Awareness, Acceptance, & Action

Awareness, Acceptance, & Action Social Work Practice Education Challenges Delivering Services to “The Other” following The Troubles in Northern Ireland Neil Abell, Ph.D., LCSW, Florida State University Audrey Roulston, Ph.D., Queen’s University Belfast

Pre/Post Conflict

Functions of Identity • Security • Social cohesion • Maintenance of a stable and functional social order • Control

Requires commitment & discipline • Imposes consequences on those who deviate, and rewards for those who adhere. • Maintenance & health depend upon collective reinforcement • Rituals of inclusion & exclusion remind us who we are and what we risk losing if we challenge established norms

Core Components of Stigma &elements of compassion • Labeling • naming for recognition/designation • Stereotyping • associating related characteristics • Outgrouping • asserting “us” and “them” • Discriminating • treating in harmful/hurtful manner • Tolerance • Getting along & going along • Sympathy • Feeling “for” • Empathy • Feeling “with” • Interbeing • Feeling “as” • Recognizing that the “other’s” concerns are also our own When conditions are sufficient, something will arise.

Compassion • Deep concern; the intention to relieve and transform suffering and lighten sorrows • Looking and listening deeply • Feeling for, recognizing & understanding another’s concerns, distress, & suffering, • and determining to do something to alleviate them • The challenge for undergraduate social work students & practice teachers? • Applying these principles to self as well as others Hahn, 1998; Loun, 2016

Action Acceptance Awareness Looking Deeply Listening Well Mindfulness Principles Seeing ourselves and others as we actually are, rather than as we imagine ourselves and others to be.

Can mindfulness & Stigma concepts & techniquesbe Applied to the Context of Sectarian Conflict? • Conduct Focus Groups (Autumn 2016) • 2 Groups of QUB Undergraduate Social Work Students (total N = 18) • final year BSW, reported prior work experience range 0 – 10+ years • 2 Groups of N.I. Social Work Practice Teachers (total N = 11) • reported practice experience range from 6-25 years, in roles including social workers, probation officers, and practice teachers • Sessions recorded and transcribed and data analyzed applying Braun & Clarke’s (2006) Thematic Analysis • Testing whether original theories could be supported • And identifying emergent themes

Initial Thematic Map: Practice Teachers & Students Acceptance Awareness Action Acknowledging Dissonance Outgroup Label Positive Discrimination Negative Discrimination Outgroup Neutrality Stereotype Behavioural Engagement Biasing Preconceptions Sociocultural Context Establishing “the Other’s” identity Concealment Generational Differences Role of Media Process Motivations Disclosure Dismissal Engage Transmission of Stigma Positive Engagement Be Functional Dismiss Negative Engagement Coping Educational Challenges Disclose Masking Conceal Containment Relevance of the past to students Communicating legacy of service users

Selected Data Excerpts • Stereotypes • Bigoted, ignorant, arrogant, “hard core”, extreme, “tricolours all over the walls”, Rascist, “a slight mystery there, you know; it’s like the Pope’s wafting incense around them…”, suspicious, “got crazy rituals”, “Catholics’ eyes are too far together, and Protestants’ are too far apart….it’s their anatomy..”, drug dealer , just dumb, aggressive, intimidating, muscly,“has a habit of walking as if they’re carrying two microwaves under each arm.” • Allowed to march through a totally nationalist village without taking other people’s opinions into it, yet if you decided to do some sort of march with the GAA, or something like that, they actually wouldn’t talk to you again, or if you were in a business they wouldn’t – they would totally never come back to you again. But what they do is accepted; what you do is not accepted.

More data Excerpts • Acknowledging Dissonance • looking at the stuff inside me, and I know there’s times where I’ve had to recognise some of that, you know, these prejudices that you’ve grown up with, but I still have to confront them and go "these are unfounded" • Establishing “the Other’s” identity • But, you know, we laughed in the office, because when you went out to someone on a new referral it was like the game had to be played. No doubt the first question was, you know, first of all people will know you in relation to your name and if they don’t categorise you or label you from your name, then they’ll ask you what school you went to, what area you came from, and it was that sort of dance…

And More Data Excerpts • Positive Discrimination • just because I’m different from you doesn’t mean I’m really bad. I’m actually really good, so I’m going to go this extra mile for you…I think sometimes the fear of being accused of being sectarian or sexist or racist maybe makes us… it certainly has made me maybe be positively biased. • Negative Discrimination • I suppose if you have a preconceived idea that Mr Bomber Jacket is going to be hostile and misogynistic you’re maybe more likely to see his actions within those framework, whether they are or they aren’t…. you’re more inclined to a negative perception of him before you’ve even started talking to him. • Motivation to be Functional • whether it’s sectarianism or what it happens to be, there’s always going to be differences between you and I or …the man that I go and visit in his house, or whatever … but I think you have to trust yourself that your training and your experience and the modelling that you’ve had from other practitioners will enable you to be professional and manage those emotional responses well - by calling them what they are.

Compassionate Action • Despite all the baggage I may have carried about him splashing about inside me, I was totally 100% committed, focused on what his goals were and where he wanted to get to and whether or not he could get there safely for everybody. • I’d go back to recognizing that common humanity…it doesn’t matter who you are, how smelly you are, how drunk you are, I recognize your humanity, you’re a human being and you’re welcome here. • I really like curiosity, and so that’s what I ask students to do a lot….where you are confused about something or something doesn’t fit….just ask, just be curious. • I think we need to be better in social work training at giving students permission to have prejudice and to have assumptions, whether that be on a sectarian basis, or ethnicity, or whatever….(rather than have) that robotic response of “I’m not judgmental…

Challenges in Education • Communicating the legacy of “the Troubles” • I grew up in a relatively safe…area compared to maybe 20 years before that there was people being murdered, So I nearly witnessed that, but I think it’s a bit disrespectful to expect the whole nation to move on, because we’ve all been through different experiences ourselves. • …I don’t believe anybody really gives a monkey’s, they really don’t. But I think the problems are still there, and I think what it would be nice to do in a social work course is…help people realise that a wee bit more, realise it’s still there,….the hurt… • Communicating the relevance of the past to students • But I think that’s where students now coming through don’t realise that actually a lot of our service users, their identity is still held in that very sectarian world….because they have never experienced it, and don’t understand it…..they need to be able to understand….to work with some people who are still quite entrenched in that mindset.

Translating ideas into action Developing modules for classroom education, and companion training for practice teachers

Engaging with “The Other” Compassionate Service Delivery with Persons Whose Identities Are Different from Our Own

Exercise in Looking Deeply Mindful engagement with an orange

From Reactivity to Intentional Action Adapting Mindfulness Principles to the Context of Sectarian Conflict

An exercise in Mindfulness Reflecting on Awareness of our own biases Accepting the implications for practice Identifying options for compassionate Action in the service of supervising undergraduate social work students

Emerging Implications for Practice Education • Challenges in promoting awareness in “pre/post conflict” context • Primary or secondary trauma • Concurrent, residual, or “legacy” • Dilemmas posed by acknowledging dissonance between • what one should feel as a professional and • what one actually feels as a member of a traumatized community • “Push/Pull” dynamics of risking “awakening a sleeping bear” • Transferring AAAM principles to other aspects of “difference” • Looking deeply and listening well in and beyond practice supervision • Reflecting on reactivity and intentionality based on race, ethnicity, social class, ability, age, and health status (for instance!)

Limitations & The Way Forward • Initial qualitative data in early phase of analysis • Limited sample drawn from members of a single university & surrounding community • Examine how emergent themes complement or refute AAAM • Refine training modules consistent with qualitative findings • Expand quantitative evaluation of module impact & effectiveness • Continue to develop and extend academic & community partnerships Contact: nabell@fsu.edua.roulston@qub.ac.uk

Awareness, Acceptance, & Action