Exploring the Integration of Spirituality in Social Work

Spirituality and Ethics in Social Work: Part 2

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In the second part of a three-part series on spirituality and ethics in social work by the Canadian Association of Social Workers, various speakers explore the integration of spirituality within social work practices. Key discussions include challenges faced by social workers in incorporating spirituality into their practices, ethical concerns, and the impact of spirituality on both clients and practitioners. Participants shared personal experiences, highlighted issues such as workplace accommodations for religious beliefs, and emphasized the need for cultural and spiritual competence in social work curriculum and practice.

Highlights

Social work professionals discuss the intertwining of spirituality and ethics. 🌱
Anonymous speakers share personal experiences with spiritual integration. 🙏
Challenges of seeking religious accommodations in the workplace are explored. 🏢
Differences in spirituality between children and their families pose unique challenges. 👨‍👩‍👦
The importance of cultural and spiritual competency in social work education. 🎓

Key Takeaways

Incorporating spirituality into social work can enhance cultural competence and empathy. 🌟
Understanding personal biases is crucial for effective spiritual engagement. 🧠
Workplace accommodations for religious practices can be complex but necessary. 🤔
Spirituality and religion are distinct, yet both can play vital roles in social work. 🔍
Curriculum enhancements are needed for better preparation of social workers in spiritual contexts. 📚

Overview

Spirituality often stands at the intersection of deeply personal and professional ethics in the realm of social work. This webinar series, hosted by the Canadian Association of Social Workers, delves into these dimensions, urging an honest reflection on how spirituality is integrated into social services. Delivered through a tapestry of experiences from different panelists, the session acknowledges the layered nuances present in aligning spiritual care with social work.

Anonymous social workers shared insightful narratives highlighting the friction between spiritual beliefs and professional practice. These tales covered instances where spirituality both supported and hindered therapeutic processes, especially in diverse cultural settings. Such exchanges underscored the importance of understanding personal biases, encouraging awareness and sensitivity towards various spiritual practices when working with clients.

The dialogue also touched upon educational reform, stressing the need for embedding spiritual competencies in social work curriculums. This adaptation aims to prepare future social workers to manage ethical dilemmas surrounding spirituality and religion with more comprehension and less friction. The consensus leaned towards recognizing spirituality as vital within therapeutic roles, while remaining agile and respectful towards individual client needs.

Chapters

00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Housekeeping Notes The chapter begins with a warm welcome from the host, expressing gratitude for participants joining the webinar. Participants are encouraged to use the chat and Q&A functions to interact and share their locations. The webinar is the second part of a three-part series in collaboration with the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers, focusing on spirituality and ethics in social work.
03:00 - 06:00: Acknowledgment of Indigenous Lands The chapter "Acknowledgment of Indigenous Lands" highlights the importance of recognizing the traditional territories of indigenous peoples. The speaker, Alexandra Zannis, acknowledges the support from partners in Nova Scotia for their event series. She emphasizes that the CISW is situated on the traditional, unceded, and unsurrendered land of the Anishinabe Algonquin peoples, expressing gratitude for being a guest on this territory.
06:00 - 09:00: Session Overview The chapter begins with an acknowledgment of the indigenous caretakers of the land, honoring their enduring presence and contributions. It then provides logistical information for attendees seeking their certificate of attendance, directing them to the course completion tracker where it's located along with blue icons known as widgets. These widgets contain various resources such as housekeeping notes, speaker bios, an abstract of the presentation, slides, and video components.
09:00 - 18:00: Ethical Concerns in Integrating Spirituality The chapter discusses the ethical considerations when incorporating spirituality into various practices. It addresses the importance of customizing one's approach to spirituality based on individual needs and preferences, similar to how one might adjust the view settings during a presentation to fit personal viewing preferences. The chapter emphasizes the significance of ensuring accessibility and flexibility, allowing individuals to revisit and engage with the material at their own pace through on-demand recordings. Additionally, logistical aspects like receiving attendance certificates are mentioned, highlighting the importance of proper follow-up procedures in ethical practice.
18:00 - 24:00: Personal Narratives and Spirituality The chapter discusses the logistics of accessing a platform through registration email to download content. The speaker is also managing the backend, encouraging participants to use chat for general comments and a Q&A tab for specific questions. Additionally, the chapter introduces Nadia, who will be hosting a panel, highlighting gratitude for her participation and contributions.
24:00 - 30:00: Incorporating Spirituality into Practice The chapter discusses the importance of incorporating spirituality into practice, particularly in social work. The speaker expresses appreciation for being able to present from Mi’kmaq territory, acknowledging its significance as the ancestral and unceded land of the Mi’kmaq people. The chapter also highlights the recognition of Mi’kmaq people's inherent rights, which were affirmed in the peace and friendship treaties signed between 1725 and 1779.
30:00 - 41:00: Resistance and Denial in Spiritual Practices This chapter discusses the theme of resistance and denial within spiritual practices, focusing on the interaction between indigenous lands and the British Empire. Rather than surrendering their land, resources, or sovereignty, indigenous nations established rules for ongoing relationships. The chapter invites readers to consider the ways in which these lands and the indigenous peoples who lived and continue to live there are interacted with. It challenges individuals and collective bodies, such as social workers, to hold themselves accountable in their engagements with these communities.
41:00 - 53:00: Challenges in Multicultural Spirituality The chapter focuses on the challenges and opportunities in integrating multicultural spirituality into social work. It begins with references to reconciliation with indigenous peoples across Turtle Island and introduces a panel discussion featuring experts. The chapter is structured into different sessions, with session one covering the ethical implications of spirituality in social work from a theoretical perspective. The focus is on expanding understanding of the various ethical opportunities and challenges in this integration process.
53:00 - 61:40: Collaboration Between Social Work and Spiritual Care The chapter discusses the ethical concerns faced by social workers when considering the integration of spirituality into their practice. Various speakers contribute their perspectives on whether or not spirituality should be incorporated into social work, highlighting both the potential benefits and challenges.
61:40 - 70:00: Final Thoughts and Reflections The chapter 'Final Thoughts and Reflections' begins with an introductory note about the first speakers, who are two anonymous social workers. They have chosen to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the issue they are discussing. The chapter emphasizes the importance of their perspectives on the topic being addressed. Their presentation is likely focused on providing insights or shedding light on significant social issues from their professional experience.
70:00 - 72:00: Closing Remarks The chapter titled 'Closing Remarks' focuses on the impact of the environment on individuals of religious faith and their sense of acceptance. The speaker shares personal experiences, particularly highlighting instances where they sought counseling support while trying to adhere to their religious beliefs. They emphasize the importance of understanding and acceptance in therapeutic settings for people of faith.

Spirituality and Ethics in Social Work: Part 2 Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 Hello CASW members and thank you for joining us for another webinar i am so happy to see your virtual names coming up on my screen as always if you haven't yet found that chat and q a function please feel free to give us a little note and let us know where you're tuning in from we're so happy to have you joining us today this is part two of a three-part series uh that we are co-hosting with the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers on spirituality and ethics and social work so we are
00:30 - 01:00 so grateful to our partners over at nova scotia for helping us put on this wonderful event and series my name is Alexandra Zannis i want to do a couple really brief little housekeeping note so that we can get into the bulk of this presentation uh hello everyone it's so nice to see you i want to let you know as always that the cisw is located on the traditional unseated and unsurrendered territory of the anishinabe algonquin peoples and i am so grateful to be a guest and to be able to
01:00 - 01:30 work play and live on these wonderful lands so thank you to the caretakers who have been here for time of memorial who allow us to gather now virtually on this wonderful wonderful space if you are looking for your certificate of attendance that can be found at the end in that course completion tracker at the end of those blue and white icons um those blue icons are called widgets you can find anything you need there including the housekeeping notes the speaker bios the abstract for today's presentation as well as the slides and the and the video components if you
01:30 - 02:00 accidentally close them you can also take a minute and just customize your screen so make sure it's the best for your viewing needs if you want to make the slides bigger go ahead if you want to make the video bigger you can do that just take a minute and customize it so it's the best for you this offering will be on demand so it'll be created as a recording so feel free to log back on any time you can access the handout widget or anything like that if you want to log back on after the certificate of attendance will only be sent to you about an hour after the presentation has concluded so watch your email for that or you can
02:00 - 02:30 always log back onto the platform through your registration email and download it directly with all that being said i am on the back end today so feel free to let me know in the chat and q a functions if you do have a q a question feel free to use that q a tab chat is more for general comments about the wonderful presenters we have and the presentation we are hosting today so with all that being said i would love to pass it over to nadia nadia thank you so much so so much for joining us i am so grateful to have you here today and hosting this wonderful panel please
02:30 - 03:00 take it away thank you so much i'm excited to be here as well and i'm so grateful to be speaking to you from magma and um to be representing the nova scotia college of social workers which is in magma the ancestral and unseated territory of the migmaw people and their inherent rights were recognized in the peace and friendship treaties that were signed from 1725 to 1779
03:00 - 03:30 which did not surrender indigenous land resources or sovereignty to the british empire but instead established rules for an ongoing relationship between nations and i invite us to continue to think of the to think of the ways in which the lands territories and indigenous people who lived and continue to live within all of the lands that we are speaking from and listening from and how each of us individually and as a collective body of social workers can hold ourselves accountable
03:30 - 04:00 to reconciliation with indigenous peoples here and across turtle island and i am so grateful to have an amazing group of panelists to be joining me so session one i talked about the ethical implications of integrating spirituality into social work from a very theoretical perspective session three is going to be looking at some concrete specific applications but today is really about expanding our understanding of the different ethical opportunities and challenges that might be
04:00 - 04:30 facing social workers as they consider this issue and we have several different speakers who will be joining us and the first question that we will hear from them on is what are the ethical concerns that you see about social workers integrating or not integrating spirituality into their practice
04:30 - 05:00 and so um our first speaker is actually two speakers and they are anonymous and i invite them to begin sharing they've chosen to remain anonymous but they are um social workers who have very important perspectives on this issue and um so i invite them to begin were you able to hear me?
05:00 - 05:30 so my my remarks have to do with the role of the environment and how it affects a person of religious faith to feel accepted with this in mind i'm going to share two personal experiences first there have been times when i have reached out for my own counseling support in all attempts i have explained what i was tripping that i was trying to do my best to adhere to my religious beliefs but that i needed help in one instance a therapist immediately
05:30 - 06:00 immediately ridiculed my face beliefs and discouraged me from adhering to them in another instance a therapist who had faith-based training was very understanding of my situation but their faith-based intervention model was too religious for me they started reciting from their scriptures interpreting them recommending i write songs or hymns or music to help me copy my life experience
06:00 - 06:30 in this instance the person was a good fit but not the modality in the end the best match was a therapist who was open to faith-based traditions allow me to express my beliefs and understanding but they offered an unbiased objective and an outsider approach because i found myself looking internally to find the strength and motivation to change within the understanding of my religious beliefs a safe environment where i did not have
06:30 - 07:00 to be on the defensive about my faith nor be intervened upon by different faith tradition a second implication about ethics in addressing spirituality and religion for me has had to do with seeking religious accommodations in the workplace my religious group adheres to the concepts of sabbath day observance and sabbath day diversion i know that we have a constitutional human right to be able to observe the sabbath in the way that is
07:00 - 07:30 stipulated by our faith's tradition and on the day stated by the faith i have found that many members of my faith group are either not aware of their right to seek such an accommodation while others are afraid to seek it because they fear facing unemployment while others do not believe it is fair that such a right exists for them because it gives them access to a right which others cannot access it is concerning to me when a person of a religious group expresses how they
07:30 - 08:00 wish that they could observe the sabbath according to their beliefs and gain all those benefits that they believe in but they choose to forfeit their rights either out of ignorance or out of fear it's also been surprising to me that even at times the faith leaders are not aware of these rights so i have had to educate faith leaders employment leaders and hiring officers
08:00 - 08:30 as well as clients at times i've also felt the pressure of hiring managers waiting for me to accept a job offer when they know that the accommodation request is still being processed i've also felt the pressure of co-workers inquiring why i have an accommodation when others may not so again my my message is striving to share the example of when i'm in an environment where i feel safe i might feel open to discussing more about my faith
08:30 - 09:00 even the name of it but when i'm in environments where it's seeming to be confrontational i'm going to keep that closed and not express that important part of mind my experience started early on when I was going to university and we were asked to do a self-reflective paper on what brought us to professional social work
09:00 - 09:30 and so I took the opportunity to share that and I put in there my faith and I had mentioned god and so did you know capital g proper noun and that paper came back with the capital g splashed out so as a student I remember thinking okay that's not accepted here um it's not really self-reflective and so when I think about those implications and how that looks for clients I think well if they've had an adverse religious experience which Nadia has referred to in the past training
09:30 - 10:00 um could we be creating barriers among students and also amongst our clients that would keep them away from something that may be very instrumental in their healing process
10:00 - 10:30 that's it pointing to um please speak to this question of um how do we um how do what are the ethical concerns that you see about social workers integrating or not spirituality in their practice from your perspective so Dr. Boynton you'll need to unmute
10:30 - 11:00 um okay yes i hear you it was unmuted okay um yeah thank you so much for having me here today and uh this is such a a very important topic uh i think first we need to recognize that spirituality has always been present and innate within our practice it's deep in our roots and so we really need to explicitly bring those things
11:00 - 11:30 forward and really understand how to best go about addressing it both in academia and in practice it's a diversity issue it's an intersection of people's lives it's a social justice issue and uh it also has uh been and can be a source of oppression and marginalization as the the two first speakers uh you know gave first-hand experiences of that and i think
11:30 - 12:00 nadia did a wonderful job in highlighting the last session that not including spirituality can be a problem and it really is inconsistent with our professional values and ethics to not at a minimum at least assess the spiritual domain for clients and those that we're working with and and by doing that by by you know addressing spirituality we first have to also be really clear around what is it that we mean by spirituality because many people lump spirituality
12:00 - 12:30 and religion together and for some people those are very connected and for others they aren't and so we need to be having that conversation about you know what does spirituality mean and and then if it's not something that a client feels that is you know important to them in their lives then then that is okay and we can also use some of the constructs of spirituality like sense of connectedness meaning making a sense of purpose joy passion creativity and we can use their
12:30 - 13:00 language so i think it's really important that we do that and not impose our language on them so really i think um as nadia also highlighted last session the first steps are really about being critical uh in terms of the awareness of your own spirituality your own personal beliefs potential biases and judgments and assumptions that might come up and and then the second piece that fits with our ethics is really to gain that awareness
13:00 - 13:30 and have spiritual humility right and and to gain competence in the area and i'd like to speak a bit about um working with children and families it's really critical uh in the work that i've done both in my practice and in research is that children who've experienced trauma grief and loss seem to be sparked and catapulted in thinking about spiritual concerns existential concerns
13:30 - 14:00 thinking about the meaning and purpose of events in life the problem is is that many adults don't feel that children especially children you know 5 6 7 8 9 10 don't have the capacity to cognitively um conceptualize spirituality yet in my research i found the actual opposite i found them to be very deep spiritual thinkers philosophizers and so that's an issue too is that
14:00 - 14:30 we need to be aware that uh this is a an important domain for children and for families and that also my experience and in my research indicated that children and families often had differences in their spirituality and so how do you navigate that that can be an ethical concern especially when it comes down to consent and informed consent and as you know
14:30 - 15:00 the the age of informed consent across canada differs right between the provinces so in some provinces you might be able to work with the child as young as 12 without consent from their parents and yet in other provinces uh you know you have a mature minor status at the age of say 16 or 17. so really that can be an ethical issue when you're dealing with this area uh as well as the differences in spirituality for children and families because children are
15:00 - 15:30 integrating their spirituality from various areas they're on social media they're you know learning from peers they're you know learning things in in different areas as well as from their family so they're integrating things differently from maybe what their parents have thought and and myself i have encountered that so that that can be an area that can raise
15:30 - 16:00 concerns for um families and then of course children in foster care you know what what is the impact of spirituality in foster care and are there differences between the foster parent and the child and the family and how do you navigate those things and and so this leads to the importance of consultation having good supervision and consultation and this can be difficult when
16:00 - 16:30 supervisors or or clinical consultants may not have the same level of experience with spirituality or the same learnings and so i think that can be an area and then across cultures too within cultures and across cultures can be a really uh critical area where ethical concerns can arise as well and and where we might make assumptions
16:30 - 17:00 and so that concept of spiritual humility is really really important for us to embrace so i think these are a lot of um ethical concerns i also want to touch on the first speaker talked about it practices and interventions so that's another area where i see an issue where we need to really think about what are the interventions we're using what are the spiritual routes to those and how does that fit appropriately and effectively for the client
17:00 - 17:30 and so i think the negotiating of interventions is is a really important area for us to to really think about and how can we maybe adjust or tweak some of our interventions so that they are actually relevant and effective and then i think the other piece that i wanted just to touch on is that many individuals who are coming for support do have issues in the same areas of
17:30 - 18:00 connectedness meaning making a sense of purpose and if we can actually reframe some of the issues that are going on for individuals as spiritual issues as opposed to personal issues and and you know maybe emotional issues i think sometimes that could be super helpful uh and so we want to be able to navigate that although we need to be cautious there as well right so there's areas of
18:00 - 18:30 ethical concerns there so an area and then the last theory i just wanted to quickly touch on was self-disclosure and we need to really pay attention to self decl disclosure and consider how and why and when we would be doing that um and you know for many clients it might be reassuring to know about your spiritual beliefs and for others it also might not be helpful so
18:30 - 19:00 how we go about that you need to take some time considering your responses to that and develop you know a script maybe even of how you can share how you can disclose so so those are just some of the things that that i've thought about and and you know in the practice
19:00 - 19:30 and I will pass it to the next person yes dr Delores Mullings i invite you to please unmute and share a few thoughts about this topic i thought okay am i unmuted i'm nude you're perfect yeah let's go for it okay thank you thanks so much so i'm at um i'm in st john's
19:30 - 20:00 newfoundland um at memorial university and so i'm acknowledging that the lands on which memorial university's campuses are situated is in the traditional territories of diverse indigenous groups and i acknowledge with respect to diverse histories and cultures of the biafic mi'kmaq and inuit of this province i also want to acknowledge my African ancestors whose shoulders i stand on
20:00 - 20:30 and who's paved the way for me to be here today uh so thank you for the opportunity to share um some space with you and um i will sort of look at this um question in three ways um denial resistance and not knowing and maybe i should probably start with the not knowing part but i'll just start with a story um in another lifetime when i worked in hostel shelters and sexual assault centers
20:30 - 21:00 i accompanied a woman to um to have a procedure that in her mind she felt that was against god that those were her words against gods and against her own um principles and um at the time i you know was doing a lot of exploration and questioning uh my own spirituality and
21:00 - 21:30 i remember she and i had this conversation about how she felt and the level of betrayal she felt to her faith um and as i was trying to support her I felt that there was nothing else i could do but find um a bible verse to support her to remind her
21:30 - 22:00 of you know what what the god that she was speaking about so i actually called my mother who was who was very strong in her faith and she gave me bible verses to read to this person now i know that sometimes there is and that really helped her really helped her even though I must say I didn't necessarily believe that way but I didn't think it was my job to decide
22:00 - 22:30 how that person should behave or believe or not my job at the time regardless of what my personal beliefs are um was to support this person and I appeared as i did that so where i go with that is that sometimes you know in the social work profession we don't know um we enter the profession with spirituality and as our speaker before it says we put spirituality
22:30 - 23:00 and religiosity together and sometimes they mean different things for different people and so sometimes people really just don't know they don't know what to do they don't know how to behave but they have their own spirituality and we know that in certain parts of canada formalized or traditional religion such as christianity and islam are the things that we see most often in some spaces not to suggest that it is they're the only ones but those
23:00 - 23:30 are some of the pieces we also know that all our institutions are at the foundation of uh uh christianity um just you know the holidays we get off those are just basic things that we don't really speak about um you know whose ways of beings and knowings are celebrated or accepted and
23:30 - 24:00 so sometimes people just don't know but what i want to say is there's a wide um variety of spirituality spiritual practices amongst people of african caribbean and black descent across canada and across the globe and if we bring begin with the fact that our religions and spiritualities we believe predates christianity although a lot of african black and caribbean people are of the christian faith um many of her own peoples don't know about
24:00 - 24:30 those practices and reject them when they become aware of these ancient practices and this is influenced by white supremacy and colonization that marked our black bodies uh marked our black bodies as not having spiritual connections with deities or anything for that matter with outside of an organized religion that is known so in the new world the new world
24:30 - 25:00 black people embrace christianity but meld christianity and with meld christianity with different spiritual practices coming from the continent so research is now showing pew center did some research a while ago on and found that eight out of ten african americans
25:00 - 25:30 we tend not to have those kinds of data data in canada so i use the african-american data um self-identify as christians but many of those young people say that they're not affiliated with any um one religion but african caribbean and black people are observing many spiritual practices in combination with organized religious practices and other not so well known practices so
25:30 - 26:00 organized prac religious practice would be rastafarian rastafarianism islam christianity judaism and so on so forth and those spiritual spiritual practices that spiritual practices from continental africa people who were enslaved brought them with them um and felt the need to practice while under enslavement and the only way they could have practiced their spirituality was to blend it with christianity and organize religion so
26:00 - 26:30 as a result we have a number of different spiritual practices amongst our people now because social workers may not know about these practices or they may see them on tv and they're vilified in particular kind of way or stereotype they may think that these spiritual
26:30 - 27:00 practices are wrong or bad or and i'm using the term specifically um deliberately they may think that they're bad or wrong and so people might not get the support that they need so from an ethical point of view that's pressing because regardless of where the individual is they need to be supported in the way in which they need to be supported regardless of what any of us think if you i bring you back to the story that i um shared with you before
27:00 - 27:30 and so along this line there is increased awakening amongst african black and caribbean people about what spirituality looks like for us and what it needs to be when we are receiving services no matter where the services are so from an active from an ethical point of view when people are refused service or quite often we'll hear social workers say that they can't practice with this person or that person because it's against their religion
27:30 - 28:00 um so the question i like to ask from an ethical point of view is where do we draw the line with um social work practice and personal practice and are they intertwined are they connected are are they not connected and how do we reconcile this tension because you know i've seen it in social work classrooms we've just heard one of the speaker speak about it um in in the practice and so how do we reconcile um those pieces um
28:00 - 28:30 uh so regardless of what they do it is important that social work practitioners work with themselves not necessarily with the people that are coming to ask the support or the people that they're working with but they need to work with themselves to understand how they i guess to understand how they see social work practice exactly what
28:30 - 29:00 is social work practice quite often we think well social work practice is helping other people well sometimes it's not necessarily helping other people it's helping yourself to understand the work that you need to do or we need to do in order to support people's agency so i leave you with this question i'll leave you with with this first question i'll
29:00 - 29:30 leave you with this to ponder is by what means do we practice social work and from whose perspective and how do we reconcile that with ethical practice when we look at these different perspectives thank you much doctor Ifeyinwa Mbakoguum thank you for being our next speaker on this question and just a
29:30 - 30:00 gentle reminder because I know we are all here for one hour and we've got several speakers including our speaker that was missing at the beginning so we're looking for so if thank you for speaking can you see my video? Hello can you hear me and can you see yes we can yes we can hear and see you okay so um thank you
30:00 - 30:30 very much i'm from dalhousie university and i want to acknowledge that we i'm speaking on meek mark territory and we're all treated people and um like um the previous speaker i also acknowledged that this is also the land of the African nova scotians where they've lived for over 300 years and um the
30:30 - 31:00 when we talk about spirituality and social work i would want to talk about the fact that we should not always acknowledge that there is a multicultural explosion in um in canada and the diversity that we we talk about has to be recognized as more and more people coming that have experienced diverse trauma and um that are often not acknowledged and so the
31:00 - 31:30 where we should actually begin is with the um the curriculum where many of us are only introducing um spirituality as probably one week of our course content and so the curriculum has to actually be looked at and when we have these conversations on spirituality we always seem to talk about their um clinical engagement and that always other practitioners that are working
31:30 - 32:00 in the community because i consider myself a community based um social worker or do um considering their the type of work that i do since i work with displaced people um people might think differently so i always look at it as a social work interaction so where does spirituality come in so when we talk about spirituality we always link it with cultural competency so if we're talking about cultural competency we should actually be talking about spiritual
32:00 - 32:30 competency as well that makes us understand the diverse people that we're working with and also acknowledge their their needs and we it would be very difficult for us to even talk about um spirituality and ethical issues where we always have so much power as social workers and we always consider ourselves as the unknowing social workers um and you could see that from the anonymous contribution which i actually um acknowledge and so when we talk about
32:30 - 33:00 spirituality whose spirituality are we talking about is it my spirituality as a social worker or that of the client and if we understand um the spiritual um makeup and what spirituality actually means because sometimes as other speakers have said there's a confusion between spirituality and religion if we understand what um spirituality actually means then we'll actually be able to
33:00 - 33:30 engage in that initial self-awareness to understand ourselves and our beliefs i don't see it as um really taking on um understanding so many religions but that self-awareness that allows you to recognize the other person's um humanity and then their their rights to um non-discriminatory attention to their problems so i also see social work students and even
33:30 - 34:00 practitioners coming in not prepared to attend to the needs of their clients and so and that also leads us to the curriculum as well and then when we talk about um students feel that the best place that they learn about practice is in the field and that is always considered the signature pedagogy and so what are the insights that are provided in the field for understanding how to deal with
34:00 - 34:30 spiritual issues when they come come about and i experience that in my social work classroom where students talk about supervision um they meet a client and then the clients request for some spiritual intervention they're not ready for it because the curriculum does not provide them with the assessment tools that integrate biosocial spiritual assessments and so when all that is missing and also we bring that into into the field placement
34:30 - 35:00 and supervisors are resistant because they don't have adequate training to support a spiritual intervention that becomes a problem for the client because we're denying the client what they need and then that client might go on being traumatized for several years moving on from one place to the other to get the right services that they that they require and um so i would also look at it as a person of African descent
35:00 - 35:30 and knowing that spirituality is an important part of who we are what we do and how we approach different problems and that is often denied within the curriculum itself as well and within practice where we talk about spirituality spirituality spirituality also aligns with our healing it also aligns with our form surf um practice it also a forms with how we look at
35:30 - 36:00 things and how we approach our different problems and i know that recently uh more and more social work classrooms are integrated in Afrocentricity but the problem again with introducing such ways of knowing is who are the students or who are the practitioners that we're training to actually um practice those and i take for example when i teach afrocentricity in my
36:00 - 36:30 classroom and i tell ask students um would you actually apply an afrocentric framework for a client who actually comes to you and needs it and i would say that while so many of the um students that are of african descent would say yes that they're able to use it i would always have
36:30 - 37:00 my um white students say that they don't um they don't find themselves capable to apply this and then there becomes um debates within the classroom why is it that you can apply another centric practice when students are in the classroom learning within eurocentric frameworks and being able to adapt to this even when it doesn't align with who they are and and their ways of knowing so all this resistance within the classroom within social work practice is is a problem that um those
37:00 - 37:30 are ethical concerns as well and and then i know that one of the previous speakers talked about um spirituality in terms of who should we be applying spirituality with and that often happens because most of the time i worked with children i worked with traffic children i worked with displaced children and several times they have come in to request a spiritual intervention they don't have
37:30 - 38:00 to say it but they tell you and the thing is how do you discern it you have to have the skills to discern what they're saying and what because the fact that their children doesn't mean that they don't know what they actually need the the thing is that as social workers we come sometimes with um ideas about what our clients should actually be requiring and no matter how much
38:00 - 38:30 they say it we do not hear it so do we have the skills and the potentials to actually be silent and listen to our clients to hear what they say different from what we feel that they're saying and what we feel that they need um so i would just say that denying the client spirituality and its needs are it's really a big problem in social work practice and what should be done is actually
38:30 - 39:00 um engaging in more practice interventions within the classroom and also linking up with agencies that our students are going to be working with because those agencies have been people that are trained in certain institutions and so they carry on what they have learned into those agencies if we do not have spiritual um horses or causes that integrate spirituality within our
39:00 - 39:30 programs then we'll just be um replicating the circle forever and we'll keep on having these conversations about spirituality without really enforcing it within um the classroom or practice certainly so in summary what i'm just going to be saying is um it's actually um part of our social justice obligations um to include spirituality when our client knows it when
39:30 - 40:00 our client story requires it and giving them what they want instead of um what we want and if we do not understand what they need and how they need it engaging in them in ways that are respectful to understand how we should be applying it effectively so i would just end there because i'm conscious of the fact that i have just um five minutes thank you yeah i think we need a day-long conference or two and i'm grateful to each of you for helping us want to dive even deeper into
40:00 - 40:30 this topic i want to invite major ian easter now to offer his reflections on the question Hello everyone it's nice to be here um thank you for inviting me i'm coming from edmonton alberta for just for context for the last 13 years i've been a chaplain in the canadian forces
40:30 - 41:00 and since 2015 i've been a mental health chaplain so specializing in uh treating mental health and in that capacity i've had a number of professional colleagues who were social workers uh within the military i've also been a patient of a number of social workers so i have an extremely high regard for your profession and i thank you for the opportunity to speak here um
41:00 - 41:30 i'm going to try and keep this brief but um in terms of kind of the ethical concerns i i would say there's a a couple that i identify um one is has to do with your own boundaries um keeping within your scope of practice um ensuring that your don't if you're not a theologian if you're not uh clergy if you're not a religious leader or professional uh then make sure that uh you don't act as if you are um and that would be uh please you know be careful
41:30 - 42:00 to respect other people's beliefs and spirituality and uh don't feel like you have to uh enter into theological debates or uh some forms of um that can often be misunderstandings uh the other thing is to be very aware of your own biases we've spoken about this already but just uh be aware that your job is not to defend your views or to put down uh your clients uh views uh
42:00 - 42:30 their beliefs their their um understanding i think it's also important to realize that spirituality uh can both be a positive force in people's lives but it can also be a negative force and i think being open and willing to explore both the positive side as well as the negative side and i think finally um recognize that one of the areas that we have not really engaged um
42:30 - 43:00 or identified within mental health treatment is the reality of spiritual and religious trauma and so i think it's very important to do some under research and understanding that uh that a lot of people carry within themselves traumatic experiences and it um regarding the religious practices or their their faith their experience of um of
43:00 - 43:30 faith um and there needs to be an awareness that um talking about spirituality can be a trigger and we need to be prepared to recognize that when we're dealing with someone who's triggered it's often uh a traumatic reaction and so using all our skills of trauma treatment uh in engaging
43:30 - 44:00 with um helping the the client to process and work through the the trauma of their religious experiences but uh thank you very much and i'll pass it off to the next person thank you so very much um chaplain kirsten wells i invite you to now share some reflections on this question
44:00 - 44:30 thank you very much Nadia i am also in Halifax under the same acknowledgements as the previous speakers from this part of the country thank you for inviting me to be here i am a healthcare chaplain working in nova scotia health i am also an Anglican priest and i am a certified spiritual care specialist with the Canadian association for spiritual care and i want
44:30 - 45:00 to acknowledge that i am not speaking on behalf of any of these organizations today but on behalf of myself and the topic at hand so um i want to just say i'm so pleased to hear the level of dialogue and the great questions and concerns being put forward from the social work community uh i wish i could talk for half a day about everything that you've said but i'm gonna try and talk about
45:00 - 45:30 but thank you concerns a summary that i was thinking of um i was thinking about spiritual care practitioners perhaps being among the most misunderstood health care professionals uh going um you know people assume we might be witches or proselyte bible thumpers or a whole bunch of things and some of the comments raised by speakers today indicate why
45:30 - 46:00 people are wary of spiritual care practitioners because sometimes people are practicing without enough competence their own self-awareness and the boundaries between their beliefs and their clients and this is an essential ethical concern for spiritual care practitioners when thinking about our colleagues
46:00 - 46:30 amongst our own profession but also social work health care we work side by side social workers constantly and in my experience it's healthcare has this binary attitude where it kind of pits a spiritual care professional against a social worker like which one is going to be the best one to deal with the spiritual concerns and this kind of attitude it's a cultural
46:30 - 47:00 experience in general right now and I really think that I'd like to see what I hear today a more robust conversation around scope of practice um appropriate interventions um and collaboration and Crawford between these two professions in the best interest of the client
47:00 - 47:30 I think that those are my primary reflections on ethics i mean everything has to be focused on the care of the client recognize here to help not um i think it might be helpful for you to know that um a lot of you have made comments about education and the need to incorporate spiritual uh theory and practice into your education
47:30 - 48:00 modules and experiences if you're wanting to check out your local spiritual care practitioner and find out you know how they how they fit in terms of their qualifications and education i can tell you that those of us who are are certified with our association as spiritual care specialists have approximately at least nine years of education in this area
48:00 - 48:30 three of those uh involve a master's degree in some form of religious education or profession so although not all chaplains and spiritual care practitioners are clergy almost all of them have the same education as clergy in terms of divinity or theology and then we have two extra years of exclusively clinical training in um institutional setting like a hospital prison
48:30 - 49:00 our colleagues in the military uh we train hands-on under supervision in a residency type model for two years um at the end of that we get tested to determine if we do have the appropriate skills to provide spiritual care competently and carefully in a way that does not harm other people and that certification is reviewed every
49:00 - 49:30 five years in order to keep certification so the results of this are you end up with a highly trained religious leader of some ilk who is intensely self-aware of not only their own religious beliefs and values and practices but the limits of that and the ability to assess and with the religious ideation of their clients there's a saying in spiritual care education that
49:30 - 50:00 we are the living human document this applies to practitioners as well as our clients our job is to be the sharpest good copy of the document that can be and we are held accountable for that and um i really it was difficult uh to listen to um the first speaker speak about um
50:00 - 50:30 that experience of not being seen uh maybe as much by that practitioner who was although recognizing they were doing a good job but they they didn't uh they missed the point in terms of what would be good for you as a client and this is an essential ethical concern of us in this field so again
50:30 - 51:00 i'm just reviewing my notes because i get off-topic and then i keep on talking um oh yes i think i'll just conclude by saying i did i work with social workers currently um in my present position and i asked them you know tell me about spirituality in your practice and what you feel competent and confident about and what what worries you and um the
51:00 - 51:30 answers were like i'm comfortable assessing i am comfortable supporting i'm comfortable you know um when things are going well and and and talking about it what makes me comfortable is uh issues of trauma religious abuse uh requests for interventions around religious healing
51:30 - 52:00 and leading prayer and ritual ceremonies and i think these are all um really in intersection because many of us have personal competency and or professional competency and our ability to reflect on our own situation professionally and decide am i competent to provide what this patient needs or not and if i am not who to get this need
52:00 - 52:30 met so my colleague said that's why i like working with a couple of uh spiritual care practitioners because when this comes up i say great i'm gonna refer you to them and we collaborate from social work to spiritual care to meet the person appropriately but i i'd like i'd be interested in your reflections of what makes you feel um uncomfortable what makes you feel worried um
52:30 - 53:00 what are the what are the times in practicing spiritual care interventions where you think not quite sure where to go with this and and what do you do in those situations so i will i will leave it there and thank you very much for your attention and dialogue thank you so very much um our last speaker for today is Fatima rasti and um fatima actually has a powerpoint that she
53:00 - 53:30 prepared for us and um there was actually a second part to this panel where i was going to ask all of our speakers to share some final words of advice but i'm aware of the time and that we probably won't get to it um so what this does inspire me is i think we need to have maybe a day-long session because there's so much more that we could dive into with each of the speakers
53:30 - 54:00 um and i'm sorry that we can't go deeper but it's it's certainly a great first step into what should be a much richer dialogue so with that Fatima thank you for closing us out um and thank you for so much for having me um i really i'm very grateful uh and to you nadia especially you and alexandra for making that happen for me and um actually everything already
54:00 - 54:30 been said uh what i put on my powerpoint i would be echoing what i heard already from my fellow presenters and it's been a great experience being here so what i did in my powerpoint i'm a big fan of powerpoints so guys you know just i added few things together so what i try to do is uh you know put some thoughts together what i think um about spirituality but you know my stance is
54:30 - 55:00 not very different but i already heard from presenters and nadia did a beautiful job in the last um in the first part of the series um and then i i brought some because i might you know i have a clinical experience i've totally experienced working with clients in family 16 but in clinical setting it's been 11 years so i thought i just put a few case vignettes for us to discuss uh some of that how does it look like spirituality looks like in the clinical setting
55:00 - 55:30 so that was the reason behind putting those vineyards together for us to have those questions um to think about some ethical considerations when issues come up some ethical issues come up regarding them and then i put together a tiny tool kit for us so we'll see how it goes because i'm very mindful of the time we have just five minutes if i skim through uh the slides and and i don't know if i change the slides or how how does that work
55:30 - 56:00 um Alexandra hi do you see the button that says next above on the on the bottom um yes so you can just click that next button and it should switch oh okay there you go perfect oh it moved really fast i'm sorry oh sorry guys
56:00 - 56:30 i think okay so i just put together i'm just going to skim through those slides because that's been already that's already been said you know the spirituality was an imperative component in the beginning of social work profession right 1950s and 60s it was all um so it shifted towards secretarial but past two decades they're more uh you know talk and some research not enough research at this point but there is research
56:30 - 57:00 um um you know uh indicating that uh there's some evidence you know this is research evidence that it is beneficial or it's um you know it's uh important component within social work practice sorry I'm moving this yeah okay yeah that's a that's the right one okay so um food for thought
57:00 - 57:30 so these are just questions for us to think um um is it appropriate for us as social workers to incorporate spirituality and religion in our practice because these terms in interchange is if yes what is the significance of spirituality um to me special beliefs can be a strength it gives purpose and meaning individuals may have strong moral code based on religious-spiritual beliefs it gives a sense of community and support which can be a support in terms of in times of trouble and
57:30 - 58:00 prayer and spiritual practices help individuals go with physical and mental health issues and and uh spirituality is a human experience of oh sorry um you know a sense of connection to something bigger than themselves and discovering meaning in life purpose and values with or without god a broader and more comprehensive term than religion
58:00 - 58:30 um so i thought i put some um case vineyards together and they are a constellation of working with different clients and some of them they're coming from my um colleagues um i i want to thank hannah rashid the social worker wonderful social worker mentor to me uh so some came from
58:30 - 59:00 from hers the first one is um you know you're a social worker who identifies as person of color you you cover your head as part of your culture and religions believe he's going to see a client with the family for the first time the users so it is the question of how if they ask why family asked you questions about your religious beliefs and your culture um you know how much you do how much the use of self-closure how much you disclose about your culture and beliefs right
59:00 - 59:30 and um so it again it comes down to what is beneficial for the family uh clinically speaking that if you believe that your disclosure would be helpful uh to the client uh but it's totally your clinical judgment or your um yeah sorry i uh the powerpoint is it's not there anymore but okay um the second one is um you know you're you're working with um you're working with a young
59:30 - 60:00 child um client who who is an inpatient unit and has serious mental health issues and sorry physical health issues and during a session he expresses his desire to practice smudging as part of their spirituality and your organization policies have certain rules around fire safety besides there's no sweet grass available for smudging so what role would you play to make smudging possible for that client and what are some of the ethical considerations you would um
60:00 - 60:30 consider in this situation um so the first one came to mind was right away was respect for the inherent dignity and worth of person and client's right of self-determination but then it's a child um and again it was it was said before they're different you know age of consent is different different uh provinces um but as part of you know as best social work practice you
60:30 - 61:00 want to incorporate you you want to provide that opportunity to the child as well as the family to make that decision so you would you would consider that as well their age of you know um consent and their ability to consent uh and then the advocacy piece because you are working with an organization with with certain policies so how you make it possible for your client let's quickly the third one is
61:00 - 61:30 so you're working with the you know fifth client in two months period who represents a minority religious group who have different beliefs and spiritual practices which you have very little knowledge and information about you are seeing the client for the first time for an intake session and the presenting problem is anxiety and ptsd client is very friendly and you build a rapport with them with no problem they are one of those clients who offer more information than us due to their friendly nature and willingness to give you information you have a strong desire
61:30 - 62:00 and urge to get information and knowledge about their religious beliefs and spiritual practices what would you do would you turn that session into a teaching opportunity for you um so what are some of the ethical considerations right so what jumped to me was integrity in professional practice so social workers establish appropriate boundaries and relationships with clients and ensure that the relationships are the needs of clients this is what already been said and religious spirituality exploration would only be discussed should the client elect to do so
62:00 - 62:30 so this one i know uh miss Kristen Wells already talked about working with social workers closely um so this is something i i just because most of us we in social work practice we um we work on interdisciplinary teams we work with our colleagues from different disciplines so this is something i put together um and again in this scenario where you know it didn't work for the
62:30 - 63:00 family the spiritual care service it could be number of things i'm quickly just going to read it so you're part of the multi-disciplinary for trauma response team trauma response team is called in for a patient who went through a serious accident patients family members immediate and extended family members are present to support the patient while patient in india in icu your role as a social worker is to provide resource provisions to the family the child is called the spiritual care team services and a member from the spiritual care team is
63:00 - 63:30 already present before you came the spiritual care member is chanting humming with their eyes closed you can see the family members facial expression body language which is making it clear for you to see that they are not comfortable with the chanting and humming um how would you support the family at the same time support your multi-disability team because you know you have to balance that that you are providing the best care putting them the client and their
63:30 - 64:00 family in the center and at the same time you are balancing it with your team cohesion your professional relationship um so what jumped to mind was respectful and inherent dignity and worth of person code of effects interdisciplinary team team cohesion advocacy for patients family uh so the last but not least is even as social workers when we are working
64:00 - 64:30 with with a family or client um you know who identifies as if they are open to talk about their religious beliefs or their spiritual practices or their face-based beliefs and if you feel connected because you have the same similar beliefs and religious background or you know but at the same time if they're language barriers right so what would be
64:30 - 65:00 uh you know some of the ethical considerations in that case you would have in terms of you know if they're declining uh are translator so um and how do you even you felt connected with them uh because of your you know the spirituality of religious beliefs but at the same time if their language barrier how you feel connected with your clients so what is our responsibility as social workers um you know for me it's been said already
65:00 - 65:30 you're expanding our knowledge base about uh you know the negative and positive impacts of spirituality it can be different it can be on a case-to-case basis and learning about human diversity in the concept context of religious spiritual beliefs uh I heard um I'm sorry if i'm not pronouncing your name right of Ifeyinwa uh she talked about multi-purpose ex multi it's a multicultural explosion in terms of in Canada people from diverse groups they are here
65:30 - 66:00 different religious beliefs and um in that last but not least is seeking supervision safe social work platforms like today i'm very grateful for that platform today that we are opening that discussion so we can easily or you know feel by feeling safe to discuss ethical issues regarding spirituality and practices um you know in our social work practice
66:00 - 66:30 so the toolkits um you know what comes to mind from my clinical experience is you know engaging the client rapport building that transparency what you're doing uh that's that's been already said the holistic approach um include incorporating religion and spirituality and and seeing the person environment right and it's extending your bios like a psychosocial model
66:30 - 67:00 to their religion and spirituality as well um and then doing some strength-based work with them and listen to those client stories that's the first and foremost to me personally that i have genuine curiosity i want to understand their narrative deeper meanings which are attached to their story and their trauma because individuals seek for a story that helps make sense of the word how they fit into the world um and also uh i'm also a big fan of um
67:00 - 67:30 you know evidence-based practices i know ever not every practice can be evidence-based or overnight uh but you know what came to mind when i was putting those slides together is marsha lena has memoir she um she learned dbt or her blur bdbt mindfulness skills or some of the dpt skills are based in you know her experience at buddha buddhist monastery and she went to a catholic
67:30 - 68:00 church in germany so um you know so the evidence practices um so information about spirituality and religious beliefs came into the conversation organically like ask them open-ended questions who or what provides you with strengths or hope what gives you life meaning and purpose what is your greatest source of strength what gives meanings to your life how do you understand hope what do you hope for what gets you through the trouble uh turbulent times um so that is it um
68:00 - 68:30 you know it was all again uh i put together those um slides just based on my experience i'm not representing any group or my hospital where i work full time here in nova scotia halifax nova scotia um so yeah thank you so much for for inviting me and giving me that opportunity i appreciate that thank you so very much fatima thank you to all of our speakers for sharing some perspectives and you
68:30 - 69:00 know envision i initially envisioned this panel as diving deeper to inspire us to want to learn more and hopefully that certainly has been achieved there's been lots of different perspectives and then some echoes which only further reinforces the need to dive deeper and learn from one another um and session three is going to focus upon some concrete skills but i i feel like i'm already
69:00 - 69:30 thinking of a session four or maybe a series on education um so stay tuned i appreciate all of you for um being here and alexandra thank you so much for guiding us through the end of this panel thanks, Nadia I don't have much else to say actually what a wonderful uh opportunity we have had uh with the CASW to be able to partner on this series so thank you to everyone all of our members who have attended as always I love seeing your names
69:30 - 70:00 please let us know when the survey comes up at the end of this presentation how we did I read all of your comments and i appreciate them coming in your certificate of attendance will be available about an hour after this presentation has concluded you can go to the CASW webpage the webinar continuing education section to see part three as well as some of our other webinar offerings so feel free to go there and yes just thank you for spending this time with us we are so happy to see you and we will see you soon thanks everyone