Practitioner Biases and Child Service Use Disparities: Implications for Social Work Education

Abstract

Disparities by race/ethnicity exist in the use of children's mental health and related services. It is no doubt that many factors contribute to these disparities, but practitioner biases may be partly responsible for disparities. The purpose of this article is to show a potential link between practitioner biases and service use disparities and to discuss the implications for social work education. The implications for social work education focus on 2 strategies for educators to consider: (a) helping students to become aware of and overcome their biases and (b) teaching practice strategies that have been shown to help low-income and ethnic minority children and families engage in the helping process.

Keywords:

• cultural competence
• service use disparities
• practitioner biases