The Effectiveness of the Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Grant Program: An Evaluation

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.

Cultural Competence is important for many reasons. First, it can help develop culturally sensitive practices which can in turn help reduce barriers that affect treatment in health care settings. Second, it can help build understanding, which is critical in competence, in order wards knowing whom the person

There is presently much controversy regarding teen pregnancy, considering that many countries in the developed world experience a rise in adolescent pregnancies in spite of the fact that effective programs are installed in these areas. Teen pregnancy has been a major issue in Los Angeles in the recent years, but the fact that state authorities have been actively involved in combating the problem has generated positive results. It is probable that the struggle for abstinence and the practice of safe sex have become less important for high school students in Los Angeles in the last few years, taking into account that teen pregnancy rates have gone up significantly.

Cultural competency is the capacity of people or services to include ethnic/cultural considerations into all aspects of their work related to health promotion, disease prevention and other and other healthcare interventions (Cultural competence is important for several reasons, (Purnell, 2008a).First, it can contribute in the development of culturally sensitive practices which can reduce barriers that effect treatment in healthcare settings. Second, it can promote understanding, which is detrimental in cultural competence assessment, to know whom, the individuals known as the primary care provider and whom they view as the primary healer, can attribute to the promotion of trust and increase the person’s interest in participating

St. Jude's Research Hospital provides an array of services to seriously to terminally ill children. St. Jude's Research Hospital also provides support to the parents, guardians, and families of the children in their care. This paper will describe cultural competency and explain its presence in areas such as health care and education. Cultural competency is one of several key assessments of professional efficacy, especially in areas such as health care and health services. The paper will evaluate the cultural competency of St. Jude's Research Hospital and explain why cultural competency is necessary in the provision of successful modern healthcare.

The National Center for Cultural Competence developed a validated assessment tool “at the request of the Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (DHHS)” (National Center for Cultural Competence (NCCC), 2004). The intent of the assessment tool is to “to enhance the delivery of high quality services to culturally and linguistically diverse individuals and underserved communities” (NCCC, para. 1, 2004).

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,

As a health care professional, we are faced with caring for patients of different cultural and ethnic background. Researching and learning about the patient’s culture values, beliefs and practices is essential and remarks the ability to provide quality health care for the patient. “Organizations and individuals who understand their clients’ cultural values, beliefs, and practices are in a better position to be coparticipants with their clients in providing culturally acceptable care” (Purnell & Paulanka, 2008, p. 2). After completing the cultural competence checklist, I was able to identify some of my responses to the patient cultural values and belief practices. I will describe a summary of my assessment results, analyze

Campinha- Bacote and colleagues describes the components for cultural competence in healthcare. These includes cultural ; a) knowledge, b) awareness, c) skills, d) encounter and e) desire. Cultural awareness refers to self-examination as well as in-depth exploration of an individual cultural as well as professional background. I am able to explore my own cultural healthcare values and beliefs. This is because understanding another person's does not guarantee that one will become cultural competent. I am now able to use the cultural awareness assessment to assess my personal level of cultural awareness, and to get an insight on the understanding of my cultural values and beliefs

Unfortunately, the lack of culturally competent healthcare providers such as nurses, leads to negative patient outcomes and low quality healthcare. Culturally competent nurses are required to adequately treat our culturally diverse population. Nurses are frontline patient advocates and education and training in cultural competence is an intervention that will implement positive changes in healthcare delivery in the U.S.

As the United States population continues to follow the trend of increasing diversity, the need for more culturally competent healthcare professionals increases as well. According to some of the leading experts in health care policy, cultural competency in health care can be described as the ability of systems and/or healthcare professionals to provide care to patients with diverse values, beliefs, and behaviors, including tailoring delivery to meet patients’ social, cultural, and linguistic needs (Betancourt, J.R., Green, A.R., & Carrillo, J.E., 2002). These researchers assert that there are essentially three specific barriers to cultural competency in the health care setting: lack of diversity in health care’s leadership and workforce, poorly designed systems of care that fall short of meeting the needs of diverse patient populations, and poor communication between providers

Cultural competences are behaviours, values, attitudes and policies that a body of professionals should encompass in order to effectively work with other cultures (Bureau of Primary Health Care 2005). Culture includes shared values, beliefs, religion, norms and customs. Competence is the ability to function as an individual and part of a team (Office of Minority Health 2017). According to Mayhew cultural competence also involves the impact that culture has on how an individual perceives health, illness and recovery (Mayhew 2016). The Georgetown University emphasized that cultural competence is being able to provide health services that meet social, cultural and language needs of service users. There are different definitions because cultural competency can be viewed from different angles. One angle is from the healthcare professional and what skills they require in order to present cultural competency. The second view is from the service users and one’s culture may affect their perception of health.

Cultural competence requires culture recognition, knowledge and understanding for each individual patients care. “Cultural competence in health care describes the ability of systems to provide care to patients with diverse values, beliefs and behaviors, including tailoring delivery to meet patients’ social, cultural, and linguistic needs” (Betancourt, Green, and Carrillo, p. 5). The ability to deliver culturally

Culturally competent care is an important concept in nursing practice in that it provides a sensitive, non-judgmental approach to care for cultures that are diverse in nature. According to Rew, Beckner, Chontichachalalauk, and Lee (2014), cultural competence starts with cultural awareness, and is a means of applying strategies to promote positive outcomes for patients of different backgrounds. This paper will elaborate on what culturally competent care is, and use an example to get a better understanding of this vital concept. An illustration will be provided that will clearly convey what it means to apply culturally competent nursing care for various and mixed populations.

Culturally competent involves the attitudes, knowledge, and skills necessary for the providing quality care to diverse populations. I myself am not fully aware of the cultural competence of each ethnicity group, it is a complex area to learn about and it takes time to learn since it is constantly changing. The parts about cultural competency I am aware about is that I have some basic knowledge about diverse cultures, how I must apply the knowledge to make sure my patient is provided the best care, and that I must attend to the total context of the individual’s situation. The culturally diverse client for who I want to provide culturally congruent care to in the healthcare setting would be the Asian American, who make up the third largest ethnic group in the United States. I would expand my knowledge of the Asian culture by firstly understanding and knowing the basic information, about the original culture and traditional values.