Article Critique

ARTICLE CRITIQUE 1

Article Summary

Cultural competency is a cornerstone of the social work profession. Established in the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics (2014), social workers must strive to gain competency in working with culturally diverse populations, with consideration for race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, age, marital status, and gender identification. Cultural competency also includes maintaining awareness for ones own ethnocentricity (Zastrow, 2008 pp. 413). In his article Ungar (2010) examines the role of culture on the development of resiliency.

The medical-model approach developed by Sigmund Freud was widely used until the 1960's in social work practice when assessing change and human behavior. When viewed from the medical-model approach, resiliency is an individual trait, reliant solely on the inner ability of the individual to adapt and adjust to changing social situations in the face of adversity. However, since the 1960's a new model began to emerge in social work, the systems theory, shifting focus to include the environment and an individual's relationships in assessing behavior (Zastrow, 2008 pp. 50). Within the context of the systems approach, resiliency is viewed not simply as a character trait to be developed, but as an individual's ability to successfully utilize the resources of their family, community, and organizations within their environment to adapt. Ungar (2010) incorporates the idea of cultural competency into the systems approach to redefine resiliency further and argues that clinical social work practitioners should strive to find therapies that are culturally relevant to their clients (pp. 422).

Building upon his own and other's earlier research, Ungar (2010) develops his approach to understanding resiliency. Primarily, Ungar argues that the shift in perspective from the

ARTICLE CRITIQUE 2

individual in the medical-model approach to that of the systems approach...