saved many lives, but also have caused new diseases to crop up. Once safe drugs could “cure” these diseases, but now they have become resistant to the antibiotics to treat them; as well as the crimes of ordinary criminals, such as assault, battery, stealing, lying, and murder. No matter where the crime originates, the effect is the same. It turns people away from their source of goodness and their humanity. I believe that abuse and crimes perpetuated on children will be repaid on those who initiated the abuse or crimes. The web of life continues and we constantly devastate the land, her people, and our nations. The cycle of abuse goes on and on.

References

Hardcastle and Powers. (2004). Community practice: Theories and skills for social workers. (2nd ed.) New York, New York: Oxford University Press.

Ochs, P. (1970) There but for fortune [Recorded by J. Baez]. On The First 10 Years [vinyl]. Side one, track # 5.

THE CANARY EFFECT

Last night I saw a documentary on Native Americans. It was a powerful, perceptive portrayal of what we have been studying throughout the Master’s of social work program. It was called “The Canary Effect.” For those of us who attended this filming, we were awe-inspired. It drove home the patriarchy of manifest destiny. It spoke of the battered and bruised and despairing lives of those on the reservation, and in our cities, who are accosted with an enormously high suicide rate (10 times the national average), the scourge of alcoholism, the rate of unemployment (at 85% on some reservations), the effect of environmental atrocities on reservation lands which result in unsafe, unsuitable drinking water for the population, high rates of domestic violence, child abuse and neglect-which are rampant, high crime rates, including murder, and a number of other social ills which plague the Native peoples. What have we done to them? What are we responsible for?
In Red Lake, Minnesota, on March 21, 2005, a horrific crime was perpetrated in the school there. A young 16 year old boy killed a teacher and a security guard, a policeman, and his grandfather-who also was a policeman, as well as five students and finally, himself. Jeffrey Weise’s father committed suicide. His mother sustained a brain injury in an automobile accident. He was living with his grandfather at the time of the shooting. This was the worst shooting since the Columbine massacre in Colorado. I had heard of the shooting in Minnesota when we were living in Eureka. It was downplayed quite a bit-there was no public outcry for the victims-as there was for the Columbine slaughter. This was a horrendous catastrophe. It left those of us who saw it, with many questions and much sadness. It is the boredom of reservation Natives that we have contributed to. It was brought up again tonight, in this excellent film.



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COOPERATION AND COLLABORATION

In Streeter and Scales, chapter five discusses the integral parts of individuals, and the seeming dichotomy between them. On the one hand, you have a culture of individualists who are involved in the mass “production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services” (Scales & Streeter, 2004, p. 55), versus those who are into protecting and saving the environment, and much like the Native peoples, are dealing with the devastation of the natural world by mistaken consumers. They were the ones clearing the land to build houses, fishing the waters to provide food for their people, hunting the buffalo, and killing the Native peoples, who wished to remain on the side of protection and sustainability. But, living in society as we do, a blend or cooperation of both sides to this matter, is important. There are some good things that the white man did. For instance, he provided for education, for the arts, for musical events, for libraries, for hospitals and medical care, for fountains, for the preservation of parks, etc. In our global society, these things are good.
It is important for us to be organized and to cooperate with one another. In a world where resources are fewer and fewer, and jobs are becoming fewer and fewer, the social worker strives to meet these balances by providing services to the hurting, the poor, and the marginalized. In a perfect world, we would have enough of these services to provide for everyone. But being that we live in an imperfect world, we will have to make do by building community assets and community capacity. To collaborate with other communities who are experiencing similar problems as our community is having, is the most significant procedure.

Scales, T.L., & Streeter, C.L. (Eds.) (2004). Rural social work: Building and sustaining community assets. p. 55. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.

RURAL IS REAL

In Scales and Streeter’s book, Rural Social Work (2004), in chapter 4 on Rural Is Real, the author states that “Human relationships tend to be more genuine among rural people. The potential is great for a small group of committed individuals to achieve something of lasting impact or meaningful change” (Yevuta, 1999, p. 43). I believe that this can be true of rural social work-in that the contacts which you make are smaller and more intense with the people that you meet. In a suburban or urban environment, the contacts that you make are more spread out, and you are less likely to spend an adequate amount of time with them. I would like it very much, if I were to work in a rural environment and get to know the people of that environment. Of course, the ethical dilemma that comes to the fore, is one of multiple relationships. This dilemma, which I’m sure that all social workers at sometime have to meet, can best be met by doing your assigned job while using a strengths perspective and respecting the right of the other to be aided and assisted. If one remembers that the natural assets of people are important, and to help them in a culturally sensitive way, I believe that the social worker will be able to function. But, one must keep this in mind at all times when working with other people.

Scales, T.L. & Streeter, C.L. (2004). Rural social work: Building and sustaining community assets. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.

Yevuta, M.A. (1999). In Scales, T.L. & Streeter, C.L. (2004). Rural social work: Building and sustaining community assets. p. 43. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.

RURAL SOCIAL WORK

One thing that I particularly like about HSU’s approach to social work is their commitment to a practice with Native peoples, and an emphasis in studying about their history, their role in a rural environment, and their current strengths, as well as their struggles, despite these hardships. They are a resilient people and are to be admired and treated with respect and compassion. Studying about them has been a very enlightening experience, and one which I will always treasure. In light of our class on Communities, this subject matter is a potent one. The book, Rural Social Work, does provide us with a taste of what it was, and is, like to be a Native person, and how social work developed among rural peoples. I wonder, at times, what this area, Humboldt Co., would have been like if the Native population were left alone to develop, or not develop, the land which lies amidst the Redwoods and the sea. What would have happened to the land if the white man hadn’t confiscated it, and the Native peoples were allowed to flourish and grow at their own pace and in their own time? Could this have happened? I think so, if not for the greediness of the white man, and his desire to possess and control everything, including the land.

But, since the white man did place Native peoples on reservations, did clear-cut the land, and did fish the lakes, streams, and oceans, as well as pollute the waters and the skies and the air we try to breathe, humankind looks toward a government that will take care of them and their ways, including a social welfare system. Although the book says that rural areas are “dynamic and rapidly changing” (Scales & Streeter, 2004, p. 44), we hold onto a “romantic notion [which] portrays rural America as made up of pristine, sedate, unchanging pockets of nostalgia” (Scales & Streeter, 2004, p. 44). Social work is a product of this notion. Progress, as such, is a white man’s view of the world. Sure, we have medical care systems, systems of education, libraries, an agricultural system that produces mass amounts of food and transports it to far-away places throughout the world, etc., etc. Even the terms gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, which represent the ideas of community and rural ways of life vs. urban and an impersonal way of life, originated in Germany, a white-man centered country. It is all about relationships. And, because of relationships, we have a program known as social work. It is about systems of social concern, systems made up of “progressive” men from European cultures, and socialization. But, have we really progressed? Daily, we live under a threat of nuclear war and annihilation by other “socialized” countries; we kill and maim other people in wars, as well as our own people; we terrorize our own children by our words and actions, leaving them crying into the dark night. Yet, we move on, as a society, as a nation, as a world. Globally, which is how we now think of the world, we can only see our little place in it. But, we must be able to see our place in that world. And that world for me, is to aid others, and to see that we can affect others lives-as other people have affected my life. I would like to give back to that small, little world that I exist in, something that others have given to me-a sense that life is worth the living, because its alternative will only happen much too soon. As we all move towards a time of death, may we all see a hope in the light, and make of this world a better place.

Scales, T.L., & Streeter, C.L. (Eds). (2004). Rural social work: Building and sustaining community assets. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.

LET'S EXTEND THE CLAN

Solidarity within the community is important to organizing and is essential to communal caring and inclusion in the circle of life. As Richard Rorty says: “the telling of stories which alter our self-understandings so that we come to see ourselves as sharing a common predicament with strangers” (Festenstein, 2003. p. 131). I believe that this is what we, as social workers, do. We listen to others telling of their experiences and their stories. And, we share ours with them. It is a matter of communication and interest. But, this common interest may be difficult to find and embrace. This may be hard and challenging for me to accomplish, but I think that it is essential in social work. If we are to get to know individuals, as well as the communities they live in, we will be tested and tried for a period of time before we are “accepted” by the individuals. When that time comes that we become part of the individual’s, or community’s, conscience, we will know that we have arrived. We will share with that community a sense of “empathy and compassion” as Rorty (2003, p. 131) says. In an idealistic sense, Rawls (1971), a political philosopher explains, that we have to get outside of ourselves in order to help people. Another thing that we, as social workers, must do is be authentic. Members of the community or individuals who we work with are not ‘stupid.’ They will be able to size us up in no time. If we want to create a bond with them we must be real and not phony.