African American and white child welfare workers' attitudes towards policies involving race and sexual orientation

Do social work education, job description, and cultural competence foster child‐welfare caseworkers' therapeutic alliances?

“…This echoes a prior finding about the relationship between cultural sensitivity and caseworker–caregiver trust (Ayon & Aisenberg, ). At the same time, however, our findings contradict other findings (Jayaratne et al, ; Thomas et al, ), in that we observed an association between caseworker–caregiver shared ethnicity and relatively low caseworker confidence in engagement. And yet, there is evidence that caregivers involved in child welfare are likelier to change when they work with a caseworker with whom they share an ethnicity (Ryan et al, ).…”

“…Furthermore, child-welfare research shows that when caseworker and client do not share a race/ethnicity in common, they are more often at odds than in agreement over perceived problems (Alexander & Dore, 1999;Rose, 1999). Where caseworker and parent share a race/ethnicity, additional research shows, each perceives this to indicate that cultural competence and therapeutic alliance are valued (Jayaratne, Faller, Ortega, & Vandervort, 2008;Thomas, Medina, & Cohen, 2010). Racial/ethnic match between caseworker and client may also enhance parents' participation in case plans (Ryan et al, 2006).…”

Cultural Intelligence for Clinical Social Work Practice

“…The concept falls short because it assumes a level of practice-specific competencies that may not be achievable. As cited by Fisher-Borne et al (2014), the growing body of cultural competence in practice literature (Abrums and Leppa 2001;Dean 2001;Duffy 2001;Furlong and Wight 2011;Gregg and Saha 2006;Jayaratne et al 2008;Kleinman and Benson 2006;Tervalon and Murray-Garciá 1998;Wear 2003) raises concerns regarding the use of the term and suggests that there are explicit and implicit assumptions that are embedded in its interpretation and meaning.…”

State of the art in U.S. multicultural social work practice: Client expectations and provider challenges

“…Similarly, Loya (2011) found a limited awareness of racial privilege as well as "blatant racial issues" (p. 201) among White social workers, who expressed beliefs such as that "talking about race issues causes unnecessary tensions" (p. 208). White child welfare workers were less likely than African American workers to believe that race should be considered both in child foster and adoptive home placement decisions (Jayaratne, Faller, Ortega, & Vandervort, 2008). Another study showed that Native American social workers felt silenced and powerless and perceived White child welfare workers as misunderstanding the Native culture (Bubar & Bundy-Fazioli, 2011).…”

“…They supported the belief that all Americans have equal opportunities in life and that hard work would allow the parents raise themselves out of poverty. Jayaratne (2008) Quantitative: Survey 259 providers; 30% BSW and/or MSW; 71% White, 29% African American African American child welfare workers were more likely than White workers to believe that race should be considered both in general and in placement decisions (racematching seen as important) and that children can be placed in a single parent family.…”