Culture And Cultural Competency

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Purpose
The purpose of this manual is to provide individuals and organizations with the tools for producing culturally competent community outreach. The manual will focus on individual development, organizational development, and community involvement to reach a higher level of cultural competency.

What is Cultural Competence?
It is important that culture and cultural competence be defined broadly and not sticky limited to race and ethnic groups. Organizations should move beyond traditional definitions to include all diverse individuals in our society.

What’s the Importance?
As the population of diverse individuals in our country continues to grow, it is important that we make efforts to work effectively with all individuals. Organizations …show more content…

The effects of culture can be seen in organizations, workers and community members. On the organizational level, culture may affect the organization’s policies, values, and expectations. It may also affect the organization’s views and attitudes towards their workers and members of the community. Furthermore, culture affects the worker by influencing their beliefs, values, and attitudes. A worker’s culture may affect how they respond to coworkers, authority members, and consumers. Workers might have personal biases or fall back on stereotypes when interacting with other individuals. Similarly to workers, community members also have their own cultural beliefs, values, and attitudes. It is important to remember their behavior might also be influenced by culture. Community members may seek services in different manners depending on their culture (Hart et al., …show more content…

Although workers might be knowledgeable in certain areas, not every individuals experience is the same. Workers should be open to respectfully asking questions and learning from others. Active listening is a key component to becoming more culturally competent. To take full advantage of the learning process, workers will need to step outside of their comfort zone. This might involve leaving what they know behind and learning new ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. Workers should also be aware that differences in beliefs and practices might arise during the learning process. These differences should be confronted with an open mind (Yanca & Johnson,

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