Introduction
Cultural competence has always been the key to long-term, peaceful, and productive intercultural communication between two nations or ethnic groups. Specialists in humanities define it as “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross-cultural situations” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021, para. 3). It has also been one of the pillars of human services, at least from the times this philanthropic activity was standardized and industrialized. Understanding this can set one on the path to becoming a succeeding public services professional.
What It Means to be a Culturally Competent Professional
The global and American human services disciplines and industries can provide a multitude of definitions of what a true culturally competent professional is. The reason for the wide variety of descriptions is that being culturally competent has a contextual and situational meaning. Within the American context of human services, cultural competence at the individual level is “the idea of effectively operating in different cultural contexts, and altering practices to reach different cultural groups” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021, para. 9). The question arises as to what personal and professional characteristics enable one to effectively address the needs and problems of diverse cultural communities and ethnic and racial minorities.
Several properties and qualities of human character and mindset exist that allow one to develop, maintain, and improve their cultural competence. Among such fundamental ones is being aware of the inner self and the ongoing societal processes. By learning and understanding their social status and impact and political and health climates, those following the human services specialists’ path “improve their skills and expand on their competencies” (Spring Arbor University, 2021, para. 6). According to experts in humanitarian theory and practice, methods and techniques that accelerate the development of professional knowledge of cultural competence include self-evaluation, feedback analysis, and specific educational training (Spring Arbor University, 2021). Being a culturally competent human services worker also requires solid internal drivers that motivate one to acquire new knowledge, conduct regular introspection, and strive for self-improvement. One of these is empathy, a natural mental trait inherent in most human beings. The other is ethical commitment, a concept of morality and behavior that the individual learns gradually from childhood.
Significance of “Multicultural Human Services”
Human services organizations that adopt a multicultural perspective greatly help religious, racial, and ethnic minorities meet their needs and obtain the necessary resources and a positive image and exposure. However, the significance of social services, which core is the diversity model, lies not only in their altruistic and humanitarian nature. When these are provided to disadvantaged minority groups, workers can see and assess their clients’ socioeconomic conditions and the settings in which they live. It provides them with real-life data and, consequently, the opportunity to disseminate information about current and systemic issues of ethnic individuals and communities through their networks and communication channels to the public and authorities. For example, by applying only ethnocultural human services to African American children in child welfare, social workers and Cenat et al. (2020) revealed an overrepresentation of these children in this public support system. Multicultural human services not only address minority issues but also function as screening tools for underserved and oppressed locations and places.
Challenges that Exist in a Multicultural Context
While the multicultural context demands enhanced theoretical knowledge and expertise from human services employees, it still poses several challenges for them and creates some perceptional obstacles. The central one is poor communication between givers and sufferers or persons in need. Typically, diverse clients have “different literacy levels, language fluency, and cultural norms” (Butler & Sheriff, 2021, para. 3). It delays procedures for identifying the socioeconomic and health problems that minority individuals and communities have and processes of their resolving. Sometimes it even requires human services and social professionals to receive additional linguistic and cultural training to establish effective verbal communication with their clients and start working with them. Another major challenge is to overcome implicit biases that subtly undermine many public service employees’ efforts. According to Sabin (2022), “a person can hold explicit egalitarian beliefs while harboring implicit attitudes and stereotypes that contradict their conscious beliefs” (p. 105). It takes some mental resources and psychological expertise from one to find their implicit bias and eradicate them.
There are several certified digital resources useful for multicultural human services professionals, most of which are free and provided by the state. For example, one wishing to develop their cultural competence may look at Clear Communication, Cultural and Linguistic Competency, and Think Cultural Health (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Organization, 2022). The National Center for Cultural Competence and Advancing Effective Communication, Cultural Competence, and Patient- and Family- Centered Care: A Roadmap for Hospitals can also provide novel knowledge for public workers seeking self-improvement (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Organization, 2022). However, the last source is from 2010 and is therefore outdated.
Two to Three Strategies that a Human Services Professional Use
The healthcare industry provides public service employees with several strategies to improve personal cultural competence for professional purposes. Medical experts argue that cultural competence training is a comprehensive and effective method of honing skills and knowledge related to diversity and developing cultural agility (Tulane University, 2021). Such programs usually take a multi-pronged approach which would be helpful to my already good overall understanding of multicultural interaction. Unfortunately, the design of most cultural competence pieces of training does not allow one to dive into the specifics. The problem here is it is what I need to serve local minority groups effectively.
The second strategy that health professionals propose is more narrowly focused than the previous one and is an individual exploration of local ethnic communities. They argue that this approach is one of the best for revealing critical cultural information and the needs of the populations that health services workers serve (Tulane University, 2021). Individual exploration as a strategy looks promising as it would prepare me to work with neighboring minorities, which is what I need. However, I am concerned that this method would not introduce me to the universal techniques of intercultural communication that I am also looking for.
Conclusion
This work studies cultural competence as a humanitarian phenomenon and professional quality in the context of the field of social services. Such concepts were analyzed as personal and professional elements of human character that constitute the cultural competence of an individual, its institutional significance, and related challenges. Moreover, I also reviewed some strategies for boosting multicultural understanding. Discussion on what they can offer me and their disadvantages was given too.
References
Butler, M., & Sheriff, N. (2021). How poor communication exacerbates health inequities – and what to do about it. Brookings. Web.
Cénat, J. M., Noorishad, P. G., Czechowski, K., McIntee, S. E., & Mukunzi, J. N. (2020). Racial disparities in child welfare in Ontario (Canada) and training on ethnocultural diversity: An innovative mixed-methods study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 108, 104659. Web.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Cultural competence in health and human services. Web.
Sabin, J. A. (2022). Tackling implicit bias in health care. New England Journal of Medicine, 387(2), 105-107.
Spring Arbor University. (2021). What qualities make an effective human services worker? Web.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Organization. (2022). Resources on cultural competency. Web.
Tulane University. (2021). How to improve cultural competence in health care. Web.