by Jodi Franck
Resource parents are a bridge to help children get back to their families. That’s why shared parenting and maintaining and strengthening connections between children and their caregivers are so central to resource parenting.
But to do this well, you need to be able to see the good in families and understand how important children’s families are to them. That’s why it’s so important to understand and guard against implicit bias.
Implicit Bias
Implicit bias is defined as unconscious favoritism toward or prejudice against people of a particular ethnicity, gender, or social group that influences one’s actions or perceptions.
Unconscious is a key word here. With implicit bias, you have a prejudice but don’t know it. Even if you mean well and consciously reject racism and other biases, implicit bias can lead you to unwittingly act in ways that result in discrimination.
It happens all the time. For example, “experiments show that people are more likely to hire a male candidate for a science position, rate the athletic ability of a person higher if they believe the person is African-American rather than white, and rate the verbal skills of a person higher if they think the writer is a woman rather than a man” (Handelsman & Sakraney, 2015).
The key thing to remember about implicit bias is that it affects every- body. No matter how well-intentioned, no one is immune.
Awareness Is Key
The good news is, as we become aware of them, we can overcome our implicit biases and mitigate how much they affect us. Areas where implicit bias may show up as you work with children and youth in foster care and their families include:
- Race and ethnicity
- Poverty
- Age
- Gender
- Sexuality/ Transgender
- History (e.g. prior involvment with CPS, criminal records, past drug or alcohol use).
The first step in reducing your implicit biases is to NOTICE them. When you experience a negative thought or feeling about someone, slow down and think about it. Are you making a judgement? Can you stop and let yourself treat this person as an individual?
Eight Tactics
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) gives eight tactics that can be used to reduce implicit biases. To help us remember, they use the acronym IMPLICIT:
Introspection: Set aside time to understand your biases by taking a personal inventory of them. This can be done by taking a test such as Harvard University’s Implicit Association Test (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html).
Mindfulness: Once you understand the biases you hold, be mindful that you’re more likely to give in to them when you’re under pressure or need to make quick decisions. If you’re feeling stressed, pause for a minute, collect yourself, and take a few deep breaths.
Perspective-Taking: If you think you may be stereotyping people or groups, imagine what it would feel like for others to stereotype you.
Learn to Slow Down: Before jumping to conclusions about others, remind yourself of positive examples of people from their age group, class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. This can include friends; colleagues; or public figures such as athletes, members of the clergy, or local leaders.
Individualization: Remind yourself that all people have individual characteristics that are separate from others within their group. Focus on the things you have in common.
Check Your Messaging: Instead of telling yourself you don’t see people based on their color, class, or sexual orientation, learn to use statements that embrace inclusivity. For example, Apple Inc.’s inclusion statement circles around the topic of being different together: “At Apple, we’re not all the same, and that’s our greatest strength.”
Institutionalize Fairness: Embrace and support diversity at work. The AAFP suggests individuals use the Equity and Empowerment Lens, which is designed to help organizations improve planning and resource allocation to foster more equitable policies.
Take Two: Overcoming unconscious biases takes time. Understand that this is a lifelong process and that deprogramming your biases requires constant mindfulness and work.
Understanding and guarding against your implicit biases can make you a better bridge to help children get back to their families.
Jodi Franck is Foster Home Licensing Manager with the NC Division of Social Services.
