The importance of recognizing how one’s own self-location impacts one’s understanding, practice, and further reflection, when studying and/or working in a social work discipline, is crucial to developing competence and neutrality in the field. So important is self-awareness, particularly in the realm of cultural competence, it is indoctrinated into ACSW Standards of Practice (2013). In their cross-cultural study, Watson and Simmons (2017) explore the worldviews of future helping practitioners—social work students, and that of the knowledge base from which they begin to assemble their professional and capable identities—social work educators.
A social worker’s capacity for cultural competence in practice arguably directly impacts their capacity
