Cultural humility in child welfare practice

Social work/human service educational and training programs are responsible for developing a well-rounded workforce capable of partnering with all community members. Yet inequity abounds along the social justice standards within the profession. Literature on social work diversity education reflect that students leave educational programs without the proper skill set for culturally relevant practices. This study explores how child welfare professionals transfer the knowledge learned from their formal educational training into their normal practice. Participants will share empirical data through surveys responses on how they demonstrate culturally relevant practices such as cultural humility. Survey responses exhibited child welfare professional’s frequency and descriptions of the cultural humility framework. Although this study is limited to specific areas of the social work professions, the empirical data supports transference to similar professions such as the education, healthcare and law. The study stands to benefit transformative practitioners seeking the advance social work human service educational programs towards equitable cultural relevant curricula for social justice. The concurrent triangulation design was created by merging two data sources collected from the survey research. The design allowed for multiple data sources to be explored and compared for frequency of use. First, the quantitative data was collected and analyzed to measure how often respondents practiced cultural humility principles. Second, the qualitative data collected from the survey was organized and analyzed to discover how respondents depict and describe cultural humility. Thirdly, the data sources merged to discover patterns between respondents’ descriptions. The findings of this study suggest that critical self-reflection was the primary driver of cultural humility practices for the small group of child welfare professionals. Additionally, the 3 / 138 findings also suggest that the absence of cultural humility has a presence of color blindness and power imbalances. Finally, the findings suggest that People of Color were more likely to engage in cultural humility practices compared to White child welfare professionals. Two implications emerged from the study. First, the literature on social work education and human service training programs should provide ongoing opportunities for critical race theory tenets to contribute to preparing professionals for culturally relevant practices. Second, the child welfare profession should provide opportunities for a justice-based framework to contribute to the empirical evidence on how child welfare professionals engage in equitable and inclusive practices by allowing the voices of families, individuals, and communities they serve to surface as partners and contributors

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Nelson, Larry

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hood, Denice W.
• Hood, Denice W
• Pak, Yoon
• Kang, Hyun
• Fuller, Tamara

• Diversity
• Equity
• Cultural Humility
• Cultural Competence
• Social Work Education

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Larry Nelson

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129959

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129959