 This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on teaching social justice. Now we're going to kind of segue or talk about why we've done this segue into something that's a little bit different than what we normally talk about. So we're going to start by defining social justice and explore the goals of social justice education to include identity, diversity, justice, and action. Then we're going to look at a bunch of really cool activities that you may be able to use in your groups, in your outreach, whatever your setting is in order to work with social justice and help your clients embrace it. So the National Association of Social Workers defines social justice as the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities. Okay. I don't think any of us would disagree with that. So first question for y'all, in what ways can social justice education assist clients emotionally, cognitively, socially, occupationally, and physically? And while you're kind of pondering that, social justice is, we'll go back here, identity, knowing all of their different varying identities, who they are and I'm, for example, I am a wife, I am a mother, I am a business owner, I'm a therapist, I am, I am, I am. So knowing your identities, appreciating and embracing diversity and respecting that it doesn't have to be just your way and other people have different viewpoints, seeing where there is injustice and working towards creating a just situation and taking action, which is again, that working towards. So they all kind of overlap. So back to the question. In what way can these things, knowing your identity, appreciating and embracing diversity, et cetera, assist clients emotionally? So one way that working with clients to help them understand their own identities and the diversity of identities. If people don't understand that the perspectives of another culture, for example, or another group, then it can cause additional conflict, anxiety and stress and a lot of clients present when they feel conflict, anxiety, stress or depression, which is often characterized by hopelessness and helplessness. They don't understand how to get their needs met or they're not getting their needs met and they don't understand why. Cognitively, it can help them have that cognitive shift. So they're able to look at things from multiple perspectives, whether they necessarily agree with it or not, is not so much the point. For example, when I was a manager at a treatment facility, you know, I started out as a clinician and I understood the clinician's role and I understood what they were, what was important to them as clinicians. I mean, I'm a clinician. So the same thing is important to me, but I also understood the roles, responsibilities and edicts of being a manager. And I had to make sure that we maintain certain caseloads. I had to make sure that paperwork got in. Now as a clinician, you know, I would want to push off paperwork in order to see clients, you know, if I'm seeing clients and clients need things, I don't want to put them off. So I've got to do paperwork as a manager. I'm pushing to get paperwork done and it can cause conflict. Obviously, you know, I think most of us have been in that situation in especially working in a group practice where your supervisor wants you to take on additional caseloads or put certain demands on you and you're looking at them going. But my goal is my job is to see the clients. Well, yeah, but in order to keep the doors open so we can see the clients, I need these things accomplished. So we seem to have somewhat contradictory goals. But once we were all on the same page and, you know, obviously, I saw I understood why it was important for them to see the clients and they understood why what I wanted was important. We were able to collaborate instead of butt heads so much. Socially, if we help people understand their different identities, it can also help them understand and appreciate diversity but also understand other people's reactions to them a little bit more and be more effective interpersonally. Occupationally, they can have more opportunities in the workplace if everybody is embracing a diverse culture and physically, you know, when people are less stressed, less anxious, less depressed, they're going to feel better physically. They're going to have more energy, be more productive, have less pain and aches and stuff. They're going to sleep better. Yada, yada. So it's all kind of related. So social justice is really important, helping people see their uniqueness. You know, they are not just a round hole or a round peg going into a round hole. You know, they are unique in many, many ways. I mean, they may be a round peg, but they're a red round peg. They are a red wooden round peg. So there are a lot of things that make them unique and that will affect how they interact with everybody else. So in terms of assisting us, how can knowing about all of these identities and their interaction with one another within the person and between people help us identify community needs and strengths? For example, some cultures are very interdependent and they rely on one another. They rely on intergenerational relationships as well as, you know, community relationships. So in those communities, in those areas, you know, we can build on community strengths. Sometimes, you know, if you live in a particular apartment complex, for example, everybody watches out for everyone else. So it helps us identify strengths that may not exist in your community where I live, I live on a farm and, you know, our neighbors aren't too far away, but we all pretty much stay to ourselves. It's not one of those neighborhoods where we're getting out and having block parties all the time. So that's not so much of a strength in our community, whereas in other communities, everybody knows what's going on with everybody else and is, you know, eager to help and support and all that kind of stuff. So we can identify community strengths that clients can tap into in order to get assistance with whatever they need. We can also identify community needs. If we see areas where, you know, clients don't have enough support, then we can look at how to address that. I had one client when I worked in in North Florida and this was a really rural county that was one of the counties that I supervised and I was working with this client and he was an African American man, older gentleman, mid fifties, I think, I can't remember. But he was very resistant to going to 12 step meetings. And so I asked him, and why is it that you don't want to go to these meetings? Tell me what it is about these meetings you don't like so I can help you find an alternative. And he looked at me and he said it's they don't like people like me there. And I looked at him quizzically because that wasn't even a thought that had ever crossed my mind. It should have, but it didn't. And he said, I would be the only black man there. And that's not safe in this county. And I said, Oh, OK, so that identified a community need. He didn't have some of the resources he needed because of his racial identity. So understanding how all those things interplay and figuring out, OK, now, where can this man get support? He had strong ties to his faith community. So that was kind of where I steered him to go, as opposed to the 12 step meetings, which he didn't feel comfortable at. Knowing our clients' cultures helps us know what help they're willing and able to accept. Exactly. We want to look at them from a culturally responsive framework and say, OK, you know, maybe this approach doesn't work for you. And I'll stick with the 12 steps because that one has a lot of people with very strong opinions about it. But there are some people who are adamant that they are not going to go to that a 12 step program because they see it as too religious and they want something more secular. So OK, they're smart recovery out there, whatever. But understanding those things. And a lot of times we don't know clients very well, even if you've done an assessment, you know, your initial assessments, what, 45 minutes, so, you know, know them for maybe one minute for every year they've been alive, not a whole lot of time. So we can empower them to become aware of what their needs are and to tell us, you know, instead of me saying, you need to do this, this and this, I want to approach it more in terms of you're the expert on you. You know what works, how is it or what types of things might you be able to do in order to reach out to social support? You know, and I can give suggestions like 12 step meetings, smart recovery, faith based communities, yada, yada, yada. And they can pick and choose and they can tell me, you know, no, I'm atheist. So that's not going to work. OK, cool. And that helps me understand what's going to work best for them instead of trying to put them into something that's not going to work. It helps us help them tap into those appropriate resources. So we know, you know, if we have a new mom who's struggling with postpartum depression and she's got no family around and she's not in a supportive neighborhood where she's got neighbors she can call on, we may need to say, OK, well, where can you go to tap in for for respite type services? And we can connect with and better understand our clients. We can understand partly how they're reacting to us. And hopefully that part you already know, you understand that just who you are and the way your office is decorated is going to communicate things to your clients that's going to affect how they interface with you. Some clients want to work with a female. Some clients don't. Some clients, you know, may have very strong transference reactions towards an authority type female. So knowing those things, if you're female or if you're a male, understanding how just your gender is going to change the dynamic of the interaction between you and that client versus the therapist next door and that client, you know, there are going to be differences. Discrimination and bias contribute to emotional stress, low self-esteem. Sorry, missed the S there and self-efficacy and low self-efficacy. If they don't understand why they feel like they are walking into a wall all the time, why they feel like they're walking into barriers, then they might start to think, well, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm not smart enough. Maybe I am not capable. When in reality, it's a social barrier and it can create erroneous biases where we start believing that, you know, this group has these characteristics, therefore they can do these things and they can't do these things and they're always going to act this way. That doesn't work. One of the things that we learn in culturally responsive approaches is the fact that when we're dealing with people from different cultures, understanding, you know, in general what it's like, you know, for, you know, white American women in the white American women, that's one culture. OK, understanding that in general. Now, my degree of acculturation, how much I take on the cultural values may be very different than the degree of acculturation of somebody else. So we don't want to assume that we know a person. It gives us a launchpad. It gives us a jumping off place to open discussion and go, help me know you, the person. So we're not getting stuck in stereotypes and biases. Interpersonally, discrimination and bias contribute to conflict and occupationally and environmentally. It reduces access to opportunities and services. So thinking about. Well, we're going to get to that in a second. I have some examples here. As we have Andrew offers, as we have greater understanding of social justice issues of our clients and successfully convey that. Then we're in a better position to help them find balance and it fosters necessary trust. True, that is so true because we are not going to be able to help them change the world necessarily. So there's a balance, you know, understanding what part is me, what part I'm responsible for and how to negotiate that and live within my own skin and have this rich and meaningful life and what part is society, some of which I can advocate for change. Others I may just have to work with a little bit. So what's the impact? And I'm going to go through some very common stereotypes here and talk a little bit about the research women are bad at math, you know, girls are bad at math for since I was knee high to a grasshopper, I've heard this and it's not true. During the last 30 years, the gaps in math scores have dropped dramatically in the United States. In some nations like Indonesia and Iceland, women actually outperform men in the tip top mathematical performance. So part of it, their thinking may maybe or a large part of it may be cultural expectations. So what do we do with children when they are, you know, going through school? What do we tell them piggybacking on that? There was an article in one of the professional journals on stereotypes, susceptibility and it's pointed out that Asian American, this one study, Asian American women who were reminded of their Asian identities had improved math performance. But when they were reminded of their femininity, had decreased math performance. So just altering the way somebody interacts with them, you know, if somebody interacts with them and says, oh, you are such a good math person, you know, their math skills came out. But if somebody was interacting with them, communicating that they expected a more feminine persona, their math skills went down and it was the same person. So it was an interesting article. Let me see. Whoops, there we go. That was in Sage Publications. So you can click on the link later, but it was an interesting article to read. People with mental illness are dangerous. This is another stereotype. The vast majority of people who are violent don't suffer from mental illness. OK, so let that sink in for a second. The vast majority of people who are violent don't have any diagnosable mental illness. They're just violent. Only three to five percent of violent acts can be attributed to serious mental illness. And of those three to five percent, when you really start digging down into it, the majority of those violent acts are self-injurious, suicidal suicide attempts, et cetera. So there's a very, very, very small percentage of people who have a mental illness who ever do anything dangerous. But society and the media tend to portray it as being much more prevalent or problematic than it really is. People with mental illness or bad employees, this can keep people from who have a mental illness from getting a job, for example, or getting the job that they want, et cetera. So if even though you're not allowed to discriminate based on the ADA, the reality is we see it happen. And then this is we get into advocacy later where we got to stand up for it to make sure that it goes away. But many people with mental illnesses are medicated and asymptomatic just because they don't have symptoms doesn't mean they don't have the diagnosis. If somebody has major depressive disorder and they're on an anti-depressant and go into counseling or whatever and they are asymptomatic. They're probably sitting right next to you in a cubicle somewhere. There are a lot of people, about 18% of workers in the U.S., so roughly one in five, look around your office, how many people are working in your office, probably more than five. So at least one of them may report having a mental health condition in any given month. So let that sit with you for a minute. Now, does that mean they're bad employees? No. I mean, looking around, most of the people you work with are good employees. And yeah, they have their struggles and they may have their their times when they're symptomatic, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're bad employees. Actually, it generally doesn't. They're usually good. Okay. Criminals are bad people and all people with addictions are criminals. We're going to cover both of these together. Now, there isn't a lot of data on this. There's a lot of data that indicates that people who are in jail tend to have addictions and 80% of crime is related to drugs, yada, yada. But we got to look bigger than that. People with addictions, for example, don't always get caught. They don't always break the law. People who are alcoholics don't break the law, necessarily, unless they drive drunk. But, you know, it's possible that this person has an addiction and is never broken alone, so it doesn't mean that they're criminals, but people's perception is people with addictions are criminals, so I don't want to hire them because they're going to steal from me and they're going to do bad things. And that is so not the truth. So we need to dispel that myth and criminals are bad people. Think about the different charges people can have. There are a myriad of different things that can land somebody in jail. So we want to look at what caused it. You know, if the person had a, I don't know, a domestic violence charge, does it mean they were a bad person? It could mean that they have intermittent explosive disorder. It could mean something else triggered that behavior. It could mean maybe they were defending somebody else and, you know, ended up getting some sort of a domestic charge. There are a lot of reasons. I don't look at a criminal history and go, oh, you know, bad person here. I want to know why they're doing it, you know, especially if it's just this sporadic thing or one criminal charge. Now, if somebody has a criminal history, you know, as long as my arm, then I'm probably going to look towards, you know, if they've got some addictions going on or something, that's generally what happens. But, you know, in general, people who commit crimes are often, you know, troubled people, but I wouldn't say they're bad people, but that's the humanist in me coming out. So anyway, you can see how these different stereotypes, just the ones that we're talking about, can keep people from necessarily pursuing high paying jobs, can keep people from getting hired at jobs, can impair relationships with other people, you know, socially. If you've got a criminal record, it may be harder to get certain jobs. It may be harder to make friends. People may hold it against you because they don't understand. So stepping back and understanding kind of what goes with it. So goals for social justice education, students, participants, whatever you want to call them, will develop positive social identities based on their membership in multiple groups in society, and we're going to do activity in a second on that. Students will develop language and historical and cultural knowledge that affirm and accurately describe their membership in multiple identity groups. So they find out about who they are. Now, they may not adhere to every single part of that culture. You know, that doesn't mean they have to, but it's important to know kind of what their familial background is and how that contributes to who they are, et cetera. Students will recognize that people's multiple identities interact and create unique and complex individuals. For example, I'm a mother and a business owner. Now, or a mother and an employee, it doesn't really matter. There are days that my need to go to work and the obligations of being a parent conflict, you know, if I have a sick kid at home or something, you know, I don't want to go to work. Now, being an employee, you know, it's my job. It's my obligation to go to work being a parent. It's my obligation to tend to my child. So those two identities conflict and I have to figure out how do I negotiate those in the workplace? And again, not supposed to happen, but it does. People may not be as willing or excited about hiring a woman, especially, but more men now too, who are of childbearing age, where they might have little ones at home that do get sick because they expect parents to be calling out frequently because of child illnesses. Now, they can't ask if you're a parent in the interview, but, you know, knowing that parents will, you know, choose to stay home when they can is something that employers consider, even though they're not supposed to. In terms of, and, you know, one another thing that Patty brings up, when we think about our identities, fathers, for the longest time, haven't had paternity leave in most places. Maternity leave was kind of an expectation that you'd have six weeks, which isn't near enough, in my opinion, but six weeks of time with the baby after you give birth to bond and do that kind of stuff. But society has said mother bonds with baby, dad goes to work. And that's not necessarily the case. Some dads really want to stay home and bond with baby just as much as mom, and maybe instead of mom, you know, some moms want to, you know, hit the ground running and get right back to work. Um, and what does society say about that? You know, what do, how do people judge, you know, mom and dad if they decide to flip up those roles? It's a new topic and people are kind of seem to be a little bit slow to embrace it, but that is definitely something to consider and to advocate for. We want to have equal rights for dads to be able to, um, stay home and nurture their little peanut. Uh, students will express pride, confidence and healthy self-esteem without denying the value and dignity of other people and will recognize the traits of the dominant culture, their cultures and understand how to negotiate their own identity in multiple spaces. Um, so, you know, navigating your identity at work, navigating your identity with your friends, navigating your identity, um, when you go apply for a bank loan, et cetera, all of those places and many more. I mean, everywhere you go, people look at you, unfortunately, um, or fortunately, if they've got, you know, wonderful self-awareness, um, but people look at you and just start making judgments. You know, if you go into a bank and you're wearing ripped up jeans and a tatty or taterials sweatshirt and you try to get a bank loan for, you know, $200,000 or something, the person's going to be a little bit suspect, um, until they, you know, check your credit or, or whatever, but it's important to recognize and to have people recognize that just the way we present ourselves affects how others react to us. So thinking about it, and we're not going to take a whole five minutes here, but this is an activity that you can do on your own. If this is a relatively new topic to you, take five minutes and complete the sentence, I am a, as many times as needed to start to define who you are. And after five minutes, you may still be going strong, but I usually call it five minutes, you know, because it gives people an idea. For example, I'm a mother, daughter, teacher, business owner, friend, college graduate, farmer, advocate for animal welfare, runner, white, female, Christian, middle class, you know, those are just a few of the ones that I came up with. So then I went back and I said, what does it mean to me to be a part of each of those groups? Now what it means to me and what it means to my friend may be very different. I'm also a homeschool parent. Um, and you know, the way I homeschool is very different than the way some of my, my peers homeschool. And, you know, that's okay, but I do recognize, you know, we have similarities and the reasons why we homeschool, uh, but we also have differences in both the reasons and the approaches, which identities interact. So for me, for example, I'm a huge animal welfare advocate, um, but I'm also a farmer. So, you know, how do those things work together? Well, all of our ducks and chickens, um, live long, happy lives, we use them for eggs, which they're going to give anyway. Um, and that's just the way it is. We can't, I can't bring it upon myself to dispatch. That's the nice word for it. Um, our critters and eat them. I just can't do it. Uh, so from an animal welfare standpoint, they don't contradict one another. Being a business owner and a mother, we kind of already talked about a lot of times I will have conflicting identities where maybe I want to travel and go to a conference, but you know, I also want to be around and see my kids every day. How does each of these identities impact my interactions with others and the world? So being a mother, for example, but I'm also a daughter and my mother and I have very different ideas about how to raise children and, you know, how to raise my children. Um, so our identities can kind of conflict because as a daughter, you know, I tend to be more submissive and be like, okay, you know, whatever you say, but as a mother, I'm advocating for my children going, no, this is the way we do it. So figuring out how to negotiate that, how to not feel bowled over, but also not to hurt or insult is a negotiation that, you know, most parents have to learn when their kids go to the grandparents, you know, how do you communicate what you want while still being respectful? And how does each of these identities impact my work with clients? So some of them, um, some of these identities help me really connect with clients because they're also mothers, they're also farmers or animal, animal welfare people or, or whatever. Um, and others kind of put us on different pages, just understanding that, you know, I can appreciate other people's values and, and approaches in, in terms of working with them as, you know, clinician, client sort of thing. But I do need to understand how my identity impacts these clients. I need to understand how the way I decorate my office and the way I present myself, how does that impact my work? How does it, does it make my clients feel comfortable? Does it make them feel uncomfortable? And if it makes them feel uncomfortable, then how can I address that? So in order to help clients develop a sense of identity, um, one example would be to have somebody complete a mission statement. And in this case, we're going to use the name Rebecca, she completed a mission statement saying I am more than one identity. I will celebrate all of my in group and out group identities and work to understand how they overlap to make up who I am as an individual and I will not allow others to put me into boxes. Now you can start out a group with this statement and run an entire group on it. So what are your in group identities and what are your out group identities? So, you know, if you're in one group, then, you know, you're, you may be out in another group, um, which means if, for example, I'm a female, that's an in group identity, um, and I am not a male, Rebecca explains that being a student, sister, female, Latina, Spanish speaker and dancer are all interconnected and equally important. So we'd want to start talking whether it's individual or group, you know, what is being a student mean and to you and why is it important? What is being a sister mean to you and why is it important? Go through each of them and then go back and say, all right, now, how do these connect to, you know, overlap and make you who you are and when they conflict, how do you handle it? Um, and she displays her personal mission statement on the outside of her binder. So this is something, um, clients can do if you have them keeping a binder, uh, a journal, whatever you call it in, in your facility, um, that's something that can form the cover page if you want, if you want to do that. You can also have them do like an art project, like a collage, so it's not words, if that makes them feel more comfortable. Um, another activity that you can do, participants choose from a list of things and share with the group and you can choose things like nicknames, ethnic background, where they're from, where their parents were born, one hobby, if you say all your hobbies, you could be there for a week with somebody. Um, their religion or spiritual belief system, their music preferences, a custom or tradition, their family practices, etc. You know your groups, so you can identify 10 or 15 things that you think are salient and then allow participants to choose from the list. Not everybody may be comfortable sharing their spiritual belief system, for example, so they don't have to, you know, tell them, pick three things from the list you want to share. Um, the themes that emerge as you go around the room is that even members of the same identity groups have very different backgrounds, so maybe you've got three people who are tennis players, um, and okay, so that's a group. You're an athlete, you're a tennis player, but they may have very different backgrounds. Often members of different groups have more similar backgrounds than they had assumed. Um, just because someone is a gamer, um, doesn't mean that they don't have anything in common with an athlete. I know a bunch of people who are kind of both, if they're not at the computer, they're at the gym. So it's starting to understand that people don't fit neatly into these little cubby holes. Diversity transcends black and white, and many people find out information which allows them to connect somehow with someone else in group. So this helps them reach out and start forging those, um, bonds and developing strengths and social networks, which they can use outside of the counseling session. Um, at the end, you know, it's good to wrap up by asking the participants to explain why this was an important exercise or why this was, could be helpful to their recovery process or to helping them deal with depression or, or whatever the case may be. Another activity that is interesting to do, um, you use flip chart paper and each label or each area has a different label. Religious affiliation, ethnicity, immigration status, sex, sexual orientation, race, class, or group membership. Um, and you can use different group memberships and obviously there's, you have to do more than just the corners because there's way too many areas. But then there's a set of questions we're getting ready to go to and you want to read the questions and have participants choose an identity that answers the question for them. So takes them a second to figure out which, you know, if they have to choose from the 15 things that are out there, which one best answers this question for me. To allow a space for participants to talk about their experiences and their identities in a more personal way and provide an opportunity for others to learn from their personal stories. So this is why you have different stations because of all the people who say the part of me that, um, the identity of mine that I most notice every day is that I'm female or that, that I most notice is my gender. Okay. So everybody who's in that area, that station, can talk about why that's what they notice as being most salient each day. It highlights that people with similar identities can experience different levels of salience, self-awareness, and can be differently impacted by their intersecting identities. To talk about how we experience our identities on a day-to-day basis. So for example, you know, I am a white female. So what part of my, you know, which one of my identities do I notice most each day? If I chose my gender, somebody else may choose their race or their ethnicity or their occupation. And all of those things, you know, are different identities. We all, all three of us may be white females, but we just experience life a little bit differently. And we highlight how everyone may experience pain, ostracism, or discrimination and feel it within the context of different identities. So the questions. As part of my identity that I'm a most, the part of my identity I'm most aware of on a daily basis is. The part of my identity that I'm least aware of on a daily basis is. The part of my identity that was most emphasized or important in my family growing up was. The part of my identity that I wish I knew more about is. The part of my identity that provides me the most privilege is. You may have to define privilege here. The part of my identity that I believe is the most misunderstood by others is. The part of my identity that I feel is difficult to discuss with others who identify differently is. So for example, if you've got some people may have difficulty discussing their ethnicity with someone of a different race or ethnicity or religion or something and they may feel that's a very uncomfortable discussion. So we want to start talking about why is that? Why is it? Why is this thing? And, you know, again, all these people, if they say my race or ethnicity is. The part of my identity that I'm most aware of on a daily basis is the part of my identity that is I feel is most difficult to discuss with others who identify differently. Well, they're all answering the question the same. So they're in that station and they can talk about why is this the most difficult aspect for me to discuss with others. And the part of my identity that makes me feel discriminated against recognizing that most people experience discrimination, if not all people, you know, I try to avoid extreme words like all and never but so most people feel like they're discriminated against occasionally, at least. So that is a really awesome exercise. It takes a lot longer than an hour to go through. So it may be something that you break up over a couple of different groups or you cut down the number of questions and you only do like five of the questions. So activity three, understanding people's perspectives. So, see I was smart and I even opened these up already. Exploring identity. Here we go. Now these are using photographs, which is really awesome. And in this website, they already provide the photographs for you. So it tells you what the objectives are, the essential questions in this one, how do people identify themselves and how do others identify them? What are some components of the individual's identity and how do photographs shape understanding of social justice issues? Okay. So, you know, then you scroll down photograph a and ask certain questions in this one. Write down your understanding of the word transgender. Now read the definition of transgender to see if you are correct. Then look at the photograph. Don't read the caption, but think about the following questions and then they're going to discuss them. Describe the person in the photograph. Make note of what you see. What is the sign in the background say? What do you imagine in the person in the photo is thinking about and feeling? And what feelings do you have when you look at the photo? So then obviously you're going to go through each one of these and talk about it. So you can put the photo up on a projector or something. So people have a chance to really look at it. Then you have them, they can either pair up or you can discuss it as a group. Another activity is affirming our commonalities or differences. So we want to help them see the ways that we're alike and we're different and how photographs can challenge stereotypes. So then we look down here at photograph A and have people take turns saying something that you see in the in the photo. Don't analyze it at this stage. Just say what you see. And it helps people clue in to what they hone in on immediately when they see things. Do they see someone standing? Do they see someone in the wheelchair? Do they see you know, a protest? What is it that they see first? How does the photo make you feel and what can you infer from what you have seen? And then there are other questions that go along with that. So again this teaching tolerance website tolerance.org really lays out the entire lesson plan for you and it gives you a lot of great stuff to work with. And this can also help again when we're working with clients we want to set help them become aware when they walk into the dayroom for example if you're in a residential facility and they look around and they see everyone in there what are the first impressions that they draw what are the first conclusions that they draw and that may help them understand other people's reactions to them and their reaction to the situation. And we also want to challenge some of those stereotypes and things that people have. This talks about supporting social border crossings. So how can photographs be used to illustrate a concept or detail? And how can the subject of a photograph help reveal the photographer's point of view on the topic? So there's another picture here that people get to look at and they're asked to individually describe each person in the photograph using the questions to guide them. The person's gender, race, religion and sexual orientation. Then form groups of four and discuss your answers with the group. Why did you come to that conclusion? What do you think you can tell about people by just looking at them and what can't you tell about people by just looking at them? So then we move on to diversity. Students will express comfort with people who are both similar to and different from them and engage respectfully with all people. Students will develop language and knowledge to accurately and respectfully describe how people including themselves are both similar to and different from each other and others in their identity group. So, you know, if you've got 10 people in group, maybe you're doing a group women with postpartum depression. They're all mothers. They all have postpartum depression. What else do they have that's similar? What do they have that's different? Maybe some are new mothers. Maybe some have three other kids at home. You know, maybe some of them have a lot of social support at home. Others may not. So we want to talk about, you know, what, how are you similar and how are you different? Students will respectively express curiosity about the history and lived experiences of others and will exchange ideas and beliefs in an open-minded way. Again, you've got parents and if you put three parents in a room and say, how do you deal with this problem? You're probably going to get three different solutions to how to deal with that problem. They may be similar, may not be. But it's important to help students realize in recovery, the same thing is true. You put five people in recovery in the same room and say, how did you achieve recovery? And you will probably come up with a bunch of different answers. So it's important to help people recognize that learning, hearing from other people and being curious can give you new ideas for how to, for things that you want to do or things you want to embrace or the way you want to do things. And it can also help you understand the other person. If you've got two people who come from very different recovery backgrounds, they may butt heads on certain topics about the way it's supposed to go. However, they're both working toward, what are you both working toward recovery and talking about how they define it. So encouraging people who have differences to also really look to find their similarities. What do you have in common? Students will respond to diversity by building empathy, respect, understanding and connection and will examine diversity in social, cultural, political and historical contexts rather than ways that are superficial or oversimplified. So we want to look at, not just parenting on the surface, but kind of the history of parenting and for example, the topic of spanking. Where do people stand on that? We want to look at the history of where it came from, what it was used for, theoretically what the function supposed to be, yada, yada, yada. Look at the cultural contexts of that. Who is the disciplinarian in the family in certain cultures, et cetera, to help students just kind of get a broader understanding of how things work. So diversity resources. We're not going to go through this whole workbook because it's 105 pages, but there are a ton of diversity activities in this diversity resource guide and it covers everything from cultural and ethnic diversity to ADA and disability, acceptance and awareness, privilege, exercises, et cetera. Lots of really awesome activities in this. Another activity we can do to help people with diversity is to understand that the difference between fact and opinion is critical to our understanding and ability to examine our reactions to events and people. Sometimes we take things that we assume are facts when they're just opinions. Stereotypes and prejudices are often based on opinions that are perceived as facts. So what we do in this activity is create a set of facts and opinion statement cards by writing the following statements on blank index cards and you can choose your own statements, but these are just some examples. Girls are smarter than boys. Americans are friendly. All boys are good at sports. Utah is a state in the United States and handing it out. And this works well with adults, but it works. This is a really awesome activity with adolescents because then we can start talking about the difference between fact and opinion. And you can get into some pretty interesting discussions with adolescents. Adults don't seem to get quite as engaged. But all of these fact versus opinion statement cards and then you can move towards other, maybe in your treatment program, you see certain biases or in your community. You see certain biases. You can address those and you can put out some facts. For example, the one I shared earlier that only 3 to 5% of people with mental illness commit any violent acts. That's a fact. So then the opinion would be people with mental illness are dangerous. So that's an opinion. That's skewed. So helping them differentiate fact versus myth or opinion. So another example that they gave in the teaching social justice handbook is that Sherry is a student ambassador welcoming new students and showing them around school. She mentions to one new student Kyle that she helped found the student's Gay Straight Alliance. Kyle tells her that he's actually transgender and has changed schools after a beginning transition. Sherry tells him that she will be discreet and assures him that the administration is welcoming. Kyle recounts this story fondly at a later meeting with the school's counselor. Now, working in a residential program, we used to have buddies that we would hook people up with when they came in. We would give them a tour around the facility and then we would set them up with a buddy who would welcome them and show them around. And it's really important for the buddies to be able to find commonalities and connect with the new person to help them feel like they belong in the program and feel like they have some sort of connection. So the next activity or thing people need to work towards is justice. Students recognize stereotypes and relate to people as individuals rather than representatives of groups. So this is the first thing. You know, we're not just working with an addict. We are working with John, who is a person with an addiction. Students will recognize unfairness on the individual level such as biased speech and injustice at the institutional or systemic level including discrimination. So, you know, discrimination in housing and employment, any of those types of things. Students will analyze the harmful impact of bias and injustice on the world historically and today. Now that's more of an academic project but it is something that could form a group if you have a really good group going for social justice. Students will recognize that power and privilege influence relationships on the interpersonal so between individuals intergroup between, you know, different groups if you've got, you know, when I work with adolescents I use the example of two different high schools. You know, if you're from one high school and they're from another high school your rivals but you also have a lot in common and you know, you have some differences but it affects how that, it affects their relationships and on institutional levels and we want to have students consider how they've been affected by those dynamics. Students will identify figures, groups and events and a variety of strategies and philosophies relevant to the history of social justice around the world. So who are the people who have stood up for justice? You know, when women got the right to vote when, you know, Martin Luther King we want to look at some of those people but also look at some of the less celebrated figures and have them point out, you know, people in your community who have fought for social justice and equal rights for all. So in this activity Karen notices that many of her school's facilities are not friendly to those with disabilities. Many students have difficulty navigating the school and are often late to class as a result. Karen decides to look into building plans to determine if any accommodations are present for those in the community with physical limitations and forms a focus group of students and faculty to come up with effective solutions to the situation. So sometimes you see a problem and you don't know how to fix it. So the justice part is becoming aware of the fact that there is discrimination or imbalance or inequality the next step, the activism is doing something about it but that's kind of transitions this in there. She formed this focus group. She said, I don't know what to do but something needs to be done. So back to the photographs. We can talk about exposing racism. Essential questions. How can photographs capture a moment in history? What's significance to historical photographs play in the present? And why is it important to understand the context of a photograph? So we go down and we look at this in order to understand the context of what's going on. If you didn't understand what when this was taken you might not understand the types of pressures and discrimination this woman was feeling. So there's a lot of questions that are there for you. There are activities that are on the exposing injustice website for exposing gender bias, anti-immigration sentiment and homelessness and poverty discrimination. So those are all things that you can look at. We're not going to go through each one of those today for the sake of time. And action or activism students express empathy when people are excluded or mistreated because of their identities and express concern when they themselves experience bias. They'll recognize their own responsibility to stand up to include exclusion, prejudice and injustice. So we can't just stand by and be quiet. If they see something is wrong or they perceive that something is wrong it's important to say something. They may find out that there's really no problem and it was a misperception but a lot of times they'll find out that they were on par and maybe nobody realized it. I got my master's degree in rehabilitation counseling and one of my pet peeves is when I go to open a door at a public facility and it takes more than eight pounds of pressure to open it. Now I know that's a minor one but the nice thing is that's an easy one for people to fix by just adjusting the tension but building standards at least in Florida require the doors be open with eight pounds of pressure or less or have one of those automatic opener things in order to accommodate people with disabilities. Students will speak up with courage and respect when they or someone else has been hurt or wronged by a bias and will make principal decisions about when and how to take a stand against bias and injustice in their everyday lives. Now when, you know because it's not necessarily right to stand up in the middle of a staff meeting and go I've got a problem with this. It may be better to wait and get a meeting with your boss for example and how, you know how do you go about stating that there's a problem? Do you want to go in gangbusters like a tornado or do you want to present a thoughtful approach or what do you want to do? How, what's the best way to approach this particular situation and take action? Do you need to do a demonstration? Do you need to have a meeting? What is it? And they'll continue to take action despite negative peer or group pressure so if they feel strongly about something they won't back off even if the majority group says students will plan and carry out collective action against bias and injustice in the world and will evaluate what strategies are most effective. So in this example Lee has grown weary of the bullying he sees at his school each day. He discusses his concerns with his classmates, teachers and administrators to develop a plan to combat the situation. Together they plan to mix it up at lunch day to promote a greater sense of cohesion among the diverse student body. The day is used to celebrate the launch of a new diversity club aimed at bringing diverse students together and combating baseless animosity through ongoing intergroup activities. Now I think about this and I think about my own high school and I'm thinking this probably wouldn't have gone over very well in my high school. So you need to be aware you know that that's one of those systems and identities about how it's going to be received. You need to be sensitive to the different people that are that make up the school body for example in order to create a an intervention that's going to be effective. So confronting unjust laws unjust practices legal action understanding how the Supreme Court has worked towards combating injustices and creating social justice. There have been a lot of Supreme Court cases that have been landmark cases. Looking at advertisements promoting activism and having students showcase their understanding at the end of this whole group of activities dealing with photographs students are able to take their own photographs and showcase their understanding. So most people are unaware of all of their roles how those roles interact and how those roles impact how they interact with the world at large. Increasing awareness of oneself and others is the first step increase in increasing social justice. We have to know how we impact everybody and what we're communicating just like if somebody walks in and they've got closed off nonverbals and a really mean scowl on their face that's going to impact how they interface with other people or how other people interface with them. But the same thing is true if they walk in and they are a white female or a black male or an Asian female or whatever you know people will interact with them potentially a little bit differently. I know when I walk into the dojang where my kids take martial arts you know I interact very in a very specific way with their grandmaster as a you know show of respect I'm not nearly as you know footloose and fancy free I show him the respect that he deserves in his dojang and being an elderly Korean man and you know I don't go overboard with it but it's important to understand you know he brings that out in people he actually brings it out in his students even though they don't I don't think they ever really realize it. People need to become aware of different cultures in order to better understand each other and when people see discrimination or bias they need to be able to identify it as such and be encouraged to take action and one of the things that I tell my clients and you know my students is that if you feel something a little wonky it's important to be able to identify why you feel wonky why you feel that it might not be right and then figure out what you need to do to take action to correct it. All right I know I went through a lot of stuff really fast are there any questions? If you enjoy this podcast please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at allceuse.com slash counselor toolbox. This episode has been brought to you in part by allceuse.com providing 24-7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006. 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