INSW 200: Indigenous Social Work and Mainstream Social Work

Indigenous Social Work
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Indigenous Social Work and Mainstream Social Work
The need to help indigenous people improve their standards of living requires a holistic approach centered on their culture and welfare. Indigenous social workers, therefore, need to be equipped with knowledge and skills required to work with Aboriginal people. Thus, indigenous social work is the work carried out by trained personnel to alleviate the standards of living of indigenous people. Indigenous social work is different from mainstream social work, and each has a unique approach to realize its goals. This article attempts to specifically focus on how social work working with the Aboriginal people is different from mainstream social work.
The cultural practices undertaken by indigenous social workers are largely founded on creating a relationship that restores harmony to the Aboriginal people. Indigenous social workers have to blend in Aboriginal communities to learn their ways of life before embarking on their missions CITATION Sta09 \l 1033 (Stacey-Moore & Thompson-Cooper, 2009). Each community and reception of indigenous social workers are different and thus social workers have to be flexible and accommodative of the culture to stand a chance of them allowing him/her living with them and starting the project they intended to do. Perceiving their culture as primitive from an occident perspective and forcefully attempting to civilize them creates friction and resistance from the indigenous people and lowers the chances of success for indigenous social workers. To find common ground with indigenous communities requires that a social worker recognizes their culture and work with their belief system to win their trust before attempting to implement changes.
Indigenous social workers are bound by ethical standards embodied in social work practice to stand against social injustices, inequity and structural oppression CITATION Joh16 \l 1033 (Coates & Hetherington, 2016). Indigenous social workers must also uphold respect and protect human life of Aboriginal people without perceiving their way of life as primitive from Eurocentric worldview. Indigenous social workers have to stand against racial and tribal discrimination done by governments through the establishment of legal and physical institutions established from a Eurocentric perspective to annihilate the culture of Aboriginal people. Eurocentrism perceives indigenous people as uncivilized and has taken steps to bring down regressive traditional cultures that impede their community development. Practice standards of indigenous social workers address the fundamental objective of pushing for social change and social justice for the indigenous people, and thus they must be equipped with necessary skills to protect them CITATION Mic16 \l 1033 (Hart, Burton, & Hart, 2016).
Indigenous social workers have to live with the communities they ought to serve and understand their way of life CITATION Sta09 \l 1033 (Stacey-Moore & Thompson-Cooper, 2009). They must also be well acquainted with their culture and devise the best approach to implant and infuse their ideas in their culture. After an indigenous social worker is fully acquainted with the traditio...