Group Work Stories Celebrating Diversity

Andrew Malekoff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138302419
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351400305
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Group Work Stories Celebrating Diversity is a most timely book about group work practice and education that highlights the theme of diversity, which encompasses acceptance and respect for various dimensions of difference. Dimensions of diversity include race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical or intellectual abilities, linguistic difference, religious beliefs, international or regional origin, lifestyle, political beliefs, or other ideologies, as well as the varying and complex intersection of these various dimensions. The thirty-one meaningful stories in this book explore these differences, leading to understanding and to moving beyond simple tolerance to mutual empathy, genuine and open encounter, and the celebration of the rich dimensions of diversity. Readers will enjoy this wonderfully intimate and intriguing collection, and will be moved to share them with others to help to spread the word about the importance of embracing, understanding and celebrating diversity. This book, with an international cast of authors – practitioners, educators and students – is a welcome antidote to the divisiveness and suspicion that swirl around difference and have become a sad hallmark of current times. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Social Work with Groups journal.

FROM THE INSIDE-OUT

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

Lao Tzu

When the Trainer Got Trained: Seven Things I Learned About Delivering Diversity Trainings

Norissa J. Williams

Introduction

My diversity awakening

My introduction to ethnic diversity came earlier than most—particularly because the “otherness” of my family and I was evident, even in the smallest of things. My family had migrated to the United States from the twin Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago. When they first moved to the country, they resided in a low-income, high-crime area in Brooklyn, New York. Following the American script, my family soon acquired enough collateral to move out of the city and to the suburbs in search of a better life.

My earliest schooling took place in Flatbush, Brooklyn—a place known then and now for its high concentration of Caribbean migrants. My preschool teacher, with her sing-song accent, was reminiscent of my family—as she too had migrated from Trinidad. As such, when I learned to speak it was with the accent of those in my household, reinforced outside the home by this nursery school teacher. In this cultural enclave a growing child had no sense of “difference” to be aware of, as we all seemed the same. It wasn’t until I had moved to Long Island, and attended schools where I was the only Trinidadian in sight, that I began to become aware of “difference.” I remember most distinctly a time of guided learning in kindergarten as my teacher reviewed numbers with us. “One, two, tree—,” I called out along with the rest of the class. Having heard me, my teacher Ms. Brant kindly stopped the class and gently corrected me, saying, “It’s THR-ee (emphasizing the TH sound). TREE’s grow outside.” I remember being mildly shocked. After all, that’s what I was taught at home, and that’s how my nursery school teacher (and the entire class) said it! If I had had the courage I might have replied, “Um … I’m pretty sure it’s TREE.” However, being the shy, quiet, obedient child that I was, I adopted her pronunciation quickly. Days after this incident, in the kitchen of our home, my grandfather reviewed numbers with us again. He said, “One, two, tree—,“ and like Ms. Brant I quickly interrupted him and said, “No, it’s THR-ee (emphasizing the TH sound). TREE’s grow outside.” My grandfather’s reply left me in a state of puzzlement again as I had already reconciled this issue in my head. I was clearly wrong and Ms. Brant was clearly right, I had thought, but here I was being told that I was wrong again. “It’s TREE,” he said, “We are from Trinidad.”

The transformation that comes with an awakened perspective

Volumes were spoken in the few words my grandfather said. For one, I had come to the realization that though Ms. Brant and my family spoke English, they were speaking with different accents. One wasn’t right, while the other wrong—just different. And though I didn’t have the words to articulate as much, this incident was the start of my learning that my culture was something to be proud of and hold onto—not something I could let be easily invalidated. A lot more began to make sense to me about my family and the outside world, as well. I had an awakened understanding of diversity that would later shape my learning interests and career pursuits.

Although I feel fortunate to have ties in two countries it hasn’t come without its challenges. Often faced with feeling, “other,” because of my ethnicity, my race, my socioeconomic status, and more recently, my status as a divorced, single mother in Academia—I’ve been able to look at America’s institutions with a critical eye, seeing opportunities for growth as it pertains to inclusion and diversity. As you might imagine, part of my lived experience has been associated with feelings of alienation and exclusion—from the racial stratification caused by educational tracking, leaving me one of few minorities in advanced classes, to sitting in graduate courses where the rare mention of Black people often came from a deficit perspective (i.e. “poverty,” “at risk.” etc.). Yet these experiences of being “other” have arguably become one of my greatest assets—infusing me with a love for diversity and leading me down paths of studying abroad, studies of cross-cultural differences and professional work in the field of cultural competence.

My work as the director of cultural and linguistic competence

Very early in my career, after receiving my masters in social work, still conscious of cross-cultural differences, I became concerned with cultural bias that existed in policies, laws, and the social services provided to racial and ethnic minorities. I thought critically of my family and Western conceptions of mental health and well-being and American ideals of family functioning. I saw how immediately my family would have been at a disadvantage had they had the misfortune of coming to the attention of Family Court—not because they were actually deficient, but because of the differences that existed between their cultural norms and those of American institutions. As such, when I returned to school to work on my doctoral degree, my research centered on cross-cultural differences in coping skills, help seeking, and other mental health–related behaviors. This naturally led to research in the area of cultural competence, as I believe, true cultural competence to be an answer to the bias that exists in policies and services. During my educational training I was fortunate enough to get an internship that parlayed into a paid position as a director of Cultural and Linguistic Competence. In this position I did a number of things to infuse principles of cultural and linguistic competence throughout the county in which I worked. The most significant of these things were the diversity trainings that I offered free of charge to local agencies.

These diversity trainings are the subject of the remainder of this article. The background provided heretofore set the backdrop upon which one can understand that I approached this work with a valuable amount of life experience and a solid practice and research background. Nonetheless, this work and participants in my trainings further transformed me and my understanding of and appreciation for diversity. In the next section, this article discusses insights I gathered while doing this work.

Lessons learned in the field

Lecture is Important but real change happens with empathy

Coming from a research and academic setting my inclination is to teach traditionally. So as I prepared for my first training, I asked myself normal teaching questions such as, “What are my main points? Have I supported it with enough research? Are my ideas clearly outlined on the PowerPoint?” and “Do I have some kind of handout that participants can go home with?” Although these questions are important and valid considerations, after doing my first three trainings and learning that most social work organizations are not equipped with the technical apparatus to allow my PowerPoint presentations, I focused on the questions and activities that I had included in my slides to drive home the main points. I quickly learned that people didn’t remember the facts I taught them, and when they did, they often didn’t remember them accurately, but what stayed with them was what they “felt.” As such when I asked them to do activities such as role-plays, case vignettes, or an experience walk, I would ask them to focus on how they feel. Most of the time I would challenge them to think of minority groups they belong to—as we all belong to at least one or two. I would go so far as finding someone in the audience who was left-handed living in a right-handed world. With having someone from an oppressed group (that is not emotionally charged and socially loaded) discuss their experience I could then gently ascend with an unarmed group into more negatively charged, socially loaded discussions, such as race. I would assist and give language to the things they experienced and make connections that they might not have otherwise seen. Although you can never win them all, with this approach I often received very good verbal and written feedback as their eyes were opened.

Decreasing social distance and increasing contact between participants will change lives

Over time I have learned that the best way to create a learning environment in the context of diversity is to help people see that we are more alike than we are different. This goes along with my first point that discusses the importance of fostering empathy in your participants. In fact, this point may be the flip side of empathy. One activity that I adopted after being a participant in an excellent training was “Concentric Conversations.” In this activity I choose about four or five questions related to the topic of the training and I have people pair up with partners to discuss these things. One of the first directives I typically give is, “Talk about where you grew up and share a fond memory from there.” This usually opens the floor and disarms people, making the following questions easier. Thereafter, depending on what the overall topic of my training is, I can say something else like, “Talk about the time you first witnessed or experienced an ism.” With these questions, even in settings where participants have worked together for years, and it would be assumed that they knew one another, inevitably participants learn something brand new about people whose desks were right next to theirs. Ultimately you learn, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” You have to take time to engage deeply with people to experience your shared humanity.

Once there was a petite, very conservatively dressed young White woman who stated that she was a punk-rocker by weekend and psychiatrist by weekday. One would never know from mere observation that she was into the punk lifestyle. Another time, two seemingly racially and ethnically different people realized, though they lived far from where they started life, they originated from the same place. Once people begin to experience similarities and the lines are blurred between, “us” and “them,” social distance is decreased. The floor is set for empathy for the others experience. A sense of shared humanity takes the floor and people get protective of one another—passionate about each other’s causes.

You can disarm your audience by sharing your own shortcomings

The most challenging of topics that I, a Black woman, could approach in a county where service providers were predominantly White, was … (you guessed it) race! As such, because I had previously worked in the county and lived in neighboring counties, I was well aware that I had to approach the issue wisely. Initially, nervous that I would be perceived as the “angry Black woman,” or be thought to be using “the race card,” I gave a lot of thought to my approach. In some settings, even though this was what I had been hired for, I could not outright approach the topic of race. I was however safe discussing the more socially acceptable topic of “diversity,” without giving the oppression I was discussing a race. People were more comfortable that way. To go further with these audiences, as a tool, I used self-disclosure to disarm participants. I told stories of my shortcomings and unfair biases that I may have had. In so doing I not only humanized myself, and took away this feeling of finger pointing, I joined them by admitting to work that I also had to do. These light-hearted, humorous stories also stirred memories and helped them to identify their own unintended biases. The environment felt safer to participants. They could risk exposure, because I had.

Be sure to know who you are training

I once made the mistake of assuming that all audiences in this county were pretty much the same. As such even though I was going to an audience that was not composed of my typical seasoned social work crowd, I approached them with my usual jovialness. I introduced myself, my professional role and stated that I was also a doctoral student. Within minutes I was accused of being racist (though I had not even had the opportunity to discuss race), and was insulted by an audience member who insinuated that the only reason I got into a doctoral program was affirmative action, “Which is really such a shame, seeing as how perfectly good White people were probably passed up.” It took everything in me to gather myself in front of this audience—especially because the training had not even begun. It was a tough session to get through as defenses were up. Fortunately, I later had the opportunity to go back better prepared. Nonetheless I learned a valuable lesson. Education, prior exposure, current professional roles, the context of diversity fostered within the work environment, and other important factors, were important things to consider when contracted to do work for an agency. Learning will not take place without tailoring your message to the unique culture of those you are serving.

Everyone has a meaningful story to share. Encourage them to share it

As with any audience, there will be varying degrees with which people feel comfortable sharing things publicly. However, most learning occurs from the people in the audience as opposed to from just the trainer themselves. The trainer must be skilled in drawing stories out, weaving stories together, and drawing collective meaning from participants lived experiences. One of the most meaningful experiences I had when delivering training came when a woman who identified herself as a lesbian in a same-sex relationship shared what it took for her and her partner to schedule vacations. As a heterosexual woman I don’t have to consider looking for vacation spots where I could hold hands with my partner publicly. I could find a man I met two minutes ago and hold hands or kiss in public (I wouldn’t of course), and may not be looked at twice. I was afforded a luxury by virtue of heterosexual privilege that she was not. Although not exact, that experience of marginalization was something that I could relate to. My prior experiences of oppression enabled me to deeply feel what she had experienced. In fact, I sat with that in our group session and we all felt it. We had been together for three 8-hour sessions and had developed a camaraderie that caused us to become allies for each other. We shared many stories like that. One woman discussed what it was like to be Chinese in an American context, whereas another shared what it was like to be poor and Jewish in a middle-class, White neighborhood. Another man shared the disrespect he endured as a doctor with a heavy foreign accent. Members empathized with the pain of the others. Bonds were formed, and conceptual bridges were crossed.

Do not ignore intersections of Identity

The existence of oppression, inequity, and unfairness that exists for some groups, as compared to others, necessitates the promotion of diversity. In fact, in many ways, the embracing and celebration of diversity can serve as one part of an antidote to oppression. However, when we talk about oppression, we think if it as it pertains to race, class, gender, sexuality, and so on. In my earlier trainings, and I still find myself falling into this trap every now and again, I would speak about one form of oppression or another—as though they were unilaterally experienced. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. There are those that experience multiple layers of oppression. The poor, transgender, Black man has a very different experience than an upper-class, transgender, White man by virtue of the ways these multiple identities intersect. This intersectionality needs to be addressed when discussing oppression and diversity. Not only does it give an observer a lens through which one can more accurately view oppression, it also validates the lived experience of those whose multiple identities intersect to complicate the existence of any one form of oppression. Furthermore, acknowledging and including education of these things in one’s discussion gives a language to those who are oppressed and those who seek to be allies to address oppression.

Use people’s discomfort for learning

As earlier stated, my personality, especially in group settings, is more shy and quiet. I prefer to get along with people. As such, I don’t like confrontations and would shy away from them. This means when I first started doing these trainings and uncomfortable things would occur, such as people rolling their eyes, folding their arms, or walking out of the room, I would try to ignore it—though it bothered me well beyond the end of the training. Eventually I got comfortable enough to use these things in my training sessions. Often I’d normalize the experience of discomfort. “The things we’re talking about today are uncomfortable. However, this is a safe environment to discuss this discomfort. If you left here with unprocessed discomfort or anger, then I haven’t really done my job.” I may then look directly at someone and say, “I’ve noticed that you’ve shifted in your seat, rolled your eyes, huffed and whispered to your partner a few times in the last 10 minutes. Would you feel comfortable sharing what you’re feeling?” More often than not people become aware of their behavior. There have been a few times when people minimize it and attribute it to something else. However, the majority of times people get really nice (because they don’t want to seem like the bad guy/gal) and share their discomfort politely. Most times, before I could address what was expressed, another participant would jump in and offer something they learned whether in the training session or prior to, to help them when they’ve felt similar ways. If participants don’t volunteer, I may open it up to the crowd...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I: From the Inside-Out
• 1. When the Trainer Got Trained: Seven Things I Learned About Delivering Diversity Trainings
• 2. Addressing Internalized Biases and Stereotypes of the Group Leader: A Life-Long Professional Task
• 3. Invisible People Don’t Need Masks
• 4. “Small” Acts Are Often Not That Small
• 5. Hope and Sorrow
• 6. To a Classroom in Botswana (and Back) in Search of Cultural Understanding
• 7. Exploring Personal and Professional Understanding of Nonmonogamous Relationships: Reflections on a Group Work–Informed Workshop
• Part II: Growing Up
• 8. Which Drums Should We Play?
• 9. Group Work with Gay Male Teens at the Time of 9/11
• 10. The Watusi Girls: A Legacy of Inspiration
• 11. Creating Space for LGBTQ Youths to Guide the Group
• 12. From Profiled to Praiseworthy to Proud
• Part III: Aging
• 13. A Different Kind of Sorority
• 14. Lessons Learned from Ballroom Dancing with Older Adults
• Part IV: From Medical Model to Social Model
• 15. “Oh, Don’t Get Your Hopes up about That. He’ll Never Be the Same”
• 16. Celebrating Neurodiversity: An Often-Overlooked Difference in Group Work
• 17. Come As You Are!: Creating Community with Groups
• Part V: Language
• 18. “Professors, Why Did You Ask Us to Throw Out All Our Hopes and Dreams?”
• 19. Working with a Diversity of Languages: Francophone and Anglophone Coparticipants in Groups of Parents of Transgender Children
• 20. Placing Diversity: Graduate Encounters with Group Work
• Part VI: In The Classroom
• 21. Being Black in a Higher Learning Institution
• 22. Until the Animals Get Their Own Story Teller, the Hunter Remains the Hero of All Tales
• 23. Recognizing the Needs of Black Social Work Students in the Current Racial Climate
• 24. Flowers and a Garden, Children and Games, Laughter and Fun: Unity in Diversity
• 25. Countertransference Challenges in Working with Diversity: A Group Worker Reflects
• Part VII: Searching for Meaning and More
• 26. Insiders in an Empty World
• 27. Women Faculty of Color in a Predominantly White Institution: A Natural Support Group
• 28. Healing Through Group Work
• 29. “Being Accepted” and “Being Accepted”?
• 30. Breaking Taboos: The Power of Group Work for First-Generation Scholars
• 31. The Village: Still Alive and Necessary
• Index