Cultural Competence And Its Diversity

In this great nation we live in today that has been vastly increasing diversity bring so many great opportunities. But with these great opportunities there are also challenges that are continually looked over constantly. One of the challenges is our health care system that fails to deliver culturally competent services. Cultural competency helps to enable providers to deliver services that are respectful to diverse patients. This helps with patients own health beliefs, practices and cultural and linguistic needs. This is why this training is needed in every health facility. Many doctors go through this problem not understanding their patient’s needs. If I were a doctor I would use this skill. Certain racial and ethnic minorities receive poorer

I have learned that it is important that educators  and health providers be trained on cultural competency to understand the population they are serving. Marks, Sims, and Osher (King, Sims, & Osher, n.d.) define cultural competency  as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enables that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross–cultural situations" ( as cited in Cross et al., 1989; Isaacs & Benjamin, 1991). Health providers and educators should investigate demographic patterns or trends in the place where they live and work. This brings awareness of the types of cultures that they might come across when they are working with people. Organizations should integrate and implement policies that promote the value of  diversity, self-assessment, manage the dynamics of difference, acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge, and adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of communities they serve (Georgetown  University, 2004). Georgetown University (2004) also stresses that culture competency grows gradually and is always open for improvement.

1. What is cultural competence for nurses? Cultural competence for nurses “is a combination of culturally congruent behaviors, practice attitudes, and policies that allow nurses to work effectively in a cross- cultural situations. (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2018, p. 74).

Acculturation is a cultural alteration of an individual or group by adopting and adapting to, or borrowing attributes from another culture.

Diversity: This means difference and peoples differences are varied. Race, culture, age, marital status, politics and religion is all what makes us an individual.

“Cultural competence is everyday and reality based.” This expression is that cultural competence occurs everyday, yet is based off what is what one perceives first hand. Everyday we meet and see different cultures. Cultural competence is important for society as a whole. Culture has a special meaning to all; it can identify the human population into groups. Culture is passed down from generations, which include values and beliefs. Diversity in America is what makes it great a fine blending of all cultures. Being culturally competent is a challenge being a nurse has greatly increases my cultural awareness. Cultural competence is reality based to me meaning that our cultural competence should and must be founded from facts. The news does

Understand cultural competence and why is it important especially for that have a diverse workforce.

When becoming a social work major, culture and diversity were themes expressed in each and every class. A good social worker must have the ability to be diverse. Therefore, cultural competence became a central theme. With that being stated, it is important to define exactly what cultural competence is. The National Education Association (NEA) defines cultural competence as having an awareness of one’s own cultural identity and views about difference, and the ability to learn and build on the varying cultural and community norms of students and their families. Cultural competence is a characteristic that is in great demand in social services and child welfare practices. More and more classrooms, doctor offices, etc. are becoming diverse.

Chapter 9: Communication with Diverse Population Groups in our texts describes the importance of being cultural competence when addressing nutrition and health issues in various demographics. Cultural Competence is a set knowledge and interpersonal skills that allows the counselor to increase their understanding and appreciation of cultural differences and similarities. A cultural group may be defined by a common set of values, norms, learned patterns of thinking, feeling, and or behaving, geographic locations, ancestral identity, religious values, traditions, food, music, and dance.

I was able to demonstrate cultural competence when I volunteered at the hospital reading books to patients. I had a chance to interact with diverse groups and learn about different cultures. Some patients used to teach me their language and this is how I became more culturally sensitive. In the beginning, I had a hard problem connecting with them because I lacked the knowledge of their cultural practices. So to solve this, first I had to become aware of my own culture by asking my parents some questions and reading books that pertain to my culture. I had to understand how my culture has affected me before I understand how it affects others. The reason that I thought this was important was because if I become comfortable talking about my culture

Cultural competence is defined as a set of behaviours and attitudes that professionals must encounter to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. (National Institute of Health, 2015) Cultural competence enables professionals to adopt policies and procedures that reflect the varied mix of cultural differences and be open minded to new culture. (Adler et al., 2009) Cultural competency is a crucial aspect in the delivery of patient care in a pharmacy or any other health system.

From the self-assessment survey for quality and culture I took, I would like to improve and understand how cultural competence can have a real impact on clinical outcomes. There are a few questions I was surprised that I answered them incorrectly. Now I do understand that what I learned in this culturally competence class will help me become more efficient in cultural competence, to provide quality care to all my patients regardless of gender, socioeconomic status, and ethnic, but it will take consistent individual practice, patience, and training on my part to develop and maintain that. I have learned that being culturally competent and implementing sound cultural competency techniques, will help to increase health access and reduce health disparities among different racial and ethnic groups. Cultural competence can lead to, health literacy, health equity, and fewer diagnostic errors, which might help the patient expand their choices and access high quality medical providers because the patient is no longer restricted to a small pool of clinicians who share their culture.

Campinha-Bacote constructed a model that depicts cultural competence into five different areas: cultural awareness, cultural knowledge,

Cultural competence refers to the capacity of people to draw upon cultural awareness, knowledge, skills, and sensitivity effectively, so as to work and relate efficiently with people from different cultures. In addition to possessing the qualities above, an individual should be able to utilize them in trying circumstances (Davis 2011). Trying circumstances bring out the degree of cultural competence of an individual, since they bring out the knowledge, respect, recognition, and acceptance of their practices. The essay below will discuss a case study on cultural competency, bringing out its effectiveness. It will also discuss cultural competency in depth, the rationale for cultural competence, the relevance of customizing it as well as other recommendations that could enable the support of cultural competence in various organizations.

Acculturation is the process of how a person or a group of people adapt into another culture by taking small pieces of that culture into their own culture. It is the idea of blend in with another culture, other than your own. For example, my family and relatives came to the United States for a little over 10 years now and some of the family members have assimilated into the American culture by beginning to celebrate the holidays, during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Further, we are remaining embedded in the ethnic of being Hmong. Many of us decided to come to America to obtain a better lifestyle, and the America society has greatly impact our life to assimilate into the American culture.