Cultural Competency
Training
Cultural Competence
• What is it?
• Why do we need it?
• Where do we get it?
According to Cross, Bazron, Dennis, and Isaacs (1989), cultural competence can be defined “as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency or among professionals and enable that system, agency or those professions to work effectively in cross-cultural situations”. Denboba, MCHB (1993) believes that cultural competence is a “set of values, behaviors, attitudes, and practices within a system, organization, program or among individuals and which enables them to work effectively cross culturally”.
Are you guilty of ethnocentrism?
• Do you judge other cultures because they are different
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We communicate with others verbally and non-verbally many times per day. When you pass someone on the street and they smile, this non-verbal communication leads us to believe that person is happy, or being friendly. When someone smiles at you, do you smile back at them or continue on your way?
If someone from another culture smiles at you and you don’t return a smile, what impression are you giving? That you are unfriendly, uncaring, or self-absorbed? Is this the impression that we want to give people of different cultures? We usually interpret crying with sadness or loss. How would you react to someone crying? Empathize and try to comfort or ignore them as if you did not see them? Sometimes we respond to these non-verbal cues the way that we would want someone to respond to us. Non-verbal communication can also be shown as symbols or signs. Universal signs and symbols can be valuable to many cultures. The stop sign is an example of a universal sign. Most people understand it’s meaning. Another universal sign is a hand to the throat that is used as a symbol for someone that is choking. If someone from another culture used the non- verbal cue that they were choking, would you attempt to help? Or would you pretend you didn’t see their distress signal? I can only say what I feel is right in each of situations; a smile warrants a return smile, someone crying deserves my empathy, and someone choking would definitely
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What did you do? Did you ask to be transferred to someone that spoke English? Or did you attempt to communicate with the customer service representative? Did you show tolerance, or impatience when it was difficult to understand them? Your reaction may determine the outcome.
• The new person on the job is of a different culture than yours. Do you see this person as taking away a job that should have been given to someone local? Or do you see this as the opportunity to make a new friend and learn about a different culture?
• You are looking for someone to do childcare in your home. You have 3 applicants-one is a teenager, one has 3 children that they want to bring along while they take care of your children, and the last applicant is of a different culture that has excellent references, but their cultural beliefs are not the same as yours. Who do you choose? My choice is the last applicant for several reasons: 1. Excellent references 2. Teaching my children that different is acceptable 3. The opportunity that comes with learning about another culture and possibly teaching other cultures about mine.
Norms (www.cnx.org,
Cultural Competence is a substantiated body of knowledge based of cultural “values held by a particular cultural group and the ability to cohesively adapt to individualized skills that fit the cultural context, thus, increasing relationships between employees, managements, and stakeholders, including patience and research subjects. Cultural competency is critical to reducing disparities and improving access to high-quality services, respectful of and responsive to the needs of diverse working conditions and individualized characteristics. The main focus emphasizes the understanding of cultural competence provide internal resources with skills and perceptions to thoroughly comprehend ones cultural attitude, increase the ability to multicultural diversity, and the ability to effectively interact with other cultures (Shelley Taylor, 2006, pp. 382-383), which is absent within the case study of Joe and Jill. Essentially speaking, principles of cultural competence are acknowledgement to the importance of culture in people's lives, respect for cultural differences, an...
Let’s begin with what is the Culture? It is defined as “the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them" Lederach, J.P. (1995). Now let’s understand what cultural competence is. It can be defined as “the ability to honor and respect the beliefs, language, interpersonal styles, and behaviors of individuals and families receiving services, as well as staff who are
Cultural competence has to do with one’s culture. Culture affects among other factors, how children are raised, how families communicate, what is considered normal or abnormal, ways of coping with issues, the way we dress, when and where we seek medical treatment, and so forth. I should know because I come from a very cultural home where it is considered bad to talk to a male doctor about anything gynecological.
Cultural Competence to me means everybody is treated equally no matter their race, religion, colour of their skin or cultural background. Staff need to be competent in understanding the diverse cultures within the community. Australia is very multi-cultural and therefore engaging with a variety of people requires cultural competency. Educators need to be able to interact and communicate effectively and understand different peoples perspectives and their views of the world. Being culturally aware and having the appropriate skills. Educators must have positive attitudes towards cultural practices to avoid being bias or discrimination. Children need to be able to find their sense if identity while in our care, therefore being ‘culturally competent’
Cultural competency involves being able to appropriately interact with people of different cultures other than one’s own culture. Not only is it being able to work effectively with other cultures, it is being able to work effectively with other socio-economic backgrounds and ethnicities. A main component of being culturally competent, is being able to be culturally sensitive. This mean that the person helping would have to be aware of other cultures and how those cultures effect an individual’s or family’s values and behaviors. Being culturally competent is important because it helps bridge the divide between professional’s culture and their client’s culture. Understanding the clients culture allows for the person helping to find the most appropriate resources to help the family. If I were to help the Garcia family, I would need to examine how their Mexican heritage and circumstances drive their family structures, values, behaviors and their ability to adapt to a new culture. Understanding and being aware of my own culture and their culture would help me see what barriers might stand in their way and ways to overcome those
What is culture? Culture is commonly defined as the set of values and beliefs people have about how the world(both nature and society) works as well as the norms of behavior derived from that set of values.Culture is just a way of life shared with a group people. However,cultural competence refers to an ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds, non-profit organizations, and government agencies whose employees work with persons from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds. To really understand what cultural competence is you have to first get the full meaning of what culture is. Cultural competence may also be associated with diversity and from an organizational communication perspective, a diverse culture. Developing cultural competence results in an ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across cultures. Africa is divided into a great number of ethnic cultures.
Cultural competency includes acceptance of and respect for cultural differences, analysis of one's own cultural identity and biases, awareness of the dynamics of difference in ethnic clients, and recognition of the need for additional knowledge, research, and resources to work with clients (Miu & Yuk-Lin, 2005). Therefore, I would describe my level of knowledge as being able to recognize my values and understand others have a deeper cultural differences. I see culture as important and recognize that culture is more than just preferences. My level of knowledge is that there are differences in values and core beliefs and learning more about other
There are different types of communication (verbal, nonverbal, paralinguistic). Verbal communication is communicating with words. For instance, an individual speaks to another at a business meeting regarding profit margins. Second, nonverbal communication is communicating without the use of words but through gesture, body language, facial expression and eye contact (Baron, Branscombe, Byrne). Also these physical expressions can provide powerful and valuable information about others’ current feelings and reactions without the need of words. Lastly paralinguistic is defined as the use of emotional expression, gestures, and the location of the body in relation to the other's body, eye contact, and level of voice instead of verbally expressing these cues (Triandis). Additionally, paralinguistic is also known as paralanguage as a way to modify or nuance meaning, or convey emotion, with the use of pitch, volume, and intonation (Triandis). For instance, as described by Triandis’ article Culture and Communication, “in Bulgaria and south India a nod means "no,” and a shake of the head, means "yes".” It’s interesting how Triandis describes the amount of difficulty it was to compre...
Cultural competence is necessary within todays health care industry. Continuing training and knowledge of how to interact with dissimilar cultures must be employed by health care facilities. Cultural competence is described as the ability to provide services to individuals who are different whether this be race, gender, sexual preference, ethnicity, social status, economic status or any other form of cultural difference.
Learning the definition and understanding cultural competence is something I am trained in yearly. We are required as a whole agency to be aware and knowledgeable. The information given at these training some feel does not pertain to their area of work. As a field-based worker, I am responsible for showing my personal level and the level of the organization I work
77). We all express or encode a feeling with an outward facial expression such as smile or frown, and we decode or interpret these features the same across the board (Aronson, 2013, p.77). According to Aronson (2013) a study was done in New Guinea with a small tribe that had little to no contact with Westerners and when told particular stories had the same six facial expressions as Westerners. It’s interesting because verbal language is vastly diverse between cultures, but that in order for us to understand each other better we have a nonverbal form of communication such as facial
Spoken language is just one aspect of communication- the nonverbal conversations that happen are just as important, if not more so, in understanding what’s happening around us. Depending on the culture that a person is raised in, they will have different associations to various nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions, hand symbols, and head movements. Without grasping the different meanings, it is impossible to completely know what is happening in the conversation, therefore leading to a misunderstanding, which in turn leads to frustration. When one doesn’t know what a person means, they are bound to become aggravated. A time in my life when this related to me was when I traveled to California compared to when I visited Hawai’i. In California, smiling at strangers wasn’t too common, other than at commercialized places. In Hawai’i, however, the people were very friendly and welcoming. When a person didn’t smile back in Hawai’i, they seemed a little uptight, whereas in California, not smiling was the norm. Even though I was within the U.S. both times, the culture varied with
Cultural competence in health care provision refers to the capacity of health care systems to offer good care to patients and accommodate employees, who have diverse beliefs, behaviors, and values to meet their cultural, linguistic, and social needs. It comprises of policies, attitudes, and behaviors that integrate to form a system that can operate efficiently in cross cultural conditions. Healthcare organizations look at cultural competence from two major viewpoints. Firstly, it is a tool to enhance patient care from all backgrounds, social groups, languages, religions, and beliefs. Secondly, it is a tool that strategically attracts potential clients to their organizations and, hence, expands
The human behavior in daily life I would like to discuss is that of greeting someone,
The meaning of possessing socio-cultural competence is having the ability to understand the diversity prevalent in the world and act accordingly to maintain the harmony while bringing positive changes to the society through an exceptional professional career. Be that as it may, socio-social skills rely on upon every industry and every profession of the fact that a few abilities are more material to specific regions than