The objective of this study was to improve treatment provided to multi-cultural families in the welfare system by improving training and awareness in regards to cultural sensitivity.

This thesis work discusses the ability to change the attitudes of children from the majority society towards Roma children. The theoretical part describes the formation of the Roma minority in the Czech Republic and its development. It focuses on the forms of adaptation of minority societies into the majority society and also deals with the aspects that affect the coexistence of these two groups. The first part is also devoted to social work with the minorities and organizations that cooperate with the Roma. The empirical part describes the attitudes of children, from the majority society, of a predefined age in the selected location. It also discusses what influences their attitudes the most and on what basis they are able to change them. A survey also provided information about the differences children from the majority society see between themselves and the Roma children.

The focus of this study is the significant and widespread overrepresentation of blacks in the child welfare system. The study specifically addresses the issue in the context of its association with decision-making practice of child welfare workers in the County of Los Angeles.

The purpose of this study is to examine child welfare workers' attitudes towards culturally diverse consumers. Social workers from four local foster family agencies were asked to complete a voluntary and anonymous questionaire. The survey also consisted of filling out the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (MCI) which, consisted of forty Likert type questions. The MCI served as an instrument scale to measure the workers' multicultural competencies.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study explored the lived experiences of family case managers who routinely work with families who are culturally different from themselves. The purpose was to understand and interpret the meaning of culture and cultural difference as it relates to the engagement process with families. The research also sought to understand whether cultural insensitivity or bias may contribute to the overrepresentation of children of color in the child welfare system. The author conducted 10 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with graduates of a large, research-intensive Midwestern university’s Title-IV-E Social Work Program, who also were employed as family case managers in public child welfare. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and the analytic process of the hermeneutic circle. Results suggest the concept of culture is a complex term that encompasses many characteristics and a number of dimensions. In addition, four themes were identified as underlying the engagement process with culturally different families. These themes routinely overlapped, and family case managers often had to attend to each of the thematic areas simultaneously. At nearly every step in the engagement process, family case managers modulated their interactions in order to find balance and stability in their relationship with the family. Finally, poverty was revealed to be the most salient cultural difference in working with families involved in the child welfare system. These results have important implications for social work education, child welfare practice, and research on the overrepresentation of children of color in the child welfare system.