Cultural Competencies

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).

For this assignment, I have chosen to reflect on both my school site and the district.

It have been proven effective in providing services to individuals from a wide spread of diverse backgrounds. Cultural competence is understanding a set of congruent behaviors, knowledge, attitudes and policies that enable effective work in cross-cultural situations (Bazron, Cross, Dennis, & Isaacs, 1989). This means that an individual trains to understand different cultural groups. Cultural competency training is beneficial to all human service organizations because it aims to increase the knowledge and skills to improve one’s ability to efficiently serve different cultural groups therefore eliminating biases and

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 competency is a set of appropriate behaviours, attitudes and policies among professionals and enables them to work efficiently in cross-cultural situations (NCCC, 2006). A culturally competent health care system can eliminate cultural inequities, provide greater quality of care, and have less patient dissatisfaction and more positive health consequences. A conclusion reached in a study (Palafox et al., 2002) states, culture influences the outcome of medical examination and; therefore, it is vital to provide culturally competent health care services. Cultural competency is especially important in the context of radiographic examination due to the variety of culturally different patients a radiographer comes in contact. The following case study effectively highlights the impact of cultural competency.

The progress I have made on building cultural competence is I met this guy while I was at work, and he was telling about how his insurance won’t be able to cover for his visit to campus health. I suggested to him that maybe he change health care providers to someone who can possibly help cover more things than the one he has now. Also in one of my public health classes one of my teachers is having a luncheon with people who have HIV and I know if I go to the event I can get a better insight on what they are dealing with and find out ways to help them, since the luncheon is ran by an organization that helps people who live with HIV, or I could just give them support

Cultural Competency is a topic that resonates greatly with me, partly, because I am an immigrant myself; the biggest part, however, is that in the last 5 years I have been actively involved in the orphanage work around the world. I consider orphaned children one of the most vulnerable populations. The country I visited the most (may be 12-15 times) is Haiti, which is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

The United States has become increasingly a culturally diverse society. The understanding of cultural relativism in a multicultural working environment can be of a great importance to the success or failure of an organization. What is cultural competency? Before we explain it, let’s take a step back and analyze culture, cultural diversity, and Cultural relativism.

I think if we left our own culture influence judge the way we care or interact with patient my cause for some mistreatment. Therefore, having culture competency is very important. I also like how you mention how difference cultures handing certain medical concerns. I think is always good to know a little about a person background so that you can be more open, and be able to listen to the person. If we let our cultures ideals stand in the way it make it harder to focus on the patient. I think if the government did not make any laws against cultural competency, am afraid very one would be mistreating each other and a lot of medical neglect case. Don’t you agree? Thank you for sharing your idea and I look forward to your next

Cultural competency is not an instinctive gift and must be taught to providers. At present, three basic models exist for teaching providers how to offer culturally-based care. The first model emphasizes the dissemination of knowledge and information to the individual, with the stress that awareness breeds more cultural competence. Students learn about “definitions about culture and related concepts, social determinants of health, and variations in disease incidence and prevalence” (Kripalni et al 2006). In contrast, an attitude-based curricula promote sensitivity through self-exploration about the individual’s own biases. Finally, “skill-building educational programs (the cross-cultural approach) focus on learning

Diversity includes race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and social economic status. Professionals need to be able to work effectively in multi cultural situations. Cultural competence is an important skill to acquire. The Boston’s Children Hospital is looking for a candidate who has the ability to work with diverse internal and external constituencies. I gained the ability to understand global perspectives and intercultural awareness during my internship at the YMCA International Learning Center. The YMCA International Learning Center is located in Boston, MA. Adults with minimal to no English attend classes. These adults are from over 34 different countries with a variety of economic backgrounds. They come from low-income households seeking to find aid in discovering potential jobs. I helped the ELL students with their homework, grammar, conversation practice, computer skills, etc. A respectable environment was created that enabled the students to freely express themselves. The students educated me on how to be empathetic, unbiased, and grateful. Under the circumstances I was capable of grasping a better perceptive of diversity and empathy in race, ethnicity, and

Today’s management in the workforce is composed of all types of people verses thirty years ago when white males held a majority of upper-management positions in companies. These positions are now held by a mixture of ethnic back grounds and women who hold just as many if not more management positions then men. Just by looking at the changes in management demographics shows how important it is for people to understand cultural competency in the workplace. Dr. Roosevelt Thomas Jr. (1999) stated, “Diversity is the collective mixture of whomever we have in our workforce characterized by their differences and similarities” (p.11). Managers and supervisors must understand the characteristics of a diversity mature individual; they also need to be

As the United States continues to grow as a diverse country, health care systems need to focus more on providing cultural competent services. The term cultural competence is defined as a set of behavior and attitude within business or operation systems that respects a person’s cultural beliefs and values in the way healthcare is delivered. It can be applied both at the individual level or organizational level, in which serves as a basis for individuals to work with members of different backgrounds. Culturally sensitivity care helps create optimal patient-provider communication, delivery of high-quality services, and achievement of positive treatment outcomes (Gertner et. al, 2010). The five components of cultural competence are cultural awareness, cultural skill, cultural knowledge, cultural encounters, and cultural desire (Oelke et. al, 2013).The goal is to develop a health care system that provides services that eliminate racial/ethnic disparities and provide quality care (Betancourt et. al, 2005). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of implementing culture competence services in health organizations.

The United States is made up of people from different parts of the world. Which means that they bring diversity to the country including different races, languages, traditions, values, gastronomy, religious beliefs, and even the music they listen to (Garguilo, 2017). This diversity requires awareness for cultural competence. Cultural competence is the ability to interact effectively with other people who have different cultural standpoints from yours. Cultural competence requires having good pragmatics while interacting with people who have a different culture respectfully. During this paper, I am going to develop self-awareness about my strengths and weakness regarding cultural competence.

The development and implementation of a cohesive cultural mindset can pose a challenge for a leader of a diverse population of employees. The factors that can pose the biggest challenge is the growing global marketplace and the competitiveness of the competition. This is due to organizations worldwide transitioning to become globalized. According to Prewitt, Weil and McClure (2011), globalizing an organization has ostensibly astounded many corporations and their leaders. Due to quick strides and deficiency of preparation many leaders have with overseeing and supporting numerous groups throughout the world. The corporate mindset determines to what extent management encourages and values cultural diversity, while simultaneously maintaining a certain degree of strategic cohesion.  The purpose of cultural diversity in an organization is formulating factors of things they cannot alter by utilizing sensitive influences surrounding your existing culture inversely (Katzenbach, Oelschlegel and Thomas, 2016). The inclusive leader’s role is to understand each individual’s cultural difference and use that to integrate new cultural meaning into the organization. To advance in a cultural mindset, inclusion leaders must understand how to integrate a culturally diverse perspective, develop strategies to create a common cultural mindset and cultivate appropriate communication methods amongst a diverse global population of employees.