Discussion: Disadvantaged and Vulnerable Populations (Elderly People)

Social Change Application – Disadvantaged Populations

Social Change Application – Disadvantaged Populations Program Transcript

NARRATOR: People may be advantaged or disadvantaged in their lives. In this video program, Dr. Judy Lewis talks about using the social change strategies of advocacy and leadership to address the challenges faced by disadvantaged populations.

DR. JUDY LEWIS: Society advantages some populations to the disadvantage of other populations. There are some direct ways that it happens where people are actually prevented from developing in the way they say should be able to develop if they had equal rights. But more importantly even now in societies, there are so many subtle ways that this happens. Somehow people who are part of disadvantaged populations get a strong message that they should see themselves as less than another group.

So I think it is important if we're thinking about a society that enhances the mental health of its members to confront that process when it happens. To recognize when it's affecting us and when it's affecting our clients and to try to do something about it.

I'd like to suggest that when counselors are working with clients, we always should look at the way the client might have been advantaged or disadvantaged by the community as a whole. That's the only way that we're going to really understand what it'll take to enhance their mental health. Because people come up against barriers that we don't necessarily know about. And it may be at different times in your life when you come across these barriers and move from an advantage in one area to disadvantage in another.

Something like this happened to me recently. I was talking with a person who is actually not a newcomer to the counseling profession, she's a leader in the counseling profession. And she said to me Oh, Dr. Lewis, did you know you were my father's counselor educator when he got his doctorate? And I was thinking it is really time for me to start paying a lot more attention to ageism, because that's going to be my area from now on.

These things change over time. But everybody I think is sometimes in the shoes of the advantaged, and sometimes in the shoes of the disadvantaged. We need to notice that about people.

In order to address the challenges that are faced by disadvantaged populations, the only way you can be successful is by using social change strategies and advocacy and leadership. It is not going to happen just one person at a time getting one person at a time to adjust to what is a society that doesn't enhance their mental health. So I think it's important to recognize that we need to use advocacy, we need to be addressing the community and the society as a whole.

© 2016 Laureate Education, Inc. 1

Social Change Application – Disadvantaged Populations

One way I think to do this is to look at that whole process of disadvantaging. You can look at racism, you can look at sexism, you can look at heterosexism. You can look at all of these major -isms and see them one at a time. But it might make more sense to try to change that aspect of society that continues to be organized around advantaging and disadvantaging. The same kind of process happens regardless of which -ism you're talking about.

We tend to recognize as individuals our own version of the -ism. As a woman, I might overlook racism sometimes. As a straight person, I might overlook heterosexism sometimes.

But I think it's really important if we're looking at how we can have have a society that enhances mental health, for us all to be looking across all of the -isms. For us to look at that process of advantaging and disadvantaging, and try to see it from the other person's point of view and try to build ally relationships across differences. I think if we can do that, then we can start to have an impact on these processes that are really not healthy for individuals' mental health. I think we can make a difference if we look at the process as a whole and try to reach across difference to make some change.

As a counselor, educator or supervisor, we know it is our responsibility to help our students learn about change processes. Help our students learn about what are the aspects of society that enhance mental health. And what are the aspects of society that go against building people's mental health.

The trouble is that none of us learned that growing up. We all learned to be afraid of difference. We all learned to fit in to the way society views people. We all had to work very hard to change our own point of view so we could take the perspective of other people.

And that's a lifelong effort that it takes. It really is raising questions with ourselves all of our lives-- am I seeing everything that's here? Does somebody else need me?

As a woman, I need my friend who's a male to stick up for me sometimes when somebody's making a sexist joke. As a white woman, I need to be an ally to my friends of color when they are affected by racism that may be too subtle for most people to notice. We need to be able to be asking ourselves these questions all the time. Then and only then will we be able to help our students do the same.

Real ethical questions come into play when we're talking about racisms and the other -isms that affect so many people in our society. Ethical codes normally ask us to be careful not to discriminate against people. I think it's just as important for us to make sure that we address any discrimination that's coming from the community to impact on our clients.

© 2016 Laureate Education, Inc. 2

Social Change Application – Disadvantaged Populations

A lot of people used to learn as counselors that we should make sure that our clients focus on what they have the power to change. Focus them on what they can do something about. But actually, I think the opposite is true.

I think the more that people have the opportunity to really delve through what's happening to them in terms of the impact of society, their own feelings about how society might be keeping them from enhancing their mental health to the degree that they would like. I think it's more likely that people will feel empowered. And the more empowered that people feel, the more they'll be able to make decisions about changes they can make in their own lives.

As counselor educators, we've got a big job to do in helping counselors see their role in that way. But I think if they are educated that way, if that's part of the process of supervision that they've had, I think they'll be able to be much more effective with their clients than if they had gone by the conventional wisdom of just keep them focused right away on their own behavior. Let people see the impact of the community-- it'll help them, not hurt them.

Social Change Application – Disadvantaged Populations Additional Content Attribution

FOOTAGE: GettyLicense_175138090 (Students in Class) [Hero Images]/[Hero Images]/Getty Images

WAL_EDUC7306_MP900422591 (Students in Class) Microsoft Corporation

© 2016 Laureate Education, Inc. 3