Cultural Competence In The Workplace

The article that I chose is Improving Cultural Competence to Reduce Health Disparities for priority Populations. This topic is relevant to social work because it is talking about cultural competence in the health care system and the one major skill that social workers need is cultural competency. This article is also relevant to social work because it talks about the importance of cultural competence in reducing disparities through culturally sensitive and unbiased quality care and since the social work field is all about treating everyone equally and fairly, this article falls right under its relevance. It continues to talk about programs to improve the knowledge of providers on cultural competency and general approaches that have been utilized in creating educational interventions to address cultural competence. This is great because social workers are never done learning, it is always important to train social worker on how to be culturally competent, specially because the populations being served are very diverse therefore, there should always be a way to train service providers on how to have cultural awareness.

When beginning this course, I had little knowledge of the depth of diversity found in our world today. I lived in a small town, which acted as a shelter from the harsh realities faced by many ethnicities, but also prevented me from experiencing cultural diversity. With my lack of background knowledge concerning diversity, I would say that my level of cultural competence was nearly non-existent. I had never been exposed to any ethnicities, other than my own, until moving to college. It wasn’t until moving away to college that I realized how naïve I was concerning the diversity of our nation. While learning of cultural competence I became aware of all I still needed to learn and experience if I were to become an ethical social worker.

To achieve cultural competence we should ensure following three points: 1) Having an awareness of other cultures 2) Knowing how aspects of your culture may limit the effectiveness of the work you do with people from other cultures (for example, cultural bias) 3) Knowledge of cultural safety Cultural competence means that community services organisations have structures, systems, policies and procedures in place to eliminate the barriers that prevent Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people from accessing the services. So we should review our policy and procedure to ensure providing suitable environment for clients and staffs. We may educate staff the knowledge of culture safety by meeting and information sheet to decrease the bias in

One of the most integral parts of cultural competency is the process of successfully becoming culturally competent. After synthesizing available research on the topic I have constructed four main steps in becoming culturally competent. Those include self-awareness, understanding various aspects of the culturally diverse population for whom you care for, practice evidence based medicine as it relates to culturally diverse populations and continuing education (Kodjo, 2009; Purnell, 2012).

Cultural competence is very important in providing patient care. Culturally competent providers should understand and respect the patient’s beliefs, values, and behaviors, and develop a treatment or care based on the patient’s specific needs. Being a healthcare professional requires you not only to assess, diagnose, and make a treatment plan, but also take into account patient’s beliefs and perception of their health-related issues.

Cultural competence is “the ability to communicate with, understand and effectively interact with people across cultures” (EYLF, 2015)

Cultural competency is found within different settings however, the setting which will be discussed in this paper will apply to a school setting. A school setting is where social workers “enhance the social and emotional growth and academic outcomes of all students” (SSWAA, n.d.). Furthermore, social workers not only work with students but also, work with parents, school administration, food department, special needs department, and school health services (nursing department). In conclusion, in this paper the culturally competent social work practice of working with the Latino community will be further discussed and analyzed.

After taking the self-assessment survey for quality and culture, I would like to improve and understand how cultural competence can have a real impact on clinical outcomes. Taking from some of the questions I answered wrong, it make me wants to be cultural competent. There are a few questions I am surprised and shocked, that I answered them incorrectly. I do understand that with training, I will start to gain cultural competence but it will take consistent individual practice on my part to develop and maintain individual cultural competence. 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 patient

Introduction Being culturally self-aware is important in everyday life and in work. Cultural self-awareness refers to having the ability to step back and reflect the values that are specific to our own culture but also the culture of those we work with and with those who help as mental health professionals. For example, my belief system might be different from my co-worker or from a client. A second thing that we as professionals need to remember is that cultural diversity has it place in our line of work. Cultural diversity deals with nationality, race, color, gender, creed, religion and age (Merchant, n.d.).

Cultural Competence to me is an individual’s, professional’s, or organization’s ability to understand, work, assist, and interact with people from different cultures, ethnicities, religious beliefs, values, gender, age, other than their own. Cultural Competence means being sensitive and aware of the differences that people posses, and then educating one self on those differences to appropriately interact or help them.

How you, as a social worker, might interpret the needs of Paula Cortez, the client, through the two cultural lenses you selected. How you, as a social specialist, may decipher the requirements of Paula Cortez, the customer, through the two social focal points you chose. Cultural competence in social work is the primary guideline of social work education and practice. According to Carpenter (2016) As the population in the United States continues to diversify rapidly, the requirement for culturally competent social work administrations is similarly as essential as it ever has been.

The lack of cultural competency by physicians in health care settings is producing many barriers to health care that is negatively affecting Hispanic families, such as miscommunications, poor adherence to medications and health promotion strategies, and misunderstandings that lead to misdiagnosis or inadequate treatment for Hispanics. This issue is alarming because the Hispanic population makes up roughly 17% of the entire U.S. population, which is a staggering figure that can’t be ignored. Some solutions that have been tried in the past but failed include, establishing more community-based programs to assist this segment of the population, hospitals pushing for prevention programs, and greater efforts by health institutions on training physicians to improve all aspects of communication. Although

Cultural competence means working respectfully and effectively with all children, their families, team members and the community. It means being aware of your own values, beliefs, practices and prejudices and the influence this can have on your decision making. It means continual reflection on your work practices and working towards a better understanding and respect for all cultures. Being culturally competent also means being aware of dominant and minority cultures and the affect this has on the community and adapting your ways to interact with the children and families to make them feel safe, secure and supported (EYLF Outcome 1- Children have a strong sense of identity).

Did you know that I appreciate your positive attitude and that reflects during class on how you approach other class mates and how you relate to their experiences. In regards of your post here I agree that Cultural Competencies are a set of beliefs that needs to be taught and passed on from an early age and preferable long before people are taking courses that relate to Human Services and working with different populations. While class room and work experiences are a great start I question if it is enough when a worker in this field goes home after 8 hours and relapses back into her or his own cultural experiences. While some of us experience other diversities and cultures during our practicum site it might also be effective to eat and sleep

Over the past four months, this course has been one of the most eye-opening experiences I have had during my first year of college. Although I have always realized the importance of being culturally competent in daily life, specifically healthcare, I was unaware of the many ways that cultural competence can be obtained. This class gave me the opportunity to view situations from a different perspective, especially through the weekly discussion boards and peer responses. Learning from classmate can teach more valuable lessons than listening to boring lectures or reading hundreds of pages in a textbook because it is easier to relate to experience rather than hypothetical situations. For example, one of the discussion boards asked us to detail