Centering Community Cultural Wealth

In this episode of Raíces y Resiliencia, host Denise Valdez, LCSW shifts the focus from trauma to strength by introducing Yosso's (2005) community cultural wealth, a framework that redefines how schools view Latinx students, families, and communities. Denise walks through the six forms of cultural capital and illustrates how each one reflects the resilience  and collective knowledge Latinx students carry into classrooms.

Link to reflection sheets:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MNg5hiSQ0-tb3W-k4tbUM7Ny9SIYEEkI?usp=share_link

Link to references:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aiafHEh5mOBkftfkM2HgjwMd4d2XS-76?usp=share_link

Transcript

Transcript

Episode 3: Centering Community Cultural Wealth (CCW)

Hello and welcome to Raíces y Resilencia. I'm so glad you're here today. Hi everyone and welcome back to Raíces y Resilencia.

I'm your host Denise and I'm so glad that you're here and that you've continued to follow this podcast and continue to be a part of this community. In our last episode we explored what trauma-informed care looks like in schools and we also talked about the risks of applying trauma-informed care in race-neutral ways. We looked at how trauma isn't just about individual experiences right or individual maybe situations that caused this trauma but rather it's about systems policies and histories that shape how our Latinx students move and navigate school spaces.

So today we're going to continue that conversation by shifting the lens from trauma to strength from what's been taken to what's been carried within our Latinx community and so this episode really is going to focus on applying Yosso's community cultural wealth model in schools and throughout the episodes moving forward these two frameworks are going to be used to continue having these conversations about Latinx students and how we can better support them in school settings. So we talked about trauma-informed care which is one of the big frameworks that will be used throughout the podcast as it moves along and then today we'll also discuss Yosso's community cultural wealth as you know we also are going to be implementing that throughout the podcast. So before we begin I usually like to start this off in every episode but I want to remind you all that some of these the topics that we'll be discussing today touch on layered topics like identity, belonging, and systemic inequities that exist in the school system.

So I want to remind you all to please take care of yourselves as you listen. If something resonates deeply or brings up emotions please remember to pause, breathe, and return when you're ready. So let's get started.

So what do we mean when we talk about community cultural wealth or CCW and if you hear me say CCW throughout the episode it is the acronym for community cultural wealth. In 2005 Dr. Tara Yosso introduced community cultural wealth framework as part of critical race theory. So a lot of her work emphasized or focused on critical race theory which basically you know states that this critical race theory examines the way in which in which the U.S. laws and policies are created to embed racism right and so she challenged this long-standing idea in education which is the idea that students of color enter schools with cultural deficits and a lot of the times we do focus on that right we see the student as the problem rather than how are we as the system the problem.

So I'm sure you've heard this before right phrases like these students lack support at home or their parents don't value education. Those messages have been embedded in educational systems for decades and so what Yosso aimed to do was to flip that narrative. So she said you know what if communities of color and in this in this thing this would include Latinx communities don't come to school empty-handed at all with this deficit.

What if they come full of knowledge strength and cultural assets that schools have simply failed to recognize and that really is what community cultural wealth framework is about. It's a framework that names the six types of capital that communities of color already hoard hold forms of wealth that help them navigate resist and succeed within oppressive systems such as our education system right and so we're going to walk through each one of them together and we'll have the time to process each one of these capitals and then see how this then applies to the school settings that we work in and the ways in which CCW can be applied to Latinx students and communities. So we'll start with the first capital which is the aspirational capital.

Aspirational capital is the ability to maintain hope and dreams for the future even in the face of barriers. So an example of this would be think about a student whose family immigrated for a Maybe she's the first in her family to graduate high school despite systemic barriers such as language finances that her family might navigate you know from coming from a country from a different country documentation she says I want to be a doctor that's aspirational capital. It's what keeps students going even when the system tells them you don't belong here or that seems too far out of reach right and so what I want you to think about this is that aspirational capital lives in our students stories in their parents sacrifices and in the quiet determination that shows up every time they walk through the school doors how do they aspire for more even when their systems or the systems around them tell them that they don't belong.

So what I want you to do now is I want you to reflect for a few seconds when was the last time you asked a student what are your dreams not what's your career goal but what's your dream. The next form of capital is linguistic capital. This one is really close to my heart as a bilingual social worker.

Linguistic capital is the intellectual and social skills gained through communication in more than one language or style. So for many Latinx students it's not just about being bilingual it's about being bicultural right and being able to communicate in that way. They switch between Spanish, English, Spanglish and cultural codes daily.

This one I think really hits me because for a really long time I kind of denied that Spanglish part of me because I felt like it wasn't going to allow me to then become who I am now right like academically I wasn't like it wasn't the proper way to speak either English or Spanish and so a lot of the times I question myself whether like Spanglish is something that I should use as I've learned to you know as I mentioned in the past like my critical skills have grown but also accepting my identity has also been a huge impact and I've seen this right the importance of this linguistic capital the importance of speaking Spanglish and how this allows us to navigate through two different worlds and the way that it allows us to communicate amongst each other within the Latinx community in schools. So I want you to think of this example in regards to linguistic capital. Think about a student who translates for her parents at doctor's appointment or at a school meeting right that's called language brokering which we talked about a week ago.

It requires emotional maturity, empathy and quick decision making far beyond what most adults realize like I think when Latinx students are given this role of being the translator it seems like a very simple task but the reality behind that is that there are so many ways in which this can affect their students right because as a kid you think what if I don't translate this the right way or if I don't know a word what if this then impacts you know the decision or how does will this affect my parents and yet too often we frame it as a burden. She has to interpret because her parents don't speak English. What if instead of seeing it as this as a burden something that is done because there's a deficit we see it as a strength maybe as having leadership maybe as you know having love.

Yosso reminds us that linguistic capital includes storytelling, oral history, humor and music. These are ways that knowledge and healing have been passed down from generation to generation so when we invite students to write or speak in their home language or when we allow Spanglish for example in the classroom we're not lowering our standards we're actually honoring their unique wisdom. The third form of capital is familial capital and familial capital speaks to the cultural knowledge that is created within families and extended kin networks including the community that provides emotional and moral support.

So for many Latinx students family extends beyond you know their nuclear model it includes their abuelas and abuelos which is their grandparents, their tios, tias, aunts, uncles, their cousins, a huge one is their godparents, their neighbors and friends who then you know become family. So I'll share an example of a familial capital that I've you know have witnessed in my school with my students. I once worked with a student who said my mom can't come to school events because she works a lot but my grandma always shows up and I know that my grandma will be here.

That's familial capital right love responsibility and support that holds students up even when like their parents are navigating barriers and even when they're aware that maybe their support doesn't come from like that like I said that nuclear model right. Familial capital also connects to cultural memory so the passing down of traditions values and survival stories. For me you know familial capital in this way comes up through like the stories my grandparents have told me about like their survival here in the U.S. right and the challenges that they face and a lot of our students navigate that too.

When I host my newcomers group one of the themes that comes up often is the way in which their parents tell them their stories of their struggles here and how that is the reason why they want them to succeed and go to college and they'll say like they want me to become something because of their own like struggles and so they'll usually say like we've been through hard things before and we'll get through this right and they push through that. When we acknowledge and include families as experts on their children's we tap into this familial capital right when we acknowledge their traditions and their values and really include the family we're saying we understand you guys the way that you support each other and we're here and willing to be a part of that. The fourth form of capital is social capital which is kind of similar to familial capital but social capital refers to networks of people and community resources that help students navigate institutions and systems.

So in dominant culture like you know Eurocentric cultures social capital often means networking or who you know in spaces right like that is what gives you this social capital but for Latinx students social capital can look different. It can mean the teacher who checks in daily, the community center that offers after-school programs, the neighbor who shares rides when there's no buses. So one of these through this a story comes up for me an example.

A student once told me his family didn't have a lot of money right but they always helped others move or find jobs and they the student actually said my dad knows everybody and that social capital right community trust and building that community and helping each other out and you know in Spanish usually they say hoy por ti mañana por mi which is basically like I got you today I know that you will have me tomorrow if needed. So in schools we can nurture this form of capital by helping students build networks of mentors and by recognizing how they already support one another right peer mentorship student affinity groups and family you know community centers are always our ways to be able to amplify existing social capitals an example that I do in my in my school and as I mentioned earlier is building that peer support group through creating newcomer groups where they're able to navigate and discuss some of those challenges that those similar challenges and similar strengths that they carry. The fifth form of capital is navigational capital.

Navigational capital is the ability to move through social institutions that were not designed for communities of color. Latinx students navigate these systems daily right from complex immigration processes that they have to go through to college applications written in sometimes what feels like coded language and we talked about that in the first last episode they learn to read between the lines and survive in spaces that weren't necessarily built for them and I can think of a very good example for this that might seem very simple here and for us who you know maybe had the support but for Latinx students who are the first to go to college this isn't simple. I think of the student who told me my mom didn't know what FAFSA was so I just googled it and figured it out.

That's navigational capital the resilience and resourcefulness in the faces of structural barriers so not understanding something and not understanding how to even do this but saying I can do I'll figure it out right and as educators we can help by making systems more transparent breaking down steps and maybe thinking about what are some of the things that the education system doesn't teach us like this right like something as simple as applying for FAFSA or something as simple as you know navigating maybe even how to ride a bus or how to be able to travel outside of like our cities like being able to have these open conversations then allows that exposure to the students that maybe lack that exposure and finally resistant capital. This is one of my favorite forms of capital because it's about agency and activism. Resistant capital refers to the knowledge and skills that come from challenging inequity and pushing back against injustice and I think this is one of my favorite ones because this really gives Latinx students that autonomy and also allows them to have that self-confidence that maybe they lack navigating an educational system that isn't necessarily built for them and I can think of a specific example with some of my newcomers who are currently fifth graders last year when they were fourth graders they were adapting you know to a new education system they had just came from their country of origin and they often noticed the inequity that existed in discipline so if they responded you know in a aggressive way which is what they you know were told that they were being aggressive they often were like a lot weren't allowed to like maybe play a sport and a lot of the times they weren't allowed to play a sport and they came to me and said we don't know how to communicate with them in any other way other than through like yelling or like you know showing these emotions and that literally sparked something in me and I'm like exactly like they didn't have the language to say hey I don't think that you're being fair teacher or hey I think that I should be allowed to play soccer so their way to be able to communicate that was by the aggression right but they look for someone like myself who could understand their language and also advocate and I think that this is so huge and we definitely need to continue pushing this this allowing them to advocate when schools truly value resistant capital they don't punish advocacy right they nurture it they help students understand that their voices matter and that questioning systems is part of being resilient so those are the six forms of community cultural wealth linguistic aspirational familial social navigational and resistant capital each one offers a counter story to the deficit narratives that too often define our Latinx students instead of saying they lack yosso's model helps us say they have so I want you all to take a moment and think of a student or family you work with a Latinx student or family which of these six forms of capital do they demonstrate most clearly which ones might be invisible to others but deeply alive in their daily lives really take the time to process this now that we've walked through the six forms of community cultural wealth I want to pause and dig into something that really deepens this framework which is lived experience or conocimiento gloria Alzanduna use that word to describe a kind of deep awareness knowledge that comes from lived experience from survival from knowing in your bones what it means to navigate between worlds and if you work in schools you know our Latinx students carry conocimiento lived experience with them every day they know what it feels like to interpret systems to move between languages to read body language in spaces that don't always feel welcoming they know how to survive how to adapt and how to protect their families while also trying to chase their dreams that's conocimiento and it deserves to be honored as knowledge not dismissed as a way to cope so what does lived wisdom or conocimiento look like in schools I can think of a specific example I remember a student who'd recently who had recently arrived from Guatemala teachers would say she was too shy and not engaging but after a few weeks she started joining my lunchtime groups one day she said back home when I walked to school I'd always plan two routes one safe one faster I still do that here that's conocimiento right that's trauma awareness that strategic thinking rooted in survival and care and even applying what she utilized in her country of origin here that experience was then applied here or take the student who sits near the door in every classroom the one who looks like he's checking out well if we think if we dig deeper into trauma-informed care and we dig deeper into community cultural wealth model and we dig deeper into lived experience and lived knowledge maybe he's not disengaged maybe he's scanning as exits because I'm predict unpredictability feels unsafe that's not defiance right that's knowledge of danger and sometimes our students carry that from their country of origin I have a student who I will never forget very close and dear to my heart who really navigated things like this he often had a really hard time controlling his emotions or at least that's what you know we labeled it as but as I got to know him and know his story better he navigated a really challenging time when he was trying to come to the U.S. and there was separation from his mom and separation from his sibling and he just often felt like you know he was around danger and was always on the lookout when we honor these ways of knowing we begin to see how deeply intelligent our students already are in ways that we're not going to be able to measure that through the systems that we currently use so how do conocimiento and community cultural wealth model connect well they're both forms of counter storytelling right both say students are not the ones who are broken the system is the broken one community cultural wealth names the types of strengths right that students and families in the community that next community bring conocimiento explains how those strengths are lived and then transmitted into their daily lives for example aspirational capital is sustained by conocimiento that dreams can exist alongside struggle right linguistic capital is grounded in conocimiento that language is identity familial capital carries conocimiento about collective survival and even mutual care when we connect these frameworks we move beyond just celebrating culture right which is the assets and the strengths to understanding how culture also carries strategy memory and healing for a lot of our Latinx students and this doesn't stop with students families are often also keepers of conocimiento you know for example a parent once told me I didn't finish school but I teach my kids to never give up because I know what it feels like to not have that option that's live wisdom right that's saying that I know that my kids education is important because it will better their life and that's being aware of that when we invite parents to share their experiences not just through you know the usual formal surveys that we maybe sent out once a year or you know when they come to parent teacher conferences but really through which is through having conversations through storytelling or even like parent workshops or community events we tap into that wealth one mom I worked with one time said teachers ask us ask us what we need but no not what we know and that is so real and it was through a frustrating moment right where teachers would call because of her students behavior he was a newcomer um and she often felt like she was attacked but no one asked her how do you handle your you know these behaviors at home or what are some of the things that you know that might be helpful for us and that sentence just really stuck with me it's you know not what we know but it's important to ask them what do you know how can you help us as social workers and educators our role is to shift from assuming we have expertise to realizing that families already have that knowledge the kind that keeps communities alive that keeps them together and that keeps these students pushing through even when the systems aren't designed for them I also really want to put an emphasis on book knowledge versus lived knowledge because let's be honest schools often value book knowledge over lived knowledge right we have standardized tests we do assessments we test facts not the wisdom that we carry but imagine what would happen if schools treated conocimiento as part of the curriculum what if lessons started with community stories what if students could write essays about their family's resilience or about how they navigate to languages what if we use those stories as text for analysis not just as side notes during Hispanic heritage month or to celebrate culture once a year if any if you know our schools even implement that and that's what it means to apply community cultural wealth in real time being able to say how can we include you back to what we talked about last week how can we include your identity into the curriculum that exists so let's take this framework and put it into practice what does community cultural wealth actually look like in schools on a day-to-day we'll move through each one of the six capitals again but this time I want to show you how they come alive in school spaces and how you could probably you know apply this in your school setting if it doesn't happen yet so aspirational capital shows up when schools nurture students dreams especially when those dreams stretch beyond what society expects of our students an example of this might be a counselor might tell a student be realistic but aspirational practice says let's figure out what you'll need to get there so if a student comes and tells you I you know want to be an astronaut like a Latinx student and you said be realistic that's already minimizing what we think they're capable of so saying let's figure out what are some of the steps that that you need to get there even the simple fact act of helping undocumented students access scholarship communicates your dreams are valid right that is a valid dream when we host college nights for first-gen families or invite alumni back to share success stories we're affirming aspirational capital we're saying they were able to navigate the challenges that you are and you will too and that is so important I love um having those uh first-gen families alumni students come back because I’ve noticed that it really does impact our community it really impacts our Latinx students I even noticed that with me when my students ask me uh why I wanted to be a social worker and if it was hard and when I share my story with them about how I am a first gen I often see their reaction and I often see them saying wow like I can do that as well with linguistic capital it appears every time a student code switches or language brokers for their family trauma-informed educators see that as a skill not as disruption or not as not speaking English the correct way so um you know an example of what schools can do is schools can build on this by offering dual language opportunities right encouraging multilingual projects or validating Spanglish as a bridge not a barrier so saying you know if you have Latinx students who you notice you know are having a hard time maybe completing an assignment saying okay let's do this in two languages I’ll pair you up with you know one of your friends who might be English speaker and you guys can work together to be able to make this a bilingual project for familial capital familial capital comes to life when schools open doors for authenticity our authentic family participation that might mean hosting Cafecito morning so having coffee in the morning uh with you know these parents and just giving them that space to feel like they belong maybe offering evening parent meetings for working families or creating or recording right like I usually do this I will host a parent workshop in in both English and Spanish but I’ll record it and then I’ll post it to our platform so that they have access to this uh and this then allows everyone to be able to join you know grandparents can join dads moms tias tios and even just a community if you know they feel like whatever meeting is being held or whatever workshop this is being held is going to be beneficial and so when we affirm those experiences and when we include our families we connect education to community right and once again we say you belong here your student belongs here you belong here this is a space for you social capital grows when schools build strong community networks not just for students but with them so an example or examples that I can think of in regards to this is maybe creating peer mentoring student-led clubs and partnerships with community-based organizations that straighten this kind of capital I can actually think of a specific example I had an eighth grade boy who was a newcomer when or came to this country when he was in sixth grade so he spent two years in our school and the beginning was very hard as we spoke about last week you know some of the behaviors he demonstrated seemed to be defiant but the reality was that was the way he was communicating and his behavior shifted drastically from sixth to eighth grade when eighth grade he had more control for his emotions and because he was able to speak the English language it was easier for him to communicate his frustrations and then we had fourth graders two fourth grade boys who had just came from the country when he was in eight from their country of origin when he was an eighth grader and he actually took it upon himself to be their mentor and whenever these two boys had any conflict with each other the eighth grader was often the one who became the mediator and the facilitator for their conflict resolution and I just was able to witness how we can empower these students right to form these social capitals in our school settings and because of that that connection that they could have the fourth grade I then created these peer mentoring programs where I did have older eighth grade Latinx students who had navigated the system or who had came from their country of origin help those that were younger and it has been a very successful peer mentoring program that has been created navigational capital thrives when students are given guidance and access to spaces that once felt off or once or you know spaces that they didn't even recognize one thing that one specific example that I can think of this is a first gen student maybe navigating college applications and going to their counselor and saying I didn't know or I don't know what a personal statement is and having that counselor explain it to them that moment when a caring adult is able to break down this bigger thing for them which is a personal statement or you know these systems this is how navigational capital becomes sustainable so in our school settings we can straighten this by translating institutional processes into accessible language right maybe workshops in Spanish visual guides for our students in in my school we really push for teachers who have newcomers or Spanish-speaking students in their classroom have those translations available for them allow them to use their computers to find you know work that is accessible and that is in their native language and being able to have that so that they could have this navigational capital right mentorship programs as we measure mentioned earlier and storytelling from a love night who've been there then allows them to have that guidance from other people and finally resistant capital right resistant capital becomes visible when students question injustice as I mentioned in my earlier story where this boy was like you know it's not fair I’m not being treated the same or I don't understand and I don't understand why I get punished if I can't communicate that that is advocacy right that's leadership when schools teach students how to use their voice for justice instead of minimizing that and saying you there's rules and you have to follow this that then allows that their voice to turn resistance into empowerment so they're able to advocate for themselves they're able to turn that resistance into empowerment which then leads to them feeling more confident and to start and to start to feel like they belong somewhere right like they are heard and they genuinely belong in the schools that they navigate so I want you all to take a moment and do some reflection with me which of these six forms of capital do you see most in your schools or community which ones are overlooked or invisible if you're listening during your commute maybe just hold that question in your mind think about it and then when you have some time jot some of those thoughts down if you're listening at your desk jot a few notes awareness is the first step towards shifting practice so far we've explored what yosso's community cultural wealth model looks like in theory and practice how our students and families hold six powerful forms of capital that schools often overlook and we also talked about lived wisdom conocimiento and how those two come together right now I want to spend some time talking about what that means the practitioners educators counselors and social workers who walk alongside these students every day the community cultural wealth model asks us to do more than just recognize strength right it asks us to shift how we design systems assessments and interventions so those strengths are incorporated into the systems we're designing not just a bonus right I want to share a few areas where this framework can transform how we show up in schools and mental health spaces when we are serving Latinx students let's start with how we assess our students and families in social work and education we're trained to identify the needs right but sometimes that training keeps us focused on the deficits on what's missing rather than what's on what's working right what is the problem statement right we ask what are the challenges what are the behaviors what are the symptoms these are often things that come up in an assessment imagine what would happen if every psychological assessment or student support plan included a section for forms of cultural wealth what if we documented the students familial supports their bilingual skills we spoke about Spanglish advocates advocacy experiences or dreams for the future as part of their treatment plan that single shift reframes the student from a you know just being another case to actually being a collaborator of the changes that they want to make one of the ways in which I have incorporated this in my assessments is by at the end asking tell me about someone who believes in you that one question opens the door to family networks mentors and hope it then grounds the assessment in connection not just pathologizing their challenges and their symptoms that they seem to you know be or that appear in the on the outside it definitely allows the student to then feel like where I’m not just focused on the problem but rather what are some of the strengths that you bring now let's talk about supervision for those of us who supervise interns or clinical staff we can use yoyo’s model as a reflection tool during case consultations or even like if we collaborate with like an interdisciplinary collaboration with other staff members like teachers and administrators and other counselors during these case consultations we can ask which forms of cultural wealth are visible in this client the student or family which ones might be over might we be overlooking how might our own positionality be shaping what we see these questions don't just build cultural humility right they sustain it they help interns and staff recognize that identity and context are an add-ons or a bonus they're really where our students come from and they're really the ground that we stand on the community cultural wealth model is also a great blueprint for advocacy you know when schools say and we've heard this a lot we want to be trauma-informed we talked about this last week and how that can be race neutral and it doesn't support our Latinx students yosso reminds us that you can't separate trauma from culture and you can't talk about equity without talking about power so when we design programs or initiatives or we're thinking about ways in which we you know might hold incentives for our students we can ask our Latinx students involved in the planning are bilingual staff compensated for their extra labor do our sel lessons social emotional learning lessons or counseling programs include stories and strategies relevant to immigrant and first-gen youth these are so important right these questions are so important advocacy can be as small as rewriting a policy a school policy or as big as challenging these systemic inequities that we know exist in the educational system yosso's framework also pushes us towards collaboration right social workers can partner with teachers counselors and administrators to co-create policies that reflect the cultural wealth already present in our schools in my school I can think of a specific intervention that we've used and during November which is the day of the dead admin and myself came together to be able to create a space where students were able to acknowledge this cultural event and be able to then reflect on the loss and grief that they've navigated due to a loss within their families we also one of our history teachers created this amazing visual timeline about immigration journeys and she actually alongside with other teachers and administration asked students to interview family members about their immigration journeys and then they created these visual timelines for class presentations and like a gallery walk and really as we reflected on that what began as part of an art project or a history project became a trauma-informed intervention right student process loss celebrated their culture and they also peer built peer connection through some of the stories that they were sharing so when disciplines work together community cultural wealth model becomes a living practice right not just the theory that exists lastly let's talk about data we often use data to prove the need right the deficit the attendance rates the behavioral referrals the academic gaps that our next students sometimes navigate but what if we use that data to prove strength what if we tracked I don't know mentorship application and the way that students have been able to collaborate and work with each other maybe bilingual leadership roles or student-led advocacy projects that's still data that's still evidence but it tells a fuller story yosso's framework gives us language to collect and share those stories without tokenizing them right to show how Latinx students contribute to their school not just how they are surviving them now let's slow down again I want to guide you through a brief reflection not just about your students but about you go ahead and take a deep breath if you can close your eyes for a moment think about the communities you come from your own cultural wealth who taught you resilience who gave you language hope or direction what stories did you grow up hearing about education work or success now think about the students and families you serve how do their story mirror yours and how are they different how might your position in the system your role your power shape the way you understand their stories now this isn't about guilt or blame it's about awareness because positionality as we mentioned and spoke about last week and if you haven't listened to that episode I do recommend you go back positionality shapes perception the way we see our students is filtered through our experiences our privileges that we exist and our own biases our job as educators social workers mental health providers and those who work in school settings is to stay curious to keep learning and to keep asking ourselves what am I missing now let's add another layer our Latinx students don't experience identity in pieces right they live it all at once they might be bilingual first generation gender non-conforming neurodivergent or caretakers at home yoso's framework invites us to look at those intersections that create both challenge and strength when we only look at one identity at a time we risk just not allowing people not seeing the full picture when we hold all of them together we see the full person right their complexities how brilliant they are and we see them as a whole and this is so important that we begin to acknowledge in our school settings and as we continue with the episodes we are going to have an episode dedicated to just intersectionality and how that impacts our Latinx community as well and finally let's reflect on your system your school your agency that you might work for the program you work for in your school whose voices shape policy and how do those voices impact our Latinx community who gets invited to the table are you part of that invitation whose knowledge counts as expertise if the answer doesn't include families and students then we have work to do but that's the good news right framework like yosso's gives us a roadmap for that work and this question or this reflection really sticks out to me because I think as I have learned to adapt some of these frameworks into my own practice I’ve been able to see that that my voice as a social worker is often left out but besides my voice the populations that I serve are often left out we don't include families especially Latinx families when we are talking about the collective issues that we see within this community we don't take the time to include maybe experts in that work or have worked with Latinx students and we don't incorporate student voice and I think as I mentioned earlier frameworks like yossos gives us that opportunity to say wait a there's someone missing on the table and really advocating to administrators to you know whoever it is like districts to be able to start implementing some of these things so here's your challenge for this week before your next meeting before your next home visit or class session or counseling session with a student or a parent pause and ask yourself what forms of community cultural wealth might be showing up here that I’m not seeing yet write down your observations notice patterns and then share them with your team or you know reflect on those then pick one actionable change it could be as small as adjusting maybe your intake questions on your assessment form or as big as maybe revising a family engagement policy or speaking to administration about the way you guys handle your crisis documentation uh you know and the wording and align it with the community cultural wealth model that's how we begin to transform and change these systems that exist right not through just writing these equity statements on our school website or even on our own personal therapeutic page but through those daily intentional actions and practices thank you so much for joining me for this third episode of raices y resilencia today we explored yossos community cultural wealth model a framework that reminds us that our Latinx students families and communities are not defined by what they lack but rather by what they bring we talked about how to apply community cultural wealth model in classrooms in social work practice in supervision and in advocacy we reflected on positionality a little bit of intersectionality and the role we play in transforming systems from within 

before you go I have a few quick reminders all the references from this episode are listed in the show notes you'll also find a link to the reflection journal from today and from this episode and this is perfect for journaling or having these maybe discussions with your colleagues or even just deeper reflection and if you've missed episodes one or two I really do recommend that you go back and listen to those uh last week's episode was really important to focus on trauma-informed care and this is a framework that we're also going to be using as we continue with this podcast 

if this episode resonated with you please subscribe to the podcast share with a colleague or friend and continue to listen it really helps this community grow and reach others doing this work hope to have you all here next week until then I’m Denise Valdez gracias for listening for reflecting and for doing this work with intention

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