Summary

Social Work, as a profession, works across the boundaries of individuals and their environments, including families, schools, organizations, communities, cultures, and economic systems.\ To serve the needs of an increasingly diverse population, it is imperative that\ Social Workers take measures to increase racial and ethnic diversity among mental and behavioral health practitioners. Practitioners who share a racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, or cultural background with the populations they serve are better equipped to build curative relationships.\  Social workers provide services to the most vulnerable, and often marginalized, individuals and families in our communities. In addition to providing direct intervention to persons (families, groups, and communities) in need, social workers also work to prevent or mitigate the many causes and contexts that may perpetuate harm or impaired ability to function. Competent social workers understand the richness of intersectionality, how power and oppression inform social work practice, and the generalist practitioner’s charge to provide structurally accurate and culturally conscious assessments and interventions. To that end, social workers must engage in; self-introspection, support interrogation of social issues that affect our client systems, engage in strategies to mitigate vicarious trauma when working with complex systems while promoting inclusivity and belonging and competently facilitate critical conversations.\ “We view cultural consciousness as an ongoing and dynamic developmental process with no endpoint—one that requires active, critical, and purposeful engagement on the part of the social worker entering the helping relationship” (Azzopardi \& McNeill, 2016).\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Social Work, Mental and Behavioral Health, Diverse, Inclusive, Workforce, Resilience