Training
for Center Staff Members
While staff members of the three Davis County, Utah Senior Citizen Centers are
not licensed therapists, they may notice seniors who may seem to suffer personal discomfort due to the integration of the
Centers. With the established helping relationship already in place, this would seem to be a natural occurrence. It is critical
that the client’s best interests be at heart when staff members have these talks. The client should be left with their
autonomy rather than being told what to believe; there should be no harm done to the client, and the staff member should simply
be promoting the welfare of the client. (Herlihy and Corey, 1996, p. 4). Modeling proper behavior, the staff member can provide
equal treatment to all clients, making only honest promises that they can deliver, and being truthful to the clients (p. 14). If the staff member is having personal difficulty with integration, they should recognize
these feelings. However, they must understand that, despite their trouble, the important thing to the client is how they deal
with their difficulties (p. 39). “Having strong convictions is not the same as imposing them on others” (p. 140).
If necessary, the staff member could decline addressing the issue of integration until they feel more personally prepared
to talk about it (p. 40). They should not talk with clients negatively about integration since this would be a form of counter
transference (p. 47), and would also create a problem, due to federal law.
Staff members should understand that a listening ear is the most important thing
they can give to the client, rather than giving advice or trying to change the belief system of the client (Corey, et al.,
2003, p. 52). Clients should be encouraged to be independent rather than become dependent on the staff member (p. 53). “It
is essential that you be sensitive to the needs of your clients, listen to them and let them lead the way, and demonstrate
a willingness to talk about areas they indicate they want or need to explore” (Corey, et al., 2003, p. 87).
In compliance with codes of ethics, conversations about sensitive matters should
be held privately. The client should be told that the conversation, under most circumstances, will be kept private. They should
know that the staff member can not keep information confidential if it leads them to believe the client may cause harm to
themselves or others or that abuse is taking place (Corey, et al., 2003, p. 154). The
staff member should not pry into the personal life of the client but could ask questions of a general nature in trying to
understand the client’s concerns (p. 200). In this situation, as well as with any others, the staff member should keep
themselves professional and not violate the client’s boundaries (p. 247).
Since the personal growth in multiculturalism of the staff is vital, the following
list of recommended activities comes from Brinson’s 2004 article:
1. Set aside one day a week to have lunch with someone
from a different ethnic group than your own.
2. If you are married, do fun activities with a couple from a different ethnic group.
3. Hire a personal diversity consultant [who] will give you personal assignments, provide
feedback, and critique your development toward a culturally sensitive identity.
4. Share with your culturally similar friends the information your are learning about different
ethnic groups.
5. Spend a lifetime getting to know
at least one other culture.
6. Find a work or leisure partner
who is from a different ethnic
group. The goal is to work on concrete projects that benefit
both you and your ethnic group.
7. Have cultural family projects
in which all members can
participate.
8. Find an athletic partner who comes
from a different ethnic
group than your own.
9. Acknowledge that you have racist
assumptions that have
been shaped by living in a society characterized by a racist
ideology. Expose those
views and look for information that
will contradict those views.
10. Perhaps most important, when you witness acts of cultural bias, are you proactive
in addressing the situation or event? (Brinson, 2004,
pp. 90-91)
According to Goh (2005, p. 75), the client-counselor relationship and the effectiveness
of the therapy hinges on a serious consideration of the client’s background including factors such as race, sexual orientation,
gender, disabilities, national origin and other ethnic measures. Marginalized older people may include those of differing
sexual orientations. Pope, Barret, Szymanski, Chung, Singaravelu, McLean, and Sanabria (2004) discuss the needs of gays and
lesbians with race and ethnicity elements considered. They consider these individuals a group with specialized needs that
is most likely not able to be filled by staff members at the Centers, although staff members can help in stopping discriminatory
language or practices that might occur against this group of people. Corey et al., (2003, pp. 126-127) lists the requirements
that counselors need from special training to effectively work with these individuals. For the purposes of the Senior Center
staff members, the following is found on the Utah Government web site (http://www.utah.gov). The Human Services statutes do
not have a requirement for counselors to report HIV/AIDS cases. There is a requirement for counselors to keep confidentiality,
and there appears to be no loopholes in that requirement. Instead the law designates reporting of HIV/AIDS to local
health departments. Each clinic and health department is supposed to have a poster that states what illnesses and injuries
must be reported to the state health department. That poster includes HIV/AIDS as well as many other illnesses and injuries. In all of Utah in 2004, only 76 AIDS cases were reported and mainly
came from male to male sexual encounters (http://health.utah.gov/epidemiology/report.html).
