Understanding Poverty

UW-Oshkosh Division of Online and Continuing Education is hosting “Understanding Poverty”:

“Human service professionals and social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social change efforts are primarily focused on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination and other forms of social injustice. These activities seek to promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression and cultural and ethnic diversity.

When people think of poverty, class, and wealth, they generally think about how much money and assets someone has or does not have. This workshop will be looking at socioeconomic status through a cultural rather than financial lens. People in different socioeconomic statuses operate from a set of ‘hidden rules’ that help make life in their socioeconomic statuses adaptive, but these same ‘rules’ become maladaptive when someone is trying to navigate a different socioeconomic status.

Learning Objectives

After completing this workshop, participants will be able to:

• • identify key points about poverty in the United States,
  • effectively work with individuals and families who live in ‘generational’ poverty,
  • understand from which ‘hidden rules’ schools, workplaces, and agencies operate and
  • apply strategies to enable clients to navigate these ‘rules’ so they can be more successful their lives.”