InClassActivity4
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1
In Class Activity #4
Aleem Rudolph 1304149, Terra Bailey 1084717 & Marko Stojanovic 1048327
CSS 3030: Spirituality in SW practice
Professor Pomeroy
December. 4
th
, 2023
2
Question 1:
In our group discussion, we believed that Mohammed’s story is a show of resilience and
the overcoming of trials. Amazingly, Mohammed was able to pull success from his story. In our
group discussion, we determined that Mohammed is of Islamic faith due to his name, country of
origin and family structure shown in the video. Marko is an atheist, Terra is a Catholic, and
Aleem is Islamic. The limitations that we may face due to our religion is not being able to
connect with Mohammed, he may feel that Marko does not correlate with religion or spirituality
and Mohammed may be uncomfortable working with Marko. In the same sense as Terra, there
may be a spiritual disconnect however Aleem may be fitted to work with Mohammed due to the
same beliefs. Only if the worker is clear about their stance, then Mohammed may be inclined to
be more open or closed due to religious beliefs not contrasting, but as mentioned we don’t
believe that our own beliefs should have any impact force on the quality of help, we provide.
“Practitioners have an ethical obligation to respond to clients’ desires. If refugees want to have
their spirituality integrated into the service provision, then disregarding spirituality is a violation
of client autonomy” (Hodge, 2019). We as workers believe that the client's needs come first so
everything personal gets packed away. The hardest part of working with Mohammed for all our
group members is the factor of hearing the trauma and the stories of what Mohammed has gone
through in Syria and the hardships, we know we will always have to hear client issues, but when
it comes to working with refugees, there is so much emotion that could knock workers off of the
calm and collected quota. We decided that managing these issues that may arise is to make sure
we work to understand the trauma and accept that it is wrong and emotional, but we still must
perform and be client-centred will allow Mohammed to be the primary focus and there isn’t a
need for the worker to share their beliefs leading to positive work with him.
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Question 2:
A) One thing our team noticed when watching the documentary was the fact that
Mohammed used the words “God willing” when talking with his family. This clued us into the
fact that he is spiritual/religious to some extent, meaning that it may also be a major part of his
social location. Even if we weren’t sure whether he was spiritual or religious at all, we still
believed that a spiritual assessment was important in working with Mohammed. Family, friends,
work, etc. can all be impacted/linked to spirituality, and the point of any assessment is to explore
these connections (Gardner, 2022). By following the FICA (Faith, Importance, Community,
Address/Action) model (Gardner, 2022), we hope to find the actual impact that spirituality plays
in Mohammed’s life and be able to work with him around the next steps. In working with him,
we may find that he’s not spiritual or religious, spiritual but not religious, actively interested in
spirituality and religion, or identifying with a specific religious belief (Gardner 2022). Either
way, knowledge about Mohammed’s spiritual/religious background can help us determine the
best ways to engage with him and let us know how much research and planning we might have
to do around his beliefs.
B) Since we recognize the importance that spirituality could hold in Mohammed’s life,
we want to ask some questions for a spiritual assessment. The first question our group believed
we could ask was “Could you tell us if there any personal or cultural practices that you engage in
that hold meaning for you? Anything you might do daily or weekly related to your values or
traditions?”. We believe this question asks about potential spiritual/religious practices, while also
offering Mohammed room to answer in other ways. The goal is not to assume certain
spiritual/religious beliefs but to still have a dialogue and explore his social location. We believe
this question balances this perfectly. Afterwards, we believe a good follow-up question would be
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“Would you be willing to either work with us, another spiritual/religious expert or leader, or on
your own, to create a spiritual eco-map?”. Mohammed may not know what an eco-map is, and in
that case, our group would explain that the goal of it is to help find the relationships between a
person and the spiritual systems in their environments (Hodge, 2019). By asking this question,
we hope that Mohammed would be able to see that he may not be facing his challenges
completely alone, but that he has resources other than family, social workers, the government etc.
that he can draw upon (Hodge, 2019). We believe these questions help with the spiritual
assessment, but also with initiating steps that may follow the assessment.
Question 3:
A.)
What are some spiritual strengths that you noticed within the documentary for
Mohammed?
-Hope and Optimism: We noted how often Mohammed entrusted the future to “God’s will”.
When discussing home and the trying times they are in with clients and other refugees we
noticed how often Mohammed would express an optimistic outlook on the future such as the war
ending, his family coming to Canada, the end of the violence and leaving it up to God’s willing.
-Resilience and sense of purpose: Mohammed is very resilient; through the adversity and trauma
he has faced he has been able to maintain his optimism for the future and a new sense of purpose.
One factor that made this clear for us was Mohammed being able to have a new “dream”. He lost
his dream of being an oncologist to the war, but he got a new dream to help people differently.
B)
What are 2 specific questions that you would ask Mohammed to identify what he perceives
as his spiritual strengths?
-How has religion/ spirituality supported your general well-being and mental health in these
times?
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-Has these experiences (living in war, escaping, integrating into a new culture/world) impacted
your perception of your spiritual/ religious beliefs?
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Reference
Hodge, David. (2019). Spiritual assessment with refugees and other migrant populations:
A necessary foundation for successful clinical practice, Journal of Religion & Spirituality in
Social Work: Social Thought, 38:2, 121-139, DOI: 10.1080/15426432.2019.1597663
Gardner, Fiona. (2022). Embedding Spirituality and Religion in Social Work Practice.
Taylor & Francis.
https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781000547306
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