Paper Example on Strategies Required to Deal With Hispanic Children and Families

Introduction

There are people from different cultures that one may have to deal with as a social worker. This calls for coming up with strategies through which one will ease the communication that will be there between him and them. There may be a need to select some people who will facilitate this process for the objectives of the social worker to be realized. This paper will be looking at the strategies required to deal with Hispanic children and families.

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The Hispanics are the same people who are referred to as Latinos or Latin Americans. These are people who can be traced as coming from Mexico and Puerto Rico among some South American countries, and they speak the Spanish language (Smith & Montilla, 2006). They come from diverse cultures however they have some native cultures that identify them as a result of merging their varied cultures. They mostly subscribe to the Catholic and Protestant faiths, and religion is quite significant to them. Sanchez and Jones (2010) agree that they have their cuisine that mostly corn-based and their families tend to live in the same places and households for generations. They enjoy soccer unlike their counterparts in the US and have been following it through Spanish speaking stations.

The best strategy to employ in interaction while preparing for cultural competence needs to start with understanding their origin. What can follow is to know their likes and dislike and why they are involved in specific practices. It is also imperative to know the Spanish language as it is the one that the use predominantly in speaking. According to Sanchez and Jones (2010), it can then be possible to know how to catch their attention as compared to someone who may ignore them as a people. One needs to know that they live in the same households for generation and hence it will easy to trace their lineages.

One will need to have mechanisms to identify community leaders whom he or she will be engaging as a social worker. This will not be a difficult task as it will be easy to trace them based on the architecture of the buildings that they live in. Since they live in populated places and the same household for generations one can get directed to the oldest members easily. These are likely to be the elderly members of the society whose opinion is valued by the rest of the extended family members (Smith & Montilla, 2010). Men are the natural leaders over families, and with their approval, it will be easy to access children and the families. As a social worker, I know that one will make little progress in work objectives when you do not appreciate these differences and seek to be understanding.

Conclusion

The Hispanics have some values and beliefs that I may find foreign and strange except for their Christian ones as a result of their religious affiliation. They have some beliefs associated with the formation of illness and the practices that should be performed for their healing and warding them off. I find this strange because they border on a belief in some supernatural forces. They also believe that spirits can affect the wellbeing of the dead which I do not think so. My respect for hierarchy will go down well with such people. I do not like forcing my different beliefs on other people who are different, and I let them be for the sake of marinating a good relationship with them.

References

Sanchez, T. W., & Jones, S. (2010). The diversity and commonalities of Latinos in the United States. Chicago: Lyceum.

Smith, R. L., & Montilla, E. (2006). Counselling and Family Therapy with Latino Populations. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.