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Cultural Consultation pp 269–290Cite as

Cultural Consultation to Child Protection Services and Legal Settings

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Part of the book series: International and Cultural Psychology ((ICUP))

Abstract

Services that are designed by, and for, the host society majority group may be inadequate or inappropriate for ethnic minority or immigrant families. These issues are relevant to cultural consultants who are asked to provide advice to a variety of social service and institutional settings, including youth protection as well as legal and family services. Those who work within these agencies must be assisted to understand the difficulties encountered by migrant families during the process of resettlement, including separation and reunification, cultural variations in discipline and physical punishment, and the important roles of identity and intergenerational conflicts as well as distinguishing between situations of dysnormativity and dysfunctionality. Given that intimate partner violence is one of the challenges that institutional agencies face when assisting families, it is imperative that staff members be provided with the training necessary to adequately assist families confronted by these difficulties. The enormous power vested in these institutions and their representatives must also be considered when creating training strategies to assist workers. Finally, special attention must also be given to the challenges of migration and resettlement which can result in the destabilization of families, interrupt the transmission of traditional values from parents to children, diminish parental authority, and lead to the break-down of family structures which could result in the inappropriate removal of children from the parental home. Case vignettes and examples training programmes are used to demonstrate how cultural consultants can assist in the development of culturally safe spaces for families interacting with societal institutions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Workers from child protection services, who are generally social workers or psychoeducators, are legally mandated by the child and family court to offer help and assistance to any child who has been recognized by that court to be a victim of child abuse and/or neglect based on local provincial or state laws.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Culture & Mental Health Research Unit, Institute of Community & Family Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital, 4333 Cote Ste Catherine Road, Montreal, QC, Canada, H3T 1E4

    Myrna Lashley Ph.D.

  2. Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), C.P. 8888, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC, Canada, H3C 3P8

    Ghayda Hassan Ph.D.

  3. Honorary Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, 38 Nant Road, London, NW2 2AT, UK

    Begum Maitra M.R.C.Psych., M.D.

Authors
  1. Myrna Lashley Ph.D.
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  2. Ghayda Hassan Ph.D.
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  3. Begum Maitra M.R.C.Psych., M.D.
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Correspondence to Myrna Lashley Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Jewish General Hospital Inst. Community & Family Psychiatry, Montreal, Québec, Canada

    Laurence J. Kirmayer

  2. Jewish General Hospital Inst. Community & Family Psychiatry, Montreal, Québec, Canada

    Jaswant Guzder

  3. McGill University Div. Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, Montreal, Québec, Canada

    Cécile Rousseau

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Lashley, M., Hassan, G., Maitra, B. (2014). Cultural Consultation to Child Protection Services and Legal Settings. In: Kirmayer, L., Guzder, J., Rousseau, C. (eds) Cultural Consultation. International and Cultural Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7615-3_13

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