Chapter 5: Centring All Helping Approaches​

Being Secure in who you are

• Self-reflexivity is important for helping professionals to explore their own identities and understand what they bring to their work.​

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• Understanding one's own values, beliefs, and cultures is crucial for effective helping, especially when working with individuals from different backgrounds.​

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• The dominant culture of the country sets community standards but is often overlooked and seen as "normal" and "right”. ​

Examples- adolescent pregnancy, Addicted baby, junkie

Being secure in who you are pt. 2

• Recognizing the influence of dominant culture is essential, even for White students who may initially deny having a culture. ​

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• Dominant culture informs various aspects of society and institutions.​

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• Important questions to ask during self-reflexivity include: Why am I working with this population and in this place? What do I have to offer? Am I committed to ongoing learning and self-reflection? How can I work toward changing oppressive social policies and practices?​

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• It is insecurity about who one is that leads to view the ‘other’ as being inferior​

• Watch, Observe, Take your time, Learn, and Receive when people (Indigenous) want to teach you.​

sameness, acceptance, or difference

• Centring all helping approaches requires creating space for diverse perspectives and knowledge, including Indigenous knowledge.​

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• Valuing differences involves letting go of comfort zones, listening to others, and being open to new learning.​

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• Challenging universalism questions the relevance of Western theories and practices in all contexts, emphasizing the need for authentication and guidance from diverse worldviews.

Racialization:

Process of differential treatment.​

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The ability of those who hold power, grant power, or take away power from people. ​

Sameness, acceptance, or difference p. 2

• Indigenous perspectives on helping emphasize common humanity, multiple ways of knowing, humanistic goals, contextual understanding, meaningful connections with service users, and group/community fulfillment.​

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• Indigenous worldviews have been recognized and incorporated in various professions, including positive impacts on survivors of Indian Residential Schools, healing practices, environmental concerns, health care education, and blended approaches to healing.​

Indigenous perspectives on helping ​

• Everyone has a common humanity​

• There are many ways of knowing and all are significant​

• Helping inherently carries humanistic goals​

• Context needs to always be kept in mind​

• Connecting with the service users and ensuring that our practices are meaningful to them is key​

• Self-fulfillment can only be truly realized when there is group/community fulfillment​

Challenges to incorporating Indigenous approaches

• Writing about Indigenous approaches as separate topics is a challenge because within Indigenous worldviews, everything is connected.​​

• Spirituality, holistic approaches, and values and ethics are foundational aspects of Indigenous helping approaches that permeate every chapter.​

• Appropriation is a significant challenge, with concerns about being limited to performing certain cultural practices without broader recognition or contributions.

Challenges to incorporating Indigenous approaches pt. 2

• Wendy Martin, a non-Indigenous ally, faces the challenge of educating colleagues about the impacts of colonization and Indigenous worldviews, often being ignored or shut down​

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• Allies like Wendy need support from Indigenous friends and colleagues, as well as like-minded non-Indigenous individuals, to prevent burnout and maintain their important work of educating others​

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It’s easy to be critical but not so easy to form a partnership:

• Aboriginal peoples need to have credit for their knowledges as these teachings have survived because of the diligence of Indigenous peoples.​​

• Indigenous way of learning- whole being not only from school. Learn from life those you seek to assist. ​

• Willingness to disrupt the continued dominance of Western knowledges. ​