Contemporary Polyamory: A Call for Awareness and Sensitivity in Social Work

Social work practice should reflect important professional values and principles, including client self-determination, empowerment, human diversity, and cultural sensitivity. To practice effectively with diverse clients, social workers receive considerable training about multiple dimensions of social diversity, including age, race and ethnicity, culture, socioeconomic status, religion, political ideology, sex and gender, and sexual orientation (Council on Social Work Education, 2008). Despite consistent progress in training social workers to be more aware and culturally competent in dealing with diversity issues, there remain some important gaps, particularly concerning diverse sexual identities, that warrant more education and awareness among social workers (Scherrer, 2013; Williams, 2013). Without awareness, social workers are likely to unintentionally project their own biases and subsequent microaggressions onto vulnerable clients. The practice of polyamory is one such gap that has escaped attention of the social work profession. This particular gap in practice knowledge recently has been acknowledged in other helping professions, and scholars are realizing that it can have serious implications for clients (Brandon, 2011; Graham, 2014; Weitzman, Davidson, & Phillips, 2009).