Presenters: Dr. Ben Rader and Aaron Pressie
In this engaging presentation, participants will be provided with perspectives on social factors that are commonly overlooked when considering human behavior and personal conduct.
The presenters will identify common deficit-oriented assumptions pertaining to genetics, psychopathology, and cognitive impairment, and how these understandings frequently occlude the very real presence of social factors shaping human behavior. Social factors are of particular salience for children of color, and yet they are often completely overlooked and trivialized in clinical, social service, judicial, and educational settings. The presenters will introduce a client-guided interview process, the Social Factors Map, that more critically accounts for lived experience in social settings, and how social factors shape individuals' beliefs, feelings, values, and ultimately outward behavior and conduct. Through the use of demonstration, we will showcase the treasure trove of insight and awareness that can be acquired on the individual when we more deliberately account for these factors.
The Social Factors Map explores the unique meaning we make out of race experience, community exposure, marginalization, and heteronormativity. Although these experiences can contribute to and reinforce dysfunctional conduct and maladaptive behavior, they also can contribute to resilience, increased empathy, and personal fortitude. The presenters and participants will explore these outcomes and ways we as community leaders, educators, and healers can better account for social reality when serving our community.