Human services and social services workers need to remain aware of their personal assumptions, biases, and value systems when working with clients to achieve the high ethical standards established by professional organizations like the National Organization for Human Services. Social service professionals ultimately aim to fulfill fundamental values such as respect for the dignity and welfare of all individuals, promoting empowerment, autonomy and self-determination, honoring, respecting, and valuing diversity, and advocating for social justice (National Organization for Human Services, 2017). Biases and assumptions can occasionally compromise the fundamental values of human services, by clouding judgment, leading to miscommunication, or even behaviors that are impediments to reaching human service goals.
As Barsky (2010) points out, biases and assumptions are both faulty cognitive patterns. A bias can be defined as a cognitive preference for one belief system, group of people, worldview, or point of view over others. Alternatively, a bias can mean a negative judgment of certain groups of people or worldviews. Biases are usually linked to assumptions about groups or ideologies. Both biases and assumptions can impact the evolution of a social service worker’s value systems, leading to clouded judgment and an inability to remain...
Although culture, ethnicity, religion, and gender are common areas in which biases and assumptions can become most apparent, it is also important to remember that social services and human services professionals may also be subject to biases related to issues like social class status and homelessness. As Toporek & Worthington (2014) point out, biases and assumptions can be systematically overcome through conscientious training during the pre-service, engagement, and debriefing stages of training (p. 919). It is important to always remain vigilant of the emergence of bias or assumption when dealing with new clients or encountering different problems or populations.
The main reason why awareness is key is that awareness precedes change. When human service workers are aware of their biases, assumptions, and values, they can articulate them, acknowledge them, and work hard to move on based on their commitment to the values of human service. We social service workers have our own personal backgrounds and biases to address; we are not robots, and our profession enables a tremendous amount of personal growth and development. For example, I have long been biased against religious individuals regardless of their persuasion. As I have encountered increasing numbers of highly religious…
