I
thought the class exercise we did last week relating to Multicultural Career
Counseling was very interesting and helpful. The client in my vignette was
biracial—she had both Native American and African American heritage. Her
identity as a biracial individual added even more obstacles than what minority
individuals typically experience. According to Sue and Sue (2008), biracial
individuals are in a sense, forced to choose from one of their racial
identities. This often presents conflict, as the biracial individual feels
isolated and ostracized by society. This was certainly the case for my client.
Neither of her racial identities were particularly salient to her. Forcing
anyone to choose one identity as dominant and suppress another important
identity sends the message that who the person really is is not okay. The
decision to choose one identity over another is only beneficial to greater
society, who now has an “easier time” identifying the person, so as to fit them
in a little box so that we can stereotype them more easily.
Discussing
my client’s case definitely presented its challenges. The client was a single
mother with 2 children and another on the way. She dropped out of high school
to support her child and stay with her boyfriend. Now that her boyfriend had
left her and her government support was being dropped, the client was stuck.
According to Fouad and Byers-Winston (2006), racial/ethnic minorities perceive
fewer career aspirations and greater barriers. In this client’s case, I believe
her perceptions were correct. Her lack of education prevented a huge barrier as
she considered what her options were. For me, this exercise made things real. I
could feel the boundaries and empathize with my client as they faced the challenge
of what to do next to support her family.
The
client’s biracial identity made it more challenging to implement the steps
outlined in the Culturally Appropriate Career Counseling Model (CACCM) (Byars-Winston
& Fouad, 2006). It made it more challenging to set culturally appropriate
goals and implement culturally appropriate interventions.
When I
first saw that Chapter Six in the Brown (2012) textbook was titled, “Clients
with Special Needs,” I got really excited. I’m a TSS and my client has Down’s
Syndrome. I was hoping there would be more emphasis on providing services to
individuals like my client. Instead, I was shocked to see that the elderly,
LGBT individuals, women, and even former military members were lumped into this
category. While I understand that each of these populations may have special
for specific needs, the title is definitely misleading with its negative
connotation. I was happy to see that the text (Brown, 2012) mentioned that
career counselors are most effective in their role when working with
individuals with disabilities when they as counselors empower clients by
fostering inclusion in the broader workforce and society. More inclusion will hopefully
lead to other “normally developed” individuals feeling more comfortable around
individuals with disabilities, which will hopefully, in time, reduce
stereotypes and prejudices toward individuals with disabilities.
Brown, D. (2012). Clients with special needs. In Career information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed., pp.117-141).
New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
Byars-Winston, A. M., & Fouad, N.
A. (2006). Metacognition and multicultural competence: Expanding the culturally
appropriate career counseling model. The
Career Development Quarterly, 54, 187-201.
Sue, D.W. & Sue, D. (2008). Counseling
the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. (5thed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
No comments:
Post a Comment