Journal: Diversity Challenges and Reflections

Journal: Diversity Challenges and Reflections

Couples and family counseling often involves understanding and integrating diverse influences on the system’s presenting issues, as well as ongoing wellness and development of the system. Counselors must be aware not only of these influences, but also the manner in which they may impact the system members—differing degrees, perceptions, and meaning. In addition, the intersection of multiple diversity issues can create another layer of challenges for couples and families.

Familiarizing yourself with multicultural standards of practice is a first step in developing cultural competencies, as is exploring your own thoughts and beliefs regarding diversity. For this Assignment, you consider a point in your life when your family was touched by diversity, discuss how it affected your family, and how such an issue might be handled in a counseling session.

To Prepare:

• Review the Learning Resources and consider the many challenges diverse populations bring to counseling sessions.
• Reflect on a time when diversity touched your family.

Assignment:

In your Journal, identify a time where diversity touched your family. Based on this time, answer the following questions:

• What impact did this time have on your family?
• Hypothetically, if you addressed the issue in a family counseling session, what do you think the counselor should know and explore with your family to fully address the issue?
• How will you be sensitive to the impact diversity has on families and couples in your own professional practice?
• Your journal should be 2-3 pages in APA format excluding the title page. Please note this is a personal journal and APA references are not required.

Note: The focus of Journal assignments is reflection and self-awareness. Submissions do not need to include resources. Journal assignments should, however, adhere to graduate-level writing and be free from writing errors.