Poverty Case

In my community, the vast majority of the population is Native Appalachians. There is a severe shortage of human service workers in this area. It is well documented that client's prefer helpers from their own ethnic group(Diller, J. V., 2011). If some of this group could become human service workers, it would help alleviate the suspicion of the service workers. These Appalachians are suspicious of anyone that attempts to help them and outsiders in general. The use of paraprofessionals could help alleviate some of this suspicion as well. I believe that this approach would be very beneficial. A leader or leaders from the community could be trained in the rudiments if service work and then hired to act as both liaisons and outreach workers. The incorporation of traditional or spiritual healers could go along way in reversing biases and suspicions. These Appalachians are highly spiritual people but are often criticized for their religious views. They also have strong beliefs about natural healing processes and this is ingrained into their culture. A worker that is willing to become familiar with their culture and respect their culture for what it is would erase a lot of bias as well as a knowledge of class, gender, and regional differences.

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