Cultural Competence In Social Work

Cultural competency is critical in psychology practice. In the United States, the groups, which considered as cultural and ethnic minorities, are growing in the population (APA, 2003). Culture often influences the content and quality of people’s experience, perception, and response. Thus, it is important for psychologists to be aware of cultural influences on client’s presenting experience(s) (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2010). Without a regard for cultural influence, there is a significant risk for the psychologist to misunderstand, misinterpret, and misguide his or her client. Such misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and misguidance are not only unhelpful but can be detrimental for the client (Corey, Corey, & Callanan, 2011; Pope, & Vasquez, 2011).

Unlike in the United States women in Haiti suffer from the lack of rights and privileges available to women in most western countries. Gender inequality seems to continue to be a

The main ideas that Lisa Bourque Bearskin is stating in this article is that nurses need to be more sensitive to cultural care. They need to be aware of the issues in healthcare and strive to remove any barriers for certain groups, such as the first nations, and they need to disrupt any unequal relations in the social, political and historical aspect of healthcare. The way this can be done is by shifting their thoughts from cultural competence to cultural safety by way of relational ethics. Cultural competence is explained as the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that nurses need to use to care for cultural differences. Another framework described cultural competence as going through the stages of cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skill, cultural encounter, and cultural desire. Cultural competency works very well when making policies in an agency but this view fosters a view of culture that does not encourage nurses to ask questions. (Bearskin, 2011) Cultural Competence causes different cultures to be put in a box, which cannot be done because cultures are constantly changing and every person’s culture is different. Culture is individual. Lisa Bourque Bearskin goes on to say that cultural safety is what nurses should use for ethical practice. In cultural safety, a nurse must strive to improve health care and its access for all people, while recognizing that there are many different cultures that have a right to be recognized. Bourque

In the field of human services, “cultural competency” has become a common buzz meant to address in part the . The intention being, that workers are able to achieve some level of knowledge and training that prepares them to work with

Cultural competence in health care describes the ability to provide care to patients with diverse values, beliefs and behaviors, including tailoring health care delivery to meet patients’ social, cultural and linguistic needs. The need for healthcare systems to increase cultural competence and personalize care for ethnic patient minorities should not be ignored. Healthcare systems should promote better understanding and communication between diverse ethnic patients and caregivers. Hospitals should design a system that caters to the needs of all the populations they serve and not just apply a one-size-fits-all approach. Becoming a culturally competent health care organization is a critical component in reducing health care disparities.

Culture has more than one definition. It can be defined as the language spoken throughout a group of people or even the beliefs practiced. In the professional field of nursing, nurses are required to do more than administer medication or change bandages on a patient. To be able to fulfill a nurse’s job requirements, a nurse must learn to be culturally competent. Cultural competency in the professional field of nursing means to care and respect the patient whether or not the health care provider is in agreement with the patient’s decisions.

Who is the person the nurse is caring for? Where is that person from? Does this person speak English, or understand what the caregiver is saying? What is this person’s cultural background? What are the health beliefs of this person, what are their illness beliefs and practices? These questions are answered differently depending upon the person and their heritage. As healthcare providers it is important to have a broad knowledge base in regards to different cultures and people’s practices to deliver effective health care. In 2006, the population of

Some of the author’s major points are the lack of understanding of what cultural competence really means which is bringing confusion about ways it can be utilized in the social work field. The confusion of the utilization of cultural competence is leading to the lack of consensus concerning the effective training that providers should obtain and the population being served with the cultural competence skills lack clear description. According to the author, the most popular cultural competence intervention in the healthcare system is the cultural competency training which is for health care providers and the two approaches that have been utilized in creating the intervention are; the programs aimed at improving knowledge which is group specific,

Arthur H. Woodard, Jr., MSW Soulhelp@me.com Jim Wuelfing, NRPP Jim.Wuelfing@gmail.com  Name?  From where?  Doing what?  Why here?

Cultural competence is a group of similar manners, attitudes, and strategies that collaborate in a system, organization or among experts and facilitate that system, organization or those professions to perform efficiently in cross-cultural states. A culturally competent health and wellness program provides services that take action to past inequities, existed realities, varied values, behaviors, and beliefs. It adapts advances to gather the diverse requirements of multicultural populations. Cultural competency can be implemented into our health and wellness programs by training the staff and health care experts of the programs to understand a patient’s diverse values, behaviors, beliefs, and modify treatment to meet the patients' community,

The United States Census Bureau has predicted that the minorities will become the majority by 2042. Unfortunately, the minorities collectively live below poverty level and are uninsured for healthcare, even though there have been many attempts to improve as mentioned in the above post. Some studies have also proved that the minorities have a tendency to live a shorter life, which in turn means that they have a higher percentage of loss of life, and have little knowledge about health care and available resources.

While gender and ethnicity may be the more apparent cultural features other things are important also, which include sexual orientation, spiritual or religious practices, political aspects, and general philosophy of life are all cultural elements that need to be incorporated into interventions and treatment options” (Cummins et al., 2012, p.237). In addition, it is important for the social worker to have cultural knowledge because it is necessary for selecting the appropriate intervention and treatment methods for that client. Furthermore, the appropriate multidimensional assessment provides the social worker with the internal culture of the client such as cognitive abilities or limitations, emotional health, and emotional responses and

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

It is important to understand “cultural accessibility” which includes “understanding, appreciation, and affirmation of values and beliefs that are held by the communit (Delgado, 1999, p. 34). Nonverbal communication is also an aspect of cultural associability due to the communication to the client in a way they understand (Delgado, 1999,). This is an important aspect because it allows the social worker to be available to learn from the client in order to build competence at the time of face-to-face contact. Each client is an individual and is more than just the cultural norm’s they can be stereotyped by.

It is imperative that social workers become knowledgeable about their clients’ cultures and are culturally sensitive. In learning about their clients’ cultures, social workers need to be aware of how powerful and significant culture is in relating to clients’ behavior, values, and beliefs. Becoming culturally competent requires the ability to integrate awareness, knowledge, and skills while maintaining a positive working relationship with the client (Sue and Zane, 1987). Today, the concerns regarding cultural competency continue to accentuate the importance of preparing social workers for a diversified society.