Cultural Competence: Supporting All Families

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Cultural CompetenceSupporting All Families

• Presented by Diana Autin, Family Voices _at_ SPAN-NJ
• At the National Family Voices Conference, May,
  2007

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The Pebble in the Pond

• Do unto others as they would have you do unto
  them.
• The Platinum Rule
• Seek first to understand, then to be
  understood.
• Steven Covey

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What Impacts Relationships?

• Status
• Socially acceptable behavior
• Body Language
• How close we stand to each other
• How we communicate process information
• How we interpret silence
• Comfort level with advocacy
• How we approach resolve conflict

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What Impacts Relationships?

• Parenting roles and functions
• Expectations of children
• Beliefs about appropriate developmental goals
  independence
• Views about needing and accepting help from
  non-family members
• Fears about being judged unfavorably

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Cultural Continuum

• Cultural Destructiveness
• Cultural Incapacity
• Cultural Blindness
• Cultural Pre-competence
• Cultural Competence
• Cultural Proficiency

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Impact of American Cultural values

• Individual Success
• Getting ahead
• Making money
• Value purpose of education
• Competition

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Examine cultural values Time

• What does it mean to be on time?
• How do you feel when someone arrives late to a
  meeting? Why?

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Examine cultural values Communication

• Verbal communication
• Rates of speech
• Voice modulation
• Pauses
• Use of silence
• Time between QA
• What is rude? Polite?

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Examine cultural values Communication

• Nonverbal
• Body language
• Eye contact
• Proximity
• Deference
• Respect

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Cultural Scanning

• Is the behavior
• Innocent
• Ignorant
• Insensitive
• Racist
• How to respond? Do we
• Know the person
• Value the relationship
• Have a history

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Cultural Reciprocity with Families

• Challenging power
• Assuming risks
• Sharing stories ourselves
• Listening with the heart
• Involving those affected
• Offering alternatives
• Balancing the scales of justice and equity
• Holding ourselves accountable

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How Change Happens

• Power concedes nothing without a demand. It
  never has and it never will.
• -Frederick Douglas

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Agents of Cultural Competence

• Understand context, barriers to change, and
  stages of change
• Listen
• Respond
• Advocate
• Pursue change
• Intervene at the systems level
• Team with others
• Facilitate

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Leadership in Cultural Competence

• Inspire and help people work toward the goal
• Share leadership
• Recognize diverse roles
• Become self-aware
• Accept responsibility
• Ask for help
• Be open to constructive criticism
• Encourage motivate partners

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Know Yourself

• Who am I?
• What am I doing here
• What are my
• Goals, purposes
• Expectations
• Motivations?
• What strengths challenges do I bring?
• How can I best use my skills?
• How can I make space for others?

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Know Yourself

• In my family, children are expected to ___
• I feel like an outsider when _______
• I believe the most important thing in life is
  ______________
• My ethnic or cultural heritage is important to me
  because _____

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Self-Reflection

• Speaking language other than English
• Attitudes of your family of origin on people from
  different backgrounds
• Values, beliefs, cultural messages re
• Family
• Child-rearing
• External relationships
• Community
• Health
• Education

• Roots, places of origin
• Ethnic group, socio-economic class, religion, age
  group, community
• Social interactions with people from ethnic
  groups, socioeconomic classes, religions, age
  groups or communities different from your own

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Gaining Community Trust

• Trust is not automatic it must be earned and it
  can be lost.
• Trust must be two-way those who are not trusted,
  do not trust.
• Trust leads to belief in each other and in a
  cause.

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Developing Trust

• Be honest about the problems, the barriers, the
  potential negative consequences as well as the
  potential benefit of action

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Developing Trust

• Be in it for the long haul. Dont abandon ship
  after the first disappointment or failure.
• Admit mistakes.
• Ask for help!!!
• LISTEN!!!
• Acknowledge others contributions.

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Creating Community Vision

• Creating a vision requires
• Trust
• Hope
• Shared relationships
• Honesty
• Openness
• Flexibility
• Love

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Preparing for Collaboration

• Discuss with partners in advance
• Agreed on issues?
• Differences among subgroups?
• Gifts of each?
• Stuff to give up?
• Stuff to gain?
• Anticipated conflicts compromises?
• Strategies to address conflicts?

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The Vision

• Visions are not abstract. They are based on
  peoples hearts and souls, their experiences, and
  their belief that a better life is possible and
  deserved.

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The Vision

• Creating a shared vision means letting go of the
  present to focus on what could be.
• What would it look like, feel like, smell like,
  taste like, sound like, if it was good?

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The Vision

• How do we get there?
• What supports are needed?
• What is each of our roles in providing those
  supports?
• How can it be sustained?

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The Vision

• Everyones contribution is respected.
• Individual contributions are discussed among all
  participants.
• A common, shared vision is shaped through
  discussion and pieced together like a community
  quilt.

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Reaching Consensus

• Consensus is not reached when everyone is silent.
• Consensus is only reached when everyone assents.
• The who of consensus is based on your
  definition of your community.
• Consensus is not static

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Diversity

• Honor express sincere interest in racial,
  ethnic, cultural, socio-economic diversity.
• Communicate in diverse languages.
• Prepare existing leaders to hear and make space
  for new voices new leaders.

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Diversity

• Adapt collaborative models to diverse cultures.
• Manage changing distribution of power
  responsibility.
• Avoid tokenism.

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Making room for new voices

• Multiple opportunities for participation, from a
  small contribution of time to progressively
  larger contributions of time and effort
• The level of participation varies depending on
  life circumstances.

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Making room for new voices

• Community members are listened to their ideas
  are supported and respected.
• Community members do not experience retribution
  as a result of their participation, or receive
  support if there is retribution.

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To See Clearly

• It is only with the heart that one can see
  clearly what is essential is invisible to the
  eye.
• The Little Prince
• Antoine de Saint Exupery
  

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The Chinese characters that make up the verb to
listen tell us something about this skill.
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Making room for new voices

• Community member participation has an impact it
  makes an appreciable difference.
• Community member participation is appreciated
  that appreciation is acknowledged.

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Gathering Community Knowledge

• Communities know
• Their history where they have been
• Their culture who they are
• Sacred places
• Dangerous places
• What is important to them

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Gathering community knowledge

• Encourage and support community members to find
  their voice.
• Be ready to hear what community members say.
• Respect the passion of the community for change.

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Gathering community knowledge

• Ensure that diverse community member perspectives
  are not considered a separate component, but are
  infused throughout.
• Always consider an individual community members
  story as valid.

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Sharing Community Knowledge

• Tell stories within the community to build shared
  knowledge
• Listen to the stories of families
• Help families share their stories with each other

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Partnering for Cultural Competence

• Committed Leadership from all partners
• Maintaining a partnership with good
  communication, clear decision-making, specific
  responsibilities

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Cultural differences are unimportant

• Thoughts
• All people should be treated the same
• Feelings
• Pressure
• Resentment
• Behaviors
• Failure to accommodate differences

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Cultural Differences are Strengths to Build on

• Thoughts
• Cultural differences are strengths
• Feelings
• Curiosity
• Interest
• Appreciation
• Behaviors
• Affirm differences
• Seek learning opportunities

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Building Cultural Competence

• Quality information
• Develop accurate map of strengths needs of
  families from diverse communities whos
  important, whats important, relationships
• Formal
• Informal
• Know how others have addressed these issues

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Building Cultural Competence

• Ongoing
• Planning
• Implementation
• Evaluation
• Revision of plan

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Developing a Plan

• Who will do what?
• Under what conditions?
• To what extent?
• What resources do we need?
• How will we measure?

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Specific Suggestions

• Allow time for reflection, dont always fill
  silent spaces
• Engage community leaders and cultural liaisons
• Modify communication methods, processes and
  materials to respond to individual circumstances
• Provide ongoing training and support in
  diversity, cultural competence, flexibility
• Provide qualified, trained and prepared
  interpreters when needed

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Implementing Changes to Enhance Cultural
Competence

• Bring about changes
• Monitor implementation to make sure improvements
  take place

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Commitment

• People say, what is the sense of our small
  effort.
• They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a
  time, take one step at a time.
• A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that
  spread in all directions. Each one of our
  thoughts, words and deeds is like that.
• No one has a right to sit down and feel
  hopeless.
• Theres too much work to do.