Being culturally sensitive by respecting your clients' spirituality and religious traditions, in general, is an important professional competence (Furness & Gilligan, 2010). Applying your spiritual aw

The Logan Family

E

boni Logan is a 16-year-old biracial African American/Caucasian fe male in 11th grade. She is an honors student, has been taking Advanced

Placement courses, and runs track. Eboni plans to go to college and major in nursing. She is also active in choir and is a member of the

National Honor Society and the student council. For the last 6 months, Eboni has been working 10 hours a week at a fast food restaurant. She

recently passed her driver’s test and has received her license. Eboni states that she believes in God, but she and her mother do not belong to any organized religion. Her father attends a Catholic church

regularly and takes Eboni with him on the weekends that she visits him .

Eboni does not smoke and denies any regular alcohol or drug usage. She does a dmit to occasionally drinking when she is at parties with

her friends, but denies ever being drunk. There is no criminal history. She has had no major health problems.

Eboni has been dating Darian for the past 4 months. He is a 17-year-ol d African American male. According to Eboni, Darian is also on the

track team and does well in school. He is a B student and would like to go to college, possibly for something computer related. Darian wor ks at

a grocery store 10–15 hours a week. He is healthy and has no crimina l issues. Darian also denies smoking or regular alcohol or drug usage. He

has been drunk a few times, but Eboni reports that he does not think it is a problem. Eboni and Darian became sexually active soon after they

started dating, and they were using withdrawal for birth control. Eboni’s mother, Darlene, is 34 years old and also biracial Africa n American/Caucasian. She works as an administrative assistant for a local

manufacturing company. Eboni has lived with her mother and her mate rnal grandmother, May, from the time she was born. May is a

55-year-old African American woman who works as a paraprofessi onal in an elementary school. They still live in the same apartment where

May raised Darlene. Darlene met Eboni’s father, Anthony, when she was 17, the summer before their senior year in high school. Anthony is 34 years old and

Caucasian. They casually dated for about a month, and after they broke up, Darlene discovered she was pregnant and opted to keep the ba by.

Although they never married each other, Anthony has been married twice and divorced once. He has four other children in addition to Eboni.

She visits her father and stepmother every other weekend. Anthony works a s a mechanic and pays child support to Darlene.

Recently, Eboni took a pregnancy test and learned that she is 2 m onths pregnant. She actually did not know she was pregnant because her

periods were not always consistent and she thought she had just skipped a couple of months. Eboni immediately told her best friend, Brandy,

and then Darian about her pregnancy. He was shocked at first and suggested that it might be best to terminate. Darian has not told her

explicitly to get an abortion, but he feels he cannot provide for her and the baby as he would like and thinks they should wait to have c hildren.

He eventually told her he would support her in any way he could, wha tever she decides. Brandy encouraged Eboni to meet with the school

social worker. During our first meeting, Eboni told me that she had taken a pregnanc y test the previous week and it was positive. At that moment, the

only people who knew she was pregnant were her best friend and boyfriend. She had not told her parents and was not sure how to tell them.

She was very scared about what they would say to her. We tal ked about how she could tell them and discussed various responses she might

receive. Eboni agreed she would tell her parents over the weeke nd and see me the following Monday. During our meeting I asked he r if she

used contraception, and she told me that she used the withdrawal method. Eboni met with me that following Monday, as planned, and she was ve ry tearful. She had told her parents and grandmother over the

weekend. Eboni shared that her mother and grandmother had become visibly ups et when they learned of the pregnancy, and Darlene had yelled

and called her a slut. Darlene told Eboni she wanted her to have a d ifferent life than she had had and told her she should have an abortion. May

cried and held Eboni in her arms for a long time. When Eboni tol d her father, he was shocked and just kept shaking his head back and forth,

not saying a word. Then he told her that she had to have this child because abortion was a sin. He offered to help her and suggested that she

move in with him and her stepmother. Darlene did not speak to Eboni for the rest of the weekend. Her gr andmother said she was scheduling an appointment with the doctor to

make sure she really was pregnant. Eboni was apprehensive about going t o the doctor, so we discussed what the first appointment usually

entails. I approached the topic of choices and decisions if it was c onfirmed that she was pregnant, and she said she had no idea what she would

do.

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PRINTED BY: [email protected]. Printing is for personal, private use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted without publisher's prior permission. V iolators will be prosecuted.

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