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Dying, death, and grief are universal human experiences that are impacted by cultural values and beliefs. We provide service providers a context from which to consider the importance of spirituality and religiosity in the grief process and the variances in grief practices that exist within the Black community. This knowledge can serve as a catalyst for developing culturally appropriate interventions for Black people aimed at helping them to more effectively cope with grief and further enabling them to thrive rather than merely survive a sociopolitical US climate that is laden with grief producing experiences.

Police shootings of young Black males that ultimately result in their death have become an all-too-common occurrence in this country. The deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Gardner have highlighted police relations with this population. Before viable solutions can be established, a number of areas need to be addressed that relate to the historical context in which police relations with this group exist that impact current relations between the police and young Black males, why their lives are seemingly given less value by society than those of their White counterparts, the role that spirituality and religiosity play that may help to make connections between them and the police, and the benefit of the Black church in fostering amicable police relations with young Black males. This article addresses these issues and concludes with recommendations for how the social work and human services professions, along with the Black church and police, can be responsive and proactive in addressing this social problem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recently, there has been a growing interest in the nexus of faith and the triumvirate of learning, practice, and research. Social work educators have not consistently challenged social work students to consider the importance of the constructs of faith, religiosity, and spirituality in their own learning and lives. The acknowledgment of racism as an unjust social construct is the essential social justice focus of this paper. The authors present an example of a course assignment that may be used to help students explore the signi"cance and meaning of faith, equity, and spirituality in others and in their own lives. The Critical Race Theory (CRT) is used as a theoretical framework to discuss how educators can prepare students to have a generalist perspective that is humane and social justice driven. The ethical duty to acknowledge, explore, and teach students faith in the social work curriculum is a key aspect of the biopsychosocial-spiritual assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]