INTRODUCTION In less than forty years, the United States we know today may look a little different. The latest prediction states that America’s population will climb from roughly two hundred and fifty million to four hundred million come 2050 (Passel and Cohn. 2008). A majority of this exponential growth is attributed to immigrants. Caucasian citizens have remained the majority in America since the very beginning. However, in 2050 Caucasian individuals will be the new minority within the United States. These future predictions of the United States show the importance of professionals understanding how to work with culturally diverse individuals. Within this paper the audience will learn the importance of understanding, as well as tips, to …show more content…
Within Paul Pederson’s article, he defines culture as this, “ the construct culture broadly defined, goes beyond national boundaries, ethnic boundaries, or both” (Multiculturalism as a Generic Approach to Counseling, 1991). Cultural diversity, although generally similar to the definition of culture, it’s own complete definition. Cultural diversity is best defined as, “differences in race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual identity, socioeconomic status, physical ability language, beliefs, behavior patterns, or customs among various groups within a community, organization, or nation” (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US), 2006). Pederson also points out that, just because individuals share similar backgrounds or even a nationality does not necessarily mean they share the exact same cultural beliefs (Multiculturalism as a Generic Approach to Counseling, 1991). For instance, an individual may have an Asian background but that does not mean they automatically share the same cultural beliefs as another individual who comes from Asian decent also. With so many different outlooks on the word culture, having a full understanding on it can seem somewhat impossible. However, with the drastic make-up of America changing, the need of understanding has become even more …show more content…
They suggest going thorough certain Cultural Competence Assessments as a way to expand the facilities cultural knowledge, or cultural competence. The authors define culture competence as, “a term that describes what happens when special knowledge about individuals and groups of people is incorporated into standards, policies, and practices” (Working With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families, 2008). They stress the necessity of staff being culturally competent for a number of reasons. Some of their reasons include; “Understanding and appreciating a client’s cultural background expand treatment opportunities, enhancing the sensitivity and capacity to treat clients from other cultures improves a program’s ability to treat all clients, and cultural competence is increasingly a requirement of funding and accreditation bodies” (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US),
To provide competent care to a client, the therapist has to be culturally prepared to work with the client. To be culturally competent as a therapist I have to be aware of my own bias, my identity, and my values in regards of my culture. I also need to be aware of the judgments that I have about the client’s cultural identity. In order to know the client’s culture, I would inquire about the identity during the intake. I would use the Addressing model by Pamela Hays to inquire the cultural identity of my clients. The addressing model helps to consider the various social categories that a client belongs to. Also, providing culturally competent services is to be aware of the population surrounding the therapist’s office or agency in order to
America is greatly influenced and enhanced by the many versatile cultures which inhabit it. Cultural diversity has added to our economy in such a way that it brings innovated ideas and contact structures throughout the world. International cuisines have come to America through subcultures, have expanded the food industry, and have allowed English Americans to try new foods and flavors. Immigrants have brought with them religious values that greatly differ and vary from those at which were natural in the main stream American culture. The educational development through foreign nationals has led America, as a nation, to excel and be deemed one of the most intelligent nations in the world! Consequently, the subcultures have kept our
Cultural competency and sensitivity are essential factors to effective mental health treatment. ‘Cultural competency is defined as an ability to understand and be aware of cultural factors in the
Education can play the strongest role in combating cultural diversity. The United States is a melting pot of cultures from around the world. “The concept of a “melting-pot”
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,
Workshops, courses, and seminars have been implemented to improve cultural competency to effectively provide service delivery to diverse clients. One of the approaches by Delgado et al. (2013) used Inventory to Access the Process of Cultural Competency (IAPCC-R) to measure cultural competence levels. The training consisted of a single one hour session for a period of six months and then a follow up was measured after three months of completion.
Diversity exists all across the United States. It is defined as the state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. Along with the ever-growing diversity in America, brings along intercultural communication. Intercultural communication can be defined as a situated communication between individuals or groups of different linguistic and cultural origins. Due to the limitless amounts of diversity and intercultural communication across the United States, misunderstandings and clashes between cultures are bound to occur. These clashes have been as extreme to be used to explain violence and crime not only in the United States, but also throughout our entire nation. On the other end, these cultural clashes can be so personal in our everyday lives because of our expectations of a certain behavior coming from our own cultural backgrounds, as many others have very different cultural backgrounds and expectations of us.
Cultural Competency Having cultural competency within an agency is invaluable because it informs how that agency provides its services to clients. Cultural competence is commonly defined as “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enable the system, agency, or professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations.” In practice, this means availing consumers of services that are both accessible and culturally responsive. For some clients, providing culturally targeted services provides consumers with a safe space and a means of healing. Equally important, clients can examine how their cultural identity may be impacting their physical and mental health.
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,
“Cultural competence is the ability to engage in actions or create conditions that maximize the optimal development of client and client systems” (Sue & Sue, 2013, p. 49). Multicultural competence includes a counselor to be aware of his or her biases, knowledge of the culture they are evaluating, and skills to evaluate a client with various backgrounds (Sue & Sue, 2013). Client assessment involves gathering information pertaining to the client’s condition. Making a culturally responsive diagnosis involves using the DSM-IV-TR axis (Hays, 2008). Following the axis backwards is ideal to discovering the client’s diagnosis, understanding the client’s ADDRESSING outline will help to come to a closer resolution
Throughout the world social problems such as illiterate, elderly, handicapped, minority groups, and poverty have been the biggest part in our society for many years. Some of our social problems had died off, meanwhile, they’re still many problem that we are still facing as a society. One of the major social problem we face is people being illiterate. Being illiterate is meaning a person can not read nor write, and it can also mean that a person is grammatically incorrect. There is as much as 23% of the adult population that are ignorant to basic skills of the 4th grade level. In the U.S. the ethnic group that is most affected by not being able to read or write is
To begin my personal informative essay on diversity in the United States, I would like to point out what information has had the most influence on how I better understand and relate to others different from how I did in the past. I do not feel as though this class taught me any more than I already know about other races and ethnicities, in terms of, how their ancestors came to America, or what hardships particular racial or ethnical groups have grown through in the group’s history in the United States. What I do feel like this class has done for me is, put into prospective of how often and frequent prejudice and
The presence of Latinos in the United States challenges the notion of there being only one specific type of American citizen, an English-speaking person who lives only in relation to an "Anglo" heritage. Alongside other minority groups, Latinos tend to believe in the notion that the United States must be made up of one bounded territory, within which people speak a singular language and experience one culture. So, when the Anglo groups are faced with Spanish speaking people who are in touch with their Latino heritage, they feel threatened by the people who can speak both Spanish and English. The response to this sense of threat involves marginalization and the obvious exclusion of Latino groups in the United States. At the
You made some very valid point in your discussion. This country was founded on social and economic diversity in which it does tend to categorize everyone into a certain group to feel a sense of validation of whom they believe they are or should be. European Americans did this categorization as a means to ensure that society will embrace them as the superior race and blacks and Indians as the inferior race. This segregation of humanity was denoted as “high” and “lower” class groups that became interconnected within the social and racial institution. Additionally, these distinctions such as skin color differences in America today are thought to explain perceived differences in intellectual, physical and artistic temperaments and to justify the
According to the results of a survey conducted, by 2050 the population of the United States will predominantly (more than fifty percent) consist of the non-whites. With this fact in mind, it would be highly advisable to meet the anticipated changes. in order to ensure a fully competent and ethnic-minded workforce. Different ethnic backgrounds come with their particular cultural specifications, which call for a person with an in-depth knowledge of these specifications in order to accord satisfactory attendance to the patients and clients (Mason, 2012). Furthermore, many patients and customers feel more at ease with someone they can relate to, be it ethnically, in terms of gender, background or even religion. It remains an unquestionable fact