SWP 435 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Sweat Lodge, Cultural Practice

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Social Work
• Course: SWP 435
• Professor: Cheryl Mc Pherson

Document Summary

Social workers have misinterpreted the roles which they should play and which approaches they should take in working with indigenous communiies. The knowledge or approaches to work with indigenous peoples have not been developed within the social work profession. The general focus has been to look at problems within the indigenous populaion and the therapeuic ways to deal with them when it should be looking at reforming the oppressive system. Criique if more social workers were beter educated on diferent indigenous cultures, history, spiritual beliefs, and current issues perhaps with that context some components of current western theories could be used. The aricle could have been lengthened to talk more about what can be done and how to educate social workers to avoid making these mistakes. Avoids bias as it has been writen by a collaboraion of both aboriginal and non- Events on campus, going to those and being open to learn (gain knowledge from people with experiences)