I think it's still some good food for thought.............
15 year old girl holds hands with her 1 year old son. People call her a slut. No one knows she was raped at 13.
People call a girl fat. No one knows she has a serious disease which causes her to be over weight.
People call an old man ugly. No one knows he had a serious injury to his face while fighting for our country in the war.
Re-post this if you are against bullying and stereotyping. 95% of you wont.
Related to the above, I am sure there are lots more we can come up with too. I work with the brain injured, and TBI is called the unseen disability, because you can't usually tell by just looking at a person that there is an issue. Many of my clients are treated poorly though because of their cognitive impairments when interacting with the general public.
Even family and helping providers get frustrated with them for things they can no longer help because of their brain disability.
What is a stereotype that you can think of that has impacted you or a client negatively?
Or how have you or a client been affected by a bullying situation?
Great post! I love working with teen moms, and one of my major goals is helping them and others to see that they can still be successful. However, so many people seem to see them as a lost cause, not worth spending any time, money, or effort on, because of the decisions they made. The article I linked to below is a really great story about the Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit. I was so happy to hear that it was staying open, and then I read the comments. I would dismiss them as hateful, ignorant people, but hateful, ignorant people vote.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.freep.com/article/20110616/NEWS01/110616032/Detroit-school-pregnant-parenting-teens-stay-open-charter
Great convo starter, SW mom(acronym was for sj). I think as a professional one of the primary assumptions is that the "social worker" has not faced any life issues and shows up at the door perfect and heavenly. This is a common human assumption, but I think both client and sw sometimes forget that we all interact with the world with some pain. Personally, I have worked with young black boys and found that they have sometimes felt pressured to behave in a way that is not them, but what people expect from them. self-fulfilling prophecy, eh. short post w/ major implications. thank you.
ReplyDeleteI'm very interested that you work with TBI clients. I have a friend who became a SW to work with this population. However, aside from the VA, we are unaware of any agencies that specifically have them for clients. Can you give me some recommendations? Email is arterrell at hotmail dot com. Thanks!
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