Problem
A 28-year old, African American male client comes to meet with his new Caucasian female social worker for the first time. The social worker has been assigned to provide services as a stipulation of his probation for a recent DUI charge. After introductions and some conversation about their requirement to work together, he removes his coat revealing a t-shirt that says, "Black Lives Matter". The social worker smiles, and says, "Everybody matters, right?" The client is immediately outraged and begins to shout his reasons for wearing the shirt. The social worker is immediately taken aback by the client's behavior, calls security and has the client removed from the building. In her documentation about the meeting, she notes that the client is "combative without provocation" and recommends a psychiatric evaluation.
Task
After reading the case study, if you were the social worker, in what ways might you have positioned the client's experience as paramount in this scenario?