Integrating Spirituality

Spirituality and Ethics in Social Work: Part 3.

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

This session explores the integration of spirituality and ethics in social work. Nadia Saritsky dives into understanding the impact of spirituality on social work practices and outlines strategies to integrate these concepts ethically while addressing diverse backgrounds and potential biases. The webinar highlights the distinctions between religion and spirituality and emphasizes cultural competence, self-awareness, and approaches to navigate ethical dilemmas in practice.

Highlights

Nadia Saritsky provides an insightful dive into integrating spirituality and ethics in social work practice. 📚
The webinar delivers strategies for ethically including spirituality in social work, stressing the importance of cultural sensitivity. 🌟
A key focus is on balancing spiritual inclusion without imposing personal beliefs onto clients. ⚖️
Participants learn about the nuances of unconscious biases and how to address them in practice. 🔍
The potential harms of not understanding religious trauma are discussed, with emphasis on 'do no harm' principles. ⚠️

Key Takeaways

Spirituality and religion intersect but have distinct attributes essential for ethical social work. 🌌
Self-awareness and acknowledgement of personal biases are crucial for effective practice. 🧠
Cultural competence enhances a social worker's ability to serve clients from diverse backgrounds. 🌍
Ethical practice necessitates distinguishing between personal beliefs and professional roles. 🧘‍♂️
Referral to spiritual care practitioners can enhance client care and address complex spiritual needs. 🙌

Overview

Nadia Saritsky, from the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers, sheds light on integrating spirituality and ethics, recognizing their impact on social practice. The session is part of a series aimed at unraveling the complexities of these themes in a professional setting, enhancing the understanding of participants through an engaging, insightful discussion.

The session begins with clarifying the distinction between spirituality and religion, unfolding the layers of ethics and cultural sensitivity necessary for practitioners. Social workers are urged to consistently check their biases and stay informed on diverse religious perspectives to align their practices with professional standards.

Strategies discussed include comprehensive spiritual assessments and appropriate referrals to spiritual care professionals when handling complex spiritual and religious issues. This webinar reinforces the necessity for a solid ethical framework, aiming to prevent potential harm and promote healing and growth in clients.

Chapters

00:00 - 02:00: Introduction and Webinar Overview The chapter begins with a warm welcome from Alexandra Zanis, the social policy and communications coordinator at the Canadian Association of Social Workers. She greets members and participants joining the webinar from various locations. Alexandra expresses enthusiasm in connecting with attendees via the chat function, encouraging them to interact by showing their virtual names. She guides participants on how to use the chat function by locating the blue and white icons at the bottom of their screen.
02:00 - 05:00: Technical Adjustments and Introductions The chapter titled 'Technical Adjustments and Introductions' addresses some initial technical issues and interactions with participants. It begins with instructions on where to find necessary widgets and features for a particular presentation, indicating a technical glitch: some slides were incorrectly uploaded. Participants are advised to refresh the page to access the correct slides. The narrator expresses enthusiasm about seeing participant names on the platform and mentions the inclusion of a poll function for engagement.
05:00 - 08:00: Acknowledgment and Introduction to Part 3 The chapter begins by instructing the reader or viewer to ensure they have the slide deck open on their screen. It mentions a pull function which should be answered if needed, indicating an interactive component. The screen is customizable, allowing users to adjust the size of the video, slides, chat, and Q&A according to their preference, enhancing the user experience and personalization. It emphasizes personal comfort in viewing and interacting with the content. Lastly, it notes the inclusion of a course completion tracker at the bottom of the panel bar, highlighting a feature that tracks user progress.
08:00 - 11:00: Spirituality and Ethics Overview This chapter provides information regarding the issuance of certificates of attendance after a presentation. Participants will receive certificates via email after watching the required minutes and once the presentation ends. It may take up to an hour for the email to arrive, and attendees are advised to check their junk folders. Alternatively, certificates can be downloaded directly from the platform after the presentation. The chapter also suggests opening the speaker bio widget, and mentions the involvement of a speaker named Nadia.
11:00 - 14:00: Personal and Professional Ethics The chapter introduces Nadia Saritsky from the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers, describing her as a wonderful presenter. It is part of a three-part series, and viewers are encouraged to visit the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers or CISW website to watch parts one and two if they haven't already. While not necessary for this part, watching the previous parts is recommended as they cover foundational information.
14:00 - 18:00: Unconscious Bias and Intersectionality The chapter discusses an incredible content and panel event that listeners might want to explore further. It highlights the availability of an abstract that provides a detailed outline of the topics covered. A significant announcement is made regarding the passage of a bill in the Senate of Canada to ban conversion therapy for all ages, marking an important step forward, although one more step is still needed. There's a sense of excitement and progress throughout this chapter.
18:00 - 21:00: Religious Bias and Privilege In the chapter titled 'Religious Bias and Privilege,' the narrative discusses an important legislative development in Canada, highlighting a bill that has been a priority for the Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW). There is a sense of celebration as the senate unanimously passed the bill, signaling a significant step forward. The excitement is palpable among the members of CASW. Nadia, a key figure or speaker, is warmly welcomed as she takes the stage to further discuss this development, with interactions occurring via chat and Q&A sessions.
21:00 - 25:00: Ethical Considerations for Spiritual Integration The chapter titled 'Ethical Considerations for Spiritual Integration' begins with the presenter acknowledging audience engagement and setting the stage for her presentation. She hints that she will be referencing related ongoing developments, suggesting a dynamic and current insight into the topic. Nadia, the presenter, indicates that her presentation will be aligned with recent news that seems pertinent to her discussion on ethics in the integration of spirituality, highlighting the relevance of current events to her analysis. This commencement sets a tone of interactivity and present-day relevance, encouraging thoughtfulness on the ethical dimensions that influence spiritual integration in contemporary settings. The emphasis is on an engaging presentation that will weave in audience inputs and recent developments seamlessly.
25:00 - 31:00: Spirituality Assessments and Tools In this chapter, the focus shifts to part three of spirituality and ethics in social work. The speaker, who acknowledges broadcasting from the ancestral and unseated territory of the Mi'kmaq people, hints at discussing various assessments and tools used in the realm of spirituality. The chapter likely explores the interface of ethical practices within social work through the lens of spirituality, although further details would be necessary to understand the specifics of these assessments and tools.
31:00 - 35:00: Self-Awareness and Bias in Social Work This chapter discusses the misconception regarding the 17 and 25 treaties of peace and friendship. The treaties did not signify surrender of land and resources but instead recognized the title of the lands to the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet peoples. It also highlights the intention of the treaties to establish rules for an ongoing relationship between the signatory nations.
35:00 - 40:00: Spiritual Care and Interprofessional Collaboration This chapter emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and respecting the lands and territories of Indigenous peoples. It encourages individuals, particularly those in professional roles, to take responsibility for reconciliation with Indigenous communities, recognizing that we are all part of treaty agreements.
40:00 - 44:00: Concluding Remarks and Self-Care The chapter titled 'Concluding Remarks and Self-Care' begins with a quick overview of the previous sessions. It is noted that this is the third session in a series. The first session addressed the ethical implications of incorporating spirituality into social work, focusing on the interplay with diversity. It was primarily theoretical. The second session featured a panel that explored various perspectives on the subject. In the current session, there is an intention to conduct a more detailed examination of the topics discussed.
44:00 - 72:00: Q&A Session The chapter titled "Q&A Session" explores the ethics and practical strategies for integrating discussed concepts, emphasizing the distinction between spirituality and religion despite their intersections and overlaps.
72:00 - 73:00: Final Thoughts and Closing The chapter discusses the integration of spirituality into social work, differentiating it from religion while acknowledging their overlap. It addresses unique ethical concerns that arise in this integration process. It reflects on previous discussions, specifically considering the spirituality and religious beliefs of both the social worker and the client.

Spirituality and Ethics in Social Work: Part 3. Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 Hello CASW members and anyone who may be tuning in wherever you are wherever you're at thank you for joining us for another webinar today my name is Alexandra Zanis and i am the social policy and communications coordinator at the canadian association of social workers as always i'd love to see your virtual names showing up on my chat function already if you haven't already found that chat function pop it open and put those blue and white icons at the bottom of your screen those
00:30 - 01:00 icons are widgets should be where you can find everything you would need for this presentation uh we did have a little error on the slides for today so if you uh have logged on in the last 15 minutes you may want to refresh your page if you're looking for those slides uh there was something incorrectly uploaded there beforehand so just refresh your page quickly while i'm talking uh and you'll have the correct slide presentation in that handout widget i love seeing everyone's names come up this is so wonderful we also have a poll function i put that pull function up uh for
01:00 - 01:30 you to ensure that you have this slide deck open on the screen so take a minute make sure you have that pull function answer it if you'd like and then we know that you have these slides available and up on your platform with that being said your screen is customizable so take a minute maybe make the video bigger make the slides bigger the chat and q a whatever you do is just for your screen so feel free to personalize it and make sure it's the best for your viewing needs you will find as well the course completion tracker at the bottom at the very end of those uh that panel bar that is
01:30 - 02:00 where you'll get your certificate of attendance certificates of attendance are emailed to you after you've viewed the required viewing minutes and also after the presentation has concluded um so give it up to an hour in your email or check your junk folder if you don't see it there you're always welcome to log back on the exact same way you just did and download it directly from the prop platform but that has to happen after the presentation has concluded feel free to also pop open that speaker bio widget i am so grateful to be joined by nadia
02:00 - 02:30 nadia saritsky is with the nova scotia college of social workers and they are wonderful such a wonderful presenter you are in for a treat this is part three of a three-part series feel free to head over to the nova scotia college of social workers website or the cisw website if you haven't already watched part one and part two don't worry we're happy you're here if you haven't watched part one or part two but feel free to go back and re-watch those as we did cover some
02:30 - 03:00 really incredible content and an incredible panel event as well so you may want to check that out you're also welcome to pop open that abstract function uh on the widgets at the bottom um that will give you a bit of an outline in detail of what we're covering today i did want to also note as a bit of a excitement maybe an announcement that yesterday in the senate so in the senate of canada the bill to ban conversion therapy for all ages has passed which means that there is one more step yes we are very thrilled one more step which is
03:00 - 03:30 receiving royal ascent before that officially becomes law in canada this is something cisw has been calling for for a very long time so we definitely had a lot of cheers yesterday when we saw the senate unanimously pass that bill yes yeah um that's just a little note from me and our excitement at casw i can't wait to pass it over to nadia though because the star of the show is here with us today Nadia feel free to take it away i'm on the back end use that chat use that q
03:30 - 04:00 a tab let us know your questions your thoughts your comments um nadia take it away thank you um that's awesome news and in fact i'm going to be referencing it slightly in my presentation so it'll work out perfectly um so i am going to uh continue with um my slide which hopefully you see
04:00 - 04:30 here um so i'm talking about part three of spirituality and ethics and social work and um are you there yes okay all right so um i uh already have been uh introduced but i want to begin first by acknowledging that i am speaking from magnolia which is the ancestral and unseated territory of the mi'kmaq people
04:30 - 05:00 and this territory is covered by the 17 25 treaties of peace and friendship the treaties did not deal with surrender of land and resources but in fact recognized migma and velocity youth title to the lands covered in the treaty and established the rules for what was to be an ongoing relationship between the various signatory nations and i invite everyone to
05:00 - 05:30 take a few moments and think of the lands and territories from which you are viewing this of the indigenous peoples who lived and continue to live within these lands and how each of us individually and as a profession can hold ourselves accountable to reconciliation with indigenous peoples here and across turtle island we are all treaty peoples thank you
05:30 - 06:00 and i'm going to now just do a quick overview um as mentioned this is the third sec session so the first session of talking about the ethical implications of integrating spirituality into social work and how diversity can impact this session one was focused on theory session two was a panel to explore different perspectives and today we're going to do a more in-depth dive into
06:00 - 06:30 some of the ethics as well as practical strategies to integrate the concepts that have been discussed and so i am going to kind of begin simply by talking and remembering that spirituality and religion are different although they are intersecting and overlapping and this is probably one of the most important concepts to take away from this session which is the ways in which when
06:30 - 07:00 talking about how to integrate spirituality into social work or should we in integrated how that is different uh than religion but because they are overlapping there are unique ethical concerns and we talked a little in the first session about a couple of areas to consider specifically the social worker's own spirituality and or religious beliefs a client spirituality and
07:00 - 07:30 their religious beliefs the role of spirituality in the therapeutic context as well as considering the role of religion and the role of the social worker in the client's spirituality and there are unique ethical dilemmas in each of these as i outlined in the first session um but just a quick review of our code of ethics so that we can think about all of the different conflicts and
07:30 - 08:00 issues that might come up so obviously the first issue is respect for the inherent dignity and worth of people and are everyone's right to self-determination and the unique choices that each person makes the second is the pursuit of social justice and the ways in which that might be integrated into this the third we know is service to humanity and the importance of putting
08:00 - 08:30 the needs of those we're serving above our own and to really work on addressing the larger good and integrity in the professional practice of course that is another important goal our goal is to try to be impartial in the work that we do and adhering to these values confidentiality and specifically competence in the professional practice which i know is one of the reasons why everyone is attending this session the ways in which each of us have a responsibility and ethical
08:30 - 09:00 responsibility to continue learning because that is the way that we can most effectively serve the people we are working with now there are professional ethics as i just outlined but there are also personal ethics and values each one of us have our own personal values and sometimes those are aligned with our professional values sometimes they there might be a conflict
09:00 - 09:30 and we have an ethical responsibility when there is a conflict to seek supervision use self-reflection and values clarification and also this governs morals we have to become self-aware as much as possible and ensure that our skills reflect our knowledge as well as our values of the profession and that we are addressing the potential for unconscious
09:30 - 10:00 bias now unconscious bias or sometimes called implicit bias happens without us being aware and it's uh really there are multiple different types of unconscious bias so affinity bias we tend to have a preference for people who are like us confirmation bias we tend to look for information that confirms to our own ideas group think and we tend to be influenced by stereotypes socialization
10:00 - 10:30 friends culture media and there are ways of addressing it but we need to think about all of the different potential ways that unconscious bias can impact the way we work with the clients that we serve we also need to be aware of the ways in which intersectionality might happen
10:30 - 11:00 right so intersectionality is a lens through which we can see where power comes and collides where it locks and intersects and it is the acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and privilege so depending on where one is located on the wheel of power and privilege if we are in the center and have lots of power if we are more marginalized and have less power in our current society going to impact us right so and there's going to be
11:00 - 11:30 a conflation and the ways in which there's an intersection of multiple areas of potential marginalization is going to impact how we experience things as is to the extent that we tend to be primarily in areas of power if we are for example white heterosexual christian um we might not know what it's like to be a minority and that might impact how we function
11:30 - 12:00 um because of that it's important to look at some statistics where a lot of statistics talk about religious bias and that many people who are not christian or atheist experience religious discrimination in our second panel we had two anonymous social workers who spoke about
12:00 - 12:30 their experiences of discrimination religious bias is certainly very real and if we listen to first voice perspectives then we understand that that can impact the way we practice and that is true on many levels but specifically when it comes to integrating spirituality within a social work context it can be because of the overlapping areas of religion and spirituality it can
12:30 - 13:00 affect our clients without our realizing it and that's what i really want to focus on is the ways in which sometimes religion and faith can be a form of privilege and blindness and also how religion can be a source of trauma for individuals so most importantly we have to have clear assessments and that's a large part of what i will talk about as well but we also have to make sure that we've done our own work in reflecting upon ourselves our beliefs our biases
13:00 - 13:30 as well as reflecting on where are we located on the privileged wheel where is our social location and when we think about social justice and spirituality as a concept the ways in which those people who are marginalized when it comes to their religious or spiritual beliefs we have to think about how what is our role as social workers and really how do we help our clients access
13:30 - 14:00 the religious and spiritual resources that they need which may not be the ones that we believe in um and how can we balance conflicting values and concerns and what does it mean to think about social justice related spirituality when it comes to our clients and to ourselves these are questions to really reflect on and to keep coming back to because ideally the more we learn and grow the more we're going to have more insight into some of these questions
14:00 - 14:30 but the truth is that we don't know what we don't know and we don't know what we think we know so while we might say okay when it comes to integrating religion and spirituality into social work we should not proselytize i'm going to assume that everyone agrees that that's a no but we don't realize the ways in which there may be unconscious proselytizing or prioritizing
14:30 - 15:00 the ways in which our language what we say and what we do what we don't say what we don't do might be creating a situation where there is an unconscious or subtle communication about what is okay and what is not okay so you see here the the doctor that's saying okay smile and say jesus right and that's um an important thing to reflect upon because we sometimes say
15:00 - 15:30 things accidentally just by talking and we use language that is uh current so for example we might be even if we know better as social workers we might say a phrase like commit suicide instead of die by suicide and we might have even attended classes where we know that saying the word commit
15:30 - 16:00 teaches and communicates a certain bias like the word committing a sin it's a bad word and it's a phrase that is problematic similarly with religion and spirituality there are ways where we might unconsciously be using words that we know from uh the language of
16:00 - 16:30 english that we share that is the language of the colon colonizing presence that also has a religion that there we may not realize what we are unintentionally saying so the first step is humility the second step is self-awareness so questioning what have we been taught what do we believe what are our assumptions um deeply held how do they play themselves out in interpersonal
16:30 - 17:00 and communal and systemic ways becoming aware of the multiple areas of our preferences our biases is a very important self step towards ethical practice so there's multiple reflective models out there uh to think about what is what is the reason that we might be struggling
17:00 - 17:30 trying to think about working with a client where's that what does what can we learn um what can we learn about our attitudes about our clients attitudes um and there's different archetypes of self-awareness so there's there's different levels of inter of self-awareness we might have high levels of external self-awareness we might have high levels of internal self-awareness so we might be self-aware of our own stuff but we may not know how other people perceive us
17:30 - 18:00 or we may be so focused on how other people perceive us that we don't always think about our own stuff right so self-awareness happens on two different continuums external self-awareness and internal self-awareness so you can see that we might be introspectors where we have a lot of internal self-awareness but maybe not much external self-awareness how other people see us
18:00 - 18:30 and part of being able to practice ethically as a social worker with diverse populations is to do that self-awareness not just on an internal level but also on an external level how do other people of different religious backgrounds or different backgrounds and identities perceive us being able to have that feedback is a gift because it can help us become more aware of our blind spots
18:30 - 19:00 because oftentimes those people with privilege are not aware of their own privilege and it manifests in statements like merry christmas i have already had several social workers wish me merry christmas even though i am not christian um so that's an example where people might say that um but it could be appropriate if you are aware of the other person's belief and that they align but
19:00 - 19:30 assuming that everyone is celebrating a holiday that is uniquely christian is uh one example and we might know that particular component but we might think oh well if someone's christian and i'm christian i can say merry christmas but we still may not realize how integrating even such a small term might impact our clients even if they might be christian
19:30 - 20:00 and that's because we don't know maybe christmas is a very hard time for them maybe it brings up difficult memories what seems like a kind gesture or comment could be triggering for someone and as social workers we have a unique responsibility to do no harm so here you see just the basic
20:00 - 20:30 medical ethics 101 there are four basic principles autonomy recognizing the diversity of other people justice trying to make sure that minority voices and perspectives are heard and respected equally and then there's beneficence and non-maleficence now beneficence is about doing good non-maleficence is about do not cause harm why are these two principles separate because lots of people can have great intentions and try to do good however
20:30 - 21:00 sometimes we do harm even though our intentions are good so non-maleficence is considered to be the first goal above all do no harm above all don't make someone worse off right that's the basic basic ethics requirement you know our code of ethics as social workers is obviously much more
21:00 - 21:30 complex and coming soon hopefully very very soon the cisw is working on a plan to really embed more concretely some of the values of diversity that i'm talking about specifically how do we honor the anti-racist principles as well as anti-discrimination principles as well as decolonization principles so that's the goal we're working towards as social
21:30 - 22:00 workers but at the very least we should do no harm so what does that actually mean and in what situation might integrating spirituality into social work possibly do harm so the first thing is the more we learn the more we realize how much we don't know so to do no harm requires that we learn more about all the different types
22:00 - 22:30 of diversities that exist so we might have learned a lot when it comes to diversity when it comes to gender or race or disability or but how much do we know about religion and culture and how that might impact the work that we do unless we do deep dives into each of these areas we have the potential of doing harm because we don't know what we don't know
22:30 - 23:00 specifically when it comes to religion and spirituality sometimes there are people who've had adverse religious experiences perhaps they are survivors of uh sexual abuse at the hands of clergy perhaps they are survivors of residential schools perhaps they identify as lgbtq to spirit and um they experience themselves as having had religious
23:00 - 23:30 trauma or having been judged um or perhaps they have uh their their refugees who are escaping uh religious war and for whom uh religion is a source of stress so that even bringing up a concept like spirituality might potentially cause harm because we don't
23:30 - 24:00 know what a seemingly innocuous word might trigger in somebody who's experienced religious trauma in some way and so that's the first principle of ethics do no harm which means that lots of very well intentioned individuals who want to integrate spirituality into social work might potentially cause harm so today's session is about not only clarifying that but giving
24:00 - 24:30 some specific strategies and tools to ensure that if one does integrate spirituality into social work one does so by having the least amount of potential harm possible done because there is a need for healing specifically as a result of religious
24:30 - 25:00 adverse religious experiences um residential school survivors this is an article on the left from uh cbc that talks about how residential school survivors will need specific cultural care specifically when it comes to the ways in which they experienced religion in a negative way and uh the on the right there's a an artistic representation of the need for healing of indigenous communities from what was done to them in those residential schools
25:00 - 25:30 there's also ways in which some forms of religion might have been intertwined with uh human trafficking in certain countries and so being aware of what we might be potentially triggering is uh very important when considering the words that we use and the references and
25:30 - 26:00 that we use we assume that spirituality and religion is a source of uh comfort and resilience but that is actually an assumption based in privilege um so for example and this is uh very timely since alexandra mentioned that conversion therapy was just banned but what is conversion therapy and there is a lot of research that is being done specifically on that right now
26:00 - 26:30 conversion therapy is really not just active forms of trying to convert people from identifying as gay or queer or transgender but also it is defined as subtle ways and what constitutes subtle ways some some people have experienced the potential of bringing in religion into a therapeutic context
26:30 - 27:00 as a form of um attempting to convert um someone and so there's implicit and explicit ways in which uh conversion therapy is potentially uh in practice and so it is defined as a broad set of practices pressures or messages that attempt to deny suppress or change the experiences or identities of same-sex attracted gender non-conforming
27:00 - 27:30 to spirit lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer sexual and gender diverse populations whether the change efforts are blatant or subtle religiously biased or not many people do not fully understand the ways in which this happens so this is getting ready to become uh illegal which is great but we have even more of a responsibility to understand the ways in which
27:30 - 28:00 implicit bias where we are unaware might work subconsciously be involuntarily activated and be spontaneous and so from an ethical perspective since this can cause harm to the first step towards integrating spirituality into social work is becoming aware of one's own potential biases we also don't know the ways in which for example holocaust survivors might be especially
28:00 - 28:30 uh anxious when if someone who is of a different religious tradition tries to bring up um the potential for um for religion because it might bring up memories of uh people trying to destroy judaism by converting them and so we don't know who has uh had these experiences within their
28:30 - 29:00 family and that's another reason we need to be treading lightly for a lot of people christianity in particular which is the majority religion in canada has roots in colonialism and it can impact minorities and so becoming aware of structural ways in which christianity is privileged for
29:00 - 29:30 example um those stores are closed we have to take off work that those are reminders that religious minorities might experience and the experience of being a minority can cause additional trauma also though for people who are queer the becoming aware of the ways in which
29:30 - 30:00 some theologies are not inclusive of gay identity is important and we want to be self-aware of what is going on within ourselves that cause us to try to bring up uh religious doctrines in a social work context which is supposed to be inclusive of all
30:00 - 30:30 people so obviously the first step in addition to self-awareness is diversity religious literacy learning about all of the different as much as we can about all of the different parts of that colorful wheel and all of the different religious traditions so that's the first step as well as well as being aware of our own potential for biases
30:30 - 31:00 but the other part is how do we assess there actually isn't one assessment tool that is single valid um it doesn't exist so there are a lot of different assessment tools and some of us make use assessment tools that are not evidence-based as well and then there's problems with what is considered evidence-based and were those studies done on minorities or not and how were they cross-referenced so there's a lot of
31:00 - 31:30 complexity in this so this leads me to the deeper question how much of our professional education and continuing education is focused upon unconscious bias how aware are we what are the mechanisms that have been used to make us more self-aware and critical thinking practitioners
31:30 - 32:00 do we focus on cognitive bias on emotional bias on structural bias and what are the implications of are not focusing on that what are those ethical implications what does it mean if we don't focus a lot of our professional development on addressing these potentially powerful influences so the first thing that i would say and this was brought up during the panel is the importance of
32:00 - 32:30 referrals specifically referrals to chaplains or pastoral counselors spiritual practitioners who are trained specifically in spirituality and i wanted to just highlight the unique training of spiritual care practitioners and the unique ways in which their training and i i should say ours because i am also a board-certified interfaith chaplain and in addition to
32:30 - 33:00 the advanced graduate degree in theology and religious studies that chaplain has or spiritual care practitioner has they also go through two years of postgraduate interdisciplinary training in medicine counseling and world religions this is called clinical pastoral education and there's two years of that is not only cognitive learning but it's experiential learning
33:00 - 33:30 it includes group therapy group supervision three hours a week with a diverse group of peers as well as two years of individual supervision once a week so remember we were talking about how self-awareness has to happen on two levels external and internal so clinical pastoral education is about giving you that feedback very intensely through three hours a week of
33:30 - 34:00 interpersonal therapeutic supervision as well as two years of interdisciplinary learning and then additional training for several years prior to board certification so the level of training of a spiritual care practitioner in this area is profound and if somebody is board certified then that means that they are prepared to do in-depth counseling so a lot of what i highlighted
34:00 - 34:30 earlier in the do not do no harm section or category speaks to some very potentially intense spiritual needs someone who's gone through adverse religious experiences of the kind that i referenced above requires a depth of spiritual counseling that might be outside of the scope of practice and competence of a social worker right because ethical social work practice
34:30 - 35:00 involves being able to do good assessments being self-aware and focused on providing the best possible practice and interventions possible and ethical social work practice often means doing referrals for people who need advanced specialized treatment now within a clinical setting it is absolutely appropriate and important for a spirit
35:00 - 35:30 for a social worker to address spiritual needs to assess them to find a way to assess them that is effective is evidence-based and then to find ways to assess how to integrate that simply doing a good comprehensive assessment can help people know that their spiritual needs are welcome within a clinical setting to what extent that they may need additional counseling to focus on
35:30 - 36:00 their unique spiritual needs if that is a source of their woundedness that is something that a good initial assessment involves now it is certainly very helpful to look at genograms and eco maps to integrate spirituality religious beliefs cultural beliefs into that one can even do spiritual
36:00 - 36:30 and religious um eco maps and spiritual and religious uh genograms to have a more comprehensive understanding of the ways in which people might be experiencing their distress visual tools are obviously super helpful for people and they can be really helpful when assessing someone's spiritual needs and helpful for being able to make those determinations
36:30 - 37:00 but it is worth noting that of the many many instruments and assessments that exist many of them are not validated what that means is they are considered biased i myself more than once was looking at instruments to try to use for research um i was i did a paper on spirituality
37:00 - 37:30 and loneliness for older adults and found that the spirituality instruments used were not um universally recognized so for example in uh judaism in hebrew the word for religion doesn't exist in hebrew and that is not unique to hebrew that is true for other world languages as well
37:30 - 38:00 and other cultures and other religious traditions and so being aware of what the language is is uh very important for ensuring cross-cultural competency and ethical practice so there are levels of clinical inquiry about spirituality and social work and one can do an initial spiritual screening one can do a spiritual history taking and one can do a deeper spiritual assessment at which point it may be appropriate
38:00 - 38:30 to make a referral depending upon what emerges and to do that concurrently with the social work and therapy that is being provided um and there are lots of different examples so i have included a few here you can learn more from that article that i um presented
38:30 - 39:00 here by george fitchat who does a lot of research through rush university medical center in chicago um and so there's religious struggle screening protocol and that is an evidence-based tool that can help just even basic questions is religion or spirituality important to you as you cope yes or no has there ever been a time right just because it's no doesn't mean that it may not have
39:00 - 39:30 been at some point if there has been yes then we want to do a deeper spiritual assessment um a lot of the research that around spiritual care does is hospital-centered so for those of us that are not working in hospitals but in more typical clinical settings there may need to be some adaptation but taking a spiritual history so this is considered one of the more evidence-based
39:30 - 40:00 universally applicable ways to do it it's called fica so faith and belief do you consider yourself spiritual or religious or do you have spiritual beliefs that help you cope with stress importance what importance does your faith or belief have in your life have your beliefs influenced how you care for yourself and then community are you part of a spiritual or religious community
40:00 - 40:30 is this of support to you and how right that's a very important question we make assumptions oh you're part of religious community there that's great but we don't know if it's of support to them if it's something that you're part of because you feel obligated to and it's important to ask and have more information and then it's also good to just bring it up let's let empower the client to
40:30 - 41:00 to give us directives this is the most ethical question that we can ask how would you like me to include spiritual issues in the our counseling relationship so that is a very important way of shifting the balance of power and reminding the client that they are the ones in charge this is a another model for spiritual assessment which looks at the many different levels of
41:00 - 41:30 spiritual assessment of which there is the spiritual at the bottom which can be about belief meaning a sense of vocation or obligations the word vocation is a christian word so um it would be important to unpack that a little further this was published in 1993 so it's it's not quite as evident so it's important to think about those words and maybe even check them
41:30 - 42:00 out with other people before you try them out with your clients looking at the spiritual needs model this is another approach for assessment that has been actually validated so looking at different definitions of spirituality meaning transcendence values and psychosocial identity so recognizing that there are corresponding needs to what we
42:00 - 42:30 are assessing in the dimension and domain of spirituality so looking at meaning if we ask someone about meaning or what we're really asking also about is their ability for life balance transcendence the need for connection values um is uh has many different levels of needs related to that as well as psychosocial identity now this question these questions that
42:30 - 43:00 i just answered they seem super simple and easy but they have been validated using statistical analysis to ensure that those questions actually are measuring something um that is real and validated and reproducible across different cultures and religious backgrounds so there's uh questions that as that we would potentially re-translate in terms of how do you
43:00 - 43:30 assess the meaning the need for life balance so are you having difficulties coping with what is happening with you now um is your overall life balance disturbed by what is happening to you now how is the person speaking about their need for life balance similarly the need for connection um does what is happening with you now change how you view your spirituality or your faith
43:30 - 44:00 so those would be questions there these are very in-depth and it's important to have done a very thorough assessment back to what we were saying about the levels of assessment right you want to do initial spiritual screening if it is if when you do that initial spiritual screening to what extent would you like spirituality integrated into this therapeutic context um if we realize that the
44:00 - 44:30 person has maybe experienced an adverse religious experience we want to try to address that ahead of time now of course therapy is all about grist for the mill so if we are treading carefully and we and we realize that perhaps there is something that is going on that is intense we will want
44:30 - 45:00 to make that referral um so that they have the ability to follow up because if we are unpacking something that has stayed tightly protected for a long time then we have a responsibility to make sure that they have the tools they need to address it back to doing no harm so um but that tool has been um analyzed statistically through factor analysis to us ensure internal
45:00 - 45:30 consistency it is effective at being able to identify and that's an important part is how can we be ensuring that when we're talking about this we're using tools that actually are effective um there's if we think about the this sort of like a continuum social workers are important to
45:30 - 46:00 be able to provide basic spiritual care and to be able to do some screening for spiritual distress and then to be able to make those referrals as appropriate but we want to think about not going outside of our scope of practice by becoming more aware of the scope of practice of our allied professions specifically spiritual care providers and if there is a desire amongst uh people who are
46:00 - 46:30 attending or watching this training to do more to go more in depth on spiritual care there actually is specific training for social workers who would like to become chaplains who would like to become spiritual care providers it is a different profession although they're they are overlapping and so part of ethical practice is about knowing our scope of practice and knowing when to refer
46:30 - 47:00 so this is a little more about our scope of practice right ethical practice means assessing fully so we want to ensure that we assess for spiritual needs but then referring as necessary um so in conclusion and i've left time for some questions when looking at the ethics of integrating spirituality into social work the first
47:00 - 47:30 step is to be continuing to learn to learn more about unique religious traditions and backgrounds cultures and heritages to focus on experiential learning not just cognitive learning so that we can be aware of our own biases we want to also experience other religious practices so it's not enough to just read a book or talk to somebody we want to try to immerse ourselves to learn more
47:30 - 48:00 and then it's important to learn about adverse religious experiences because many of our clients may have experienced one of those and we want to be able to be as aware of those as possible while also knowing ourselves and our bias our scope and practice limits and referring as necessary and that's how we can ensure competent ethical spirit integration
48:00 - 48:30 of spirituality within social work practice so with that um i am done and i welcome questions wonderful thank you so much nadia that was so informative and what a wonderful way to wrap up this three-part series as i said at the beginning just a quick uh reminder for folks that part one
48:30 - 49:00 and part two are available on the cisw website under the continuing education section so feel free to go and check that out this is the final of those series so feel free to watch part one and part two we do have some time for questions uh so if you please feel free to use that q a tab and then type your questions we're going to try and get through all of them here but feel free to type them there this is a wonderful question nadia um i'm going to ask it of you uh first thank you so much for this insightful series of teachings and learnings i teach social work in
49:00 - 49:30 a predominantly christian conservative community can you speak to an ethical response to students who express their moral responsibility to profess their understanding of the biblical teachings to clients students often comply when told not to do so but what happens when they get out to practice well this is a this is a significant concern and probably um the reason why i am teaching
49:30 - 50:00 this class is to help people become more aware of the ways in which doing so can cause harm and that's probably a challenge to do for someone who is located in a place of privilege but one of the things that's amazing about learning about intersectionality is that oftentimes people
50:00 - 50:30 who are privileged in location in one way might have had an experience of not being privileged in a different way and if they can become aware of what it feels like to be a minority and to be told that your way is not okay then they might be aware of how that might impact their clients
50:30 - 51:00 but i would say that the field of social work probably has some growth to do when it comes to how can we assess whether someone is capable of um going out in public and working in social work and doing this so i'm going to share a little bit about how chaplains deal with this so you could probably imagine that many um conservative
51:00 - 51:30 uh ordained clergy are drawn to chaplaincy who have that same belief that one should profess their belief and and help save people and that's what draws them and the experiential learning which is about tapping into which i would say i hope the practicum does to help you tap
51:30 - 52:00 into the experience of being a minority in other ways is important but when someone goes through and gets the feedback from others so there's intentional opportunities to be interacting with people of different backgrounds than you and getting that feedback how do you experience me and then incorporating that into your learning goals and incorporating that into what you do
52:00 - 52:30 there's also what we call verbatim clinics in chaplaincy where when someone does a counseling interaction they write down not only the verbatim transcript of that counseling interaction but for chaplaincy training they have to also include what is the theoretical counseling paradigm what is the spiritual paradigm and there's a whole set of theories around that
52:30 - 53:00 what is the scriptural belief around that and what is your personal feelings like were you feeling anxious when this person was talking about something and is that why you said what you said and then what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to not only analyze what you said but why you didn't say alternative things and then the verbatim clinic you bring that
53:00 - 53:30 written piece of work which is really long self-reflective to your group of peers who are all organized to be different religious beliefs right so a clinical pastoral education learning session explicitly tries to make sure that there's people of every religious belief that there's um someone who is more conservative someone who is more liberal someone who is of a different race someone who is of a different gender of a different sexual identity all together
53:30 - 54:00 to spend a year learning and working together and their job is to help you see your blind spots so when you do those clinical opportunities and you're saying well i said this but i didn't say this it's up to that person to um to provide that feedback and then you become board certified which means you go to another group of people that you've never met before who are all radically
54:00 - 54:30 different you show them those verbatims and their job is try to see what is your weak spot and they try to press on it to see how you react when under pressure to see how you do those things so the easy answer to you is to say it's good to know one's limits right if one realizes that one has really strong religious beliefs that might impact how one
54:30 - 55:00 works with a client recognizing the potential for harm might cause that person say this is outside of my scope of competency i know i need to refer to somebody who has done this work and has gotten and i'm sharing the how in-depth it is so that when you see someone who's a
55:00 - 55:30 board-certified spiritual care practitioner you have an idea of how much training there is specifically in areas of diversity so that that person can make a referral if they know that that's not their belief that's fine of course what one does as a social worker is what one does when we're paid if someone wants to in their own spare time go and evangelize and share their understanding of what is right that is different but someone who does
55:30 - 56:00 that likely has potential blind spots we all have blind spots so we need to know what those blind spots are and ethical social work practice is about ensuring that we do that and for professors who see that they have an extra obligation to try to help people who might be located on a place of privilege become aware of their privilege and what it might be like to not have it
56:00 - 56:30 you know we did a really phenomenal exercise in my social work degree i believe it was called the power flower i don't have the ability or any csw staff to pop it in the chat if anyone knows what i'm talking about and can pop it in the chat that might be good it was jarring to say the least how many intersecting identities of privilege i had in the context of my social work practice and being
56:30 - 57:00 able to see it in a diagram how much privilege i have being you know from a euro christian et cetera et cetera background as a student i think was very powerful i think that i think it's called the power flower so exercises like that i think are very important i'm going to just see if um it's not the power of flower although it's a little floral if i can pull up that
57:00 - 57:30 wheel of privilege and power which looks at citizenship skin color formal education ability being aware body size housing wealth being aware of all of these different and they're probably even more and where one is located on each of these is a really good experience so that we can become aware of how many times we have power and how many times we don't and while i may have
57:30 - 58:00 power in some areas the experience of what it's like to be marginalized in certain areas can cause me to become a little more empathetic or if not me than to hear the experiences of people for and that's where first voice education is so important too i had a couple more questions that i saw yeah um and i'll try to be quick but um i saw the serenity prayer um the serenity
58:00 - 58:30 prayer is certainly a lovely prayer it has christian roots and it is christian and many people know that it's got christian roots and may not feel comfortable with it um and that is really a challenge for the recovery movement as a whole and there are different religious groups that have tried to create their own versions of it in order to make it a little more accessible but that's where having more
58:30 - 59:00 of an understanding that if that is the only thing available in the community for example talking with a client about what it will feel like to be feeling maybe oppressed or marginalized or in in seeking out help and using that as an opportunity to help the client talk about what that might feel like and different clients are going to have different experiences but um it is potentially problematic for some and not at all problematic for others
59:00 - 59:30 many people are used to translating um you know there's when you're a minority there's uh you're used to seeing things from the big picture as well as your own perspective um when one is only in the majority we're not used to translating what it's like to not have it be the way we know um and
59:30 - 60:00 ideally social work teaches us how to translate so that we can be able to connect with more people there's a really wonderful question in the q a and i think it kind of ties into another question in here about the lack of access potentially to uh social work or healthcare providers for rural and remote communities um it's it's i'm trying to combine two questions into one here so pardon me if i'm if i'm doing it a little bit poorly um but the question is around what are your thoughts
60:00 - 60:30 on existential therapy when someone has an overlap with aspects of spiritual care i'm grateful to work with a spiritual health practitioner at my hospital but what is your advice when people don't have access to a cost-free or low-cost clinical spiritual care practitioner or potentially you know that broader concept of being in a rural remote community where there is no access and the social worker serves as kind of a multitude of yeah of hats great question very important
60:30 - 61:00 so number one um the benefit of covid as much as there have been problems is a lot more things are available online um including self-help groups and it allows for people who are geographically located to potentially have access to things perhaps through the library and their internet but that is a resource that is now available the other thing to think about is using grist for
61:00 - 61:30 the mill right so um like i mentioned with the the self-help 12-step serenity prayer kind of approach addressing for the client this may not be comfortable and i would encourage people doing it for everyone don't make assumptions at with whenever you're sharing a resource
61:30 - 62:00 many clients might find this helpful but many clients might also have difficulty because it does come from a christian background i don't know how you would feel about this so using it as just an opportunity to raise the conversation and have the client talk through the feelings about it um you're not going to cause harm by having by noting that they may or may not have problems with it it
62:00 - 62:30 gives them an opportunity to have their concerns be validated perhaps for the first time to have that sense of empowerment that they can choose to modify it however they wish now existentialists therapy um is a a great way to try to bring it down to the most fundamental common denominator
62:30 - 63:00 and i i i am a fan and um i do think that that is a really helpful way to think about integrating spirituality into social work but with everything even from the very beginning with an assessment talking about how spirituality can bring up things and that you know normalizing
63:00 - 63:30 potential concerns that might come up helping people say oh this could be true several people have mentioned that this might be this might not be how do you think and then putting the client in charge of making that decision is i think really helpful wonderful i want to know i'm going to maybe ask one or two more questions i do want to know that this is the fourth presentation on spirituality and social we have done with nadia so if you are looking for increased trainings we do have them on the cisw website and we do have other
63:30 - 64:00 spirituality and social work trainings uh there as well so if this is the first time you're kind of being introduced to spirituality and social work feel free to dive a little bit deeper in the coming weeks months into some of the other offerings casw has um there is a uh association for spiritual social work i believe who did a panel event with us yep um so you may want to check that out as well if we didn't get to your question or if we weren't
64:00 - 64:30 able to cover all the materials you were hoping us to cover um this is a really interesting one and i would i would really like to ask it because um cisw has been uh pretty i'm i'm trying to think about us yet um we've been very on the forefront of the medical assistance in dying legislation um so this is a wonderful question and i think it ties and dovetails really well into some of the other assets and and sorry facets of which social work will sometimes coincide and rub up against
64:30 - 65:00 religion uh in ways that we're not always prepared for so the question is uh i do medical assistance and dying debriefings of health care staff often in a group debriefing sometimes one-on-one do you have any thoughts on how i can help a healthcare provider who feels that the patient patient should not choose medical assistance and dying and their co-workers are seeing it as a peaceful empowered
65:00 - 65:30 ending the person finalizes by saying i recognize my own bias halfway through the debriefing of feeling people should have the choice and i realized that the care provider was against it yeah that's uh it's going to it's it's a growing new issue but it's an issue not just with medical assistance and dying it has it comes up with someone is choosing uh abortion has come someone and there
65:30 - 66:00 are a lot multiple ways in which someone's personal religious beliefs might conflict and so that particular issue has to be dealt with early and often so that we know as much as possible our own stuff and recognize that if we are having strong feelings about a certain topic and we can think about it in ourself and oh this is tied into some deeper parts of my own story or
66:00 - 66:30 my belief or my faith tradition i am going to not be able to be unbiased and that's okay no human being is unbiased we all have biases being aware of our bias is super important so that we can try to either make referrals to other people i know that this is going to cause me to maybe be so
66:30 - 67:00 emotionally reactive that i might cause harm and the first step is not causing harm i might influence that person's decision so there's like certain fundamental social work practice components or um beliefs right one is the client's right to self-determination to the extent that it we want to encourage people to make choices that are aligned with the law
67:00 - 67:30 and so now that medical assistance and dying is aligned with the law even if we may not agree with it we have an obligation of social workers to do the best we can to either do no harm and help them achieve it or make a referral now that is harder when it comes to those areas in rural communities where you can't make a referral
67:30 - 68:00 that's where being as self-aware as possible and focused on doing no harm is more important than ever because of the ways in which unintentionally we might communicate something yeah absolutely i so wish we could get to all of them i'm sorry if we didn't but we are over time now so we will have to end this webcast i am just going to quickly put a link in the chat here
68:00 - 68:30 for um the casw hosted spirituality and social work webinars for some reason i'm not seeing my chat come up so if i did that twice my apologies um but if you do go to the cisw continuing education page and type spirituality and social work uh there will be a list of different options uh and different trainings and and we will i'm sure be doing more content of this with nadia
68:30 - 69:00 i can i can see it already down down the line um your certificate of attendance will be emailed to you so check your email about an hour after this presentation is concluded feel free to check your junk folders as well if you don't see it log back on through the same link you did to get on right now if you want to download the certificate from the platform itself um take a peek at cisw's upcoming webinars that we're going to be putting up on the continuing education page for the spring uh we'd love to see you and have you register for those
69:00 - 69:30 uh and also just feel free to go back and watch part one and part two of this of this series um nadia thank you so much for your time for your expertise there's so much that goes on behind the scenes that people don't know uh when it comes to actually coming live to you today uh so just a huge shout out to nadia and the work that has been put in to host this series with the nova scotia college daddy any final thoughts before we log off today yeah i mean the one thing that i i didn't mention i mentioned in our first session is the importance of self-care
69:30 - 70:00 so when we think about and my first session in may was about the ethics of burnout and how we want to make sure that we don't burn out spirituality and religious practice can be really helpful for practitioners to not burn out and the less we burn out the less likely we are to let our biases get the best of us the more likely we are to be conscious and
70:00 - 70:30 intentional about what we're doing and saying and if we accidentally say something the more likely we are to be aware of it catch it and say wow you know i said this because i'm part of this dominant culture but i didn't mean to say that it just popped out because dominant culture dominant language how did that make you feel and just bringing that out again grist for the mill that's the beauty of doing social work is everything is an opportunity to dive in and
70:30 - 71:00 if we own it and are aware of it but we want to make sure we take care of ourselves as much as possible and if there are spiritual practices and religious practices that we that help us have a sense of meaning and purpose so that we don't burn out then that's another really important part of integrating spirituality into social work it's about how do we stay focused in our own
71:00 - 71:30 values align what we do with social work code of ethics and standards of practice and then help our clients access the things that are meaningful to them which may or may not be meaningful to us wonderful yeah that's such a good point and going into this time if you are taking time off be it holidays be it time for rest and recuperation
71:30 - 72:00 whatever it is in the next coming weeks i do hope you take some time for yourself to recharge um this is the end of the year uh this calendar year uh and it is a time to really remember that we have been through some unimaginable circumstances in the past couple years and that if we are feeling burnt out and tired that is valid and that is okay um and if we are starting to feel like it is implicating our practice i would go check out that ethics
72:00 - 72:30 of burnout webinar that nadia also hosted it is phenomenal and just to take some time for you and for yourself um i highly highly recommend that march is going to be national social work month so we will be doing some stuff around self-care some stuff around burnout hopefully some stuff to support all of you but please please take care i believe this is the last webinar i will be doing before the new year so just thank you thank you so much for coming for continuing to show up for your questions for your insight for your knowledge i feel so grateful and so much gratitude
72:30 - 73:00 to be able to share this space with all of you i hope you take some time in the next couple weeks and i hope you understand how valued how highly educated highly skilled and highly trained social workers in canada are and just from the bottom of my heart and from the bottom of cisw's heart thank you for what you are doing uh thank you for the work that you are doing for your clients and for your communities and please take care of yourself amen yes okay nadia i will see
73:00 - 73:30 you soon thank you everyone thank you thank you thank you i hope we chat soon and see you soon you