Spirituality and the Black Helping Tradition in Social Work

Download or read book Spirituality and the Black Helping Tradition in Social Work written by Elmer P. Martin and published by N A S W Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the black helping tradition, spirituality is the sense of the sacred and divine. It is a critical value deeply rooted in the African worldview and used by African Americans as a tool for survival. Provocative and well-written, this is the first book to draw a relationship between social work, spirituality, and the helping tradition among African Americans. Offering a wealth of historical detail and narrative, Elmer and Joanne Martin explore spirituality as a foundation for understanding people of African descent and as a skill to evoke self-help. This ground-breaking book raises compelling questions about the limitations and strengths of mainstream social work in issues of black spirituality and its role in strengthening the black community today.