As someone who works in the social services and allied health sector, my exposure to different cultural backgrounds is so broad that it can sometimes feel like holding a psychic wide-legged split. Most often, I work with clients and colleagues from different cultures to me. But when we talk about cultural safety and awareness at work, it’s usually about protecting clients, rather than staff who might come from a cultural minority.
The first time I encountered any overt racism at work, it was in my case management work with women who had experienced intimate partner violence. We often see clients with complex needs, including substance use histories, mental health diagnoses and difficulties with the justice system. I enjoyed this work and delighted in forming rapport with clients who might have been historically distrustful of authority.
But on one occasion, a client walked out shortly after meeting with me, stating she didn’t want support. She later came back and elaborated that she didn’t want to work with someone with “dark skin”.
This was an interesting intersection of vulnerabilities. In the domestic violence sector, we focus on respecting clients’ choices, especially for those who have been disempowered and victimised. At the organisation I worked for, we were perplexed by how to manage that situation — providing the client with the help she needed, while clearly showing zero tolerance for racist attitudes. Eventually, another (Caucasian) staff member was dispatched to support this client and she assured me that she would speak to this client about racial equity.
At the organisation I worked for, we were perplexed by how to manage that situation — providing the client with the help she needed, while clearly showing zero tolerance for racist attitudes.
This was good preparation for my next role, in residential care work with disadvantaged adolescents. Within this role, I had clients who routinely used racial expletives and spoke openly about their disdain for those from minority cultural backgrounds.
In that job, I worked with an incredibly diverse workforce, the majority of whom were migrants. Collectively, we endured the racial assaults with relative humour, carefully holding in mind the needs of the vulnerable adolescents in our care, while attempting to manage the racism we encountered. Mostly though, this daily tyranny was brushed aside as ‘part of the job’, and was never discussed openly or addressed at an organisational level.
Mostly though, this daily tyranny was brushed aside as ‘part of the job’, and was never discussed openly or addressed at an organisational level.
Today, working as an Indian-Australian female psychologist, I see that my dynamic with clients can be different from Caucasian colleagues. Sometimes, forensic clients soften to me quickly and I wonder if they saw me as somewhat removed from the cultural majority and authority they rail against, thus allowing them to trust me.
In other times, clients remain suspicious and highly antagonistic, and I wonder if it is a reflection of their view on my race and gender, or if they would respond to a Caucasian psychologist in the same way.
These days, I rarely encounter the kind of overt racism at work like I did in the past. I suspect the relative privilege of being a helps, as does the fact that I no longer have everyday, logistics-filled interactions with clients.
It also helps, perhaps, that I have started to say 'no' more often in my work. Recently, when my team discussed a client who presented with significant mental health needs and highly racist attitudes, I found myself speaking up.
“Sorry, I don’t think she’s one for me”, I said.
When my team looked confused, I gestured to my face and said, “Brown.”
Something clicked immediately and one of my colleagues responded, “Yes, you don’t need that.”
In that moment, I was glad that I did not have to explain further, but I was also exquisitely aware of the experiences of some of the other culturally diverse staff in the room, who have had to work with this client, and had been abused for their attempts to care in the past.
In health and social work, we know that cultural safety and awareness matter — I only hope that one day the awareness extends to us equally, as carers.
Dr Ahona Guha, DPsych, is a clinical and forensic psychologist in Melbourne, Australia. She has a specific interest in working with victims of trauma and also works with perpetrators of a range of offending behaviours. She writes about a range of psychology topics at Psychology Today () and can also be found on twitter (@drahonaguha).
