Research Reports
Reflections on Traditional American Indian Ways, 1998
Threats to Tribal Sovereignty, 1998
Traditional American Indian Leadership: A Comparison with U.S. Governance, 1997
Education/Training in the Criminal Justice System
Participants have a number of concerns with academic training that prepares criminal justice employees for working with Indians. This includes those professionals such as social workers, teachers, and others who have early contact with young Indian people. Here they note problems with personnel who serve various roles within the system.
“I would say the chaplain would be the last person I would want to have a spiritual person go through. But that’s the framework of the way it’s done. Anything having to do with faith goes through the chaplain, and he’s the worst equipped. He’s schooled in the holy trinity and Genesis One. That whole power syndrome works opposite of what Indian people believe.”
“...I told them, ‘don’t try to keep the guards away from the pipe. Let them see it, show it to them, be proud of who you are.’ That’s what we have to do if we want things to change in the system. To bring back the sacred ways, educating people is the key. You know, my lodge is wide open. You need to open your heart.”
What do they think of the social welfare system: That it’s a racist system, Indian social workers don’t need the training – it’s others who need training working with Indians.
As a part of this project, American Indian Social Workers participated in two talking circles to discuss the role of schools of social work in the preparation of social workers for culturally appropriate practice with Indians and social work practice with Indian people in the child protection and correction systems.
Native social workers participants had received their Masters degrees from accredited Social Work programs. They spoke of educational experiences that were lonely because of the lack of native colleagues and faculty and inadequate because of the lack of cultural awareness among their faculty and fellow students. One participant spoke of her program as having a "noticeable lack of cultural education." Another described her experience; "My orientation was a video that told about Indian ceremonies. That was my sensitivity training." Another social worker described a required "culture day" which might have impacted her colleagues but which was facilitated in a way that whenever the content became uncomfortable discussion was ended. She also articulated a concern of several participants when she spoke of the way faculty used her presence to compensate for their own lack of knowledge about Indian people.
"On certain days I should have gotten half of the teacher's salary because I was the expert most of the time."
In addition to noting a deep cultural inadequacy and insensitivity in their social work education, the students also have concerns about the curriculum. Participants are critical of their programs' emphasis on developing clinical intervention skills at the cost of teaching about the advocacy and policy expertise that they consider of greater importance for the Indian community. One participant echoes the statements of others when she spoke of the need "for a change to a social justice focus to spend more time addressing core issues like advocacy, community organizing, political action, and engaging communities, not just individual clients, to promote and create a voice." A participant spoke of being taught a "deficit" rather than a "strengths" model of human behavior. They report that their programs emphasize transmitting information and skill building at the expense of the personal self-assessment and awareness that they saw as essential to the educational process. One participant represented the basic frustration of the others when he stated the following.
"We came out with a MSW, it was sort of like a license. We didn't learn anything. In fact, we had to throw away some of our learning to be effective workers …It would really be nice if we could create an ah-hoc commission on American Indian social work education here in Minneapolis to start challenging the Twin Cities campus and Augsburg.”
Another participant states the need for the same kind of monitoring for the BSW programs in the area. The participants also express their concerns about the impact of social work education on non-Indian students.
“Culture drives behavior for Indian kids and adults … some of us understand that, but a lot don’t. We may have written some things down about that, but it doesn’t get into the libraries and educational system, much less into social work and criminal justice. They really don’t know how to work with Indians or relate to Indians.”
Though these talking circles include only those trained or training in social work undergraduate and graduate programs, the issues expressed are relevant for training and educational experiences for workers throughout the system.
The
Well-Being of American Indian Children in Minnesota: Economic Conditions,
1994
top | Projects
| Research | Publications
| Links | About Us
| Contact Us | Home
© Copyright 2002, American Indian Policy Center. All Rights
Reserved.
1463 Hewitt Avenue • St. Paul, MN 55104 • tel: 651-644-1728
aipc@cpinternet.com
Last updated:
Tuesday November 1, 2005