Moving From Intercultural Competency toward Cultural Humility

Freedom NguyenMulticultural Education Facilitator

Cell: 847-348-9174; freedom.nguyen37@gmail.com

Valerie WalkerDirector of Services, Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center;

Contact Information: vwalker@zcenter.org; 847-244-1187, ext. 127

Introductions and Welcome

Authentic Welcome

Purpose

Collective Commitment to Learning Space

Permission

Dedications

Testimonies

We do not come from the Earth like Grass.

We grow like trees.

We all have roots.

-Maya Angelou

Are we open to treating others as experts on their own lives?

Our clients are impacted by the legacies of geographic changes and cultural heritage, current sociopolitical issues, and other cultural identity factors. This session will explore paths for increasing our competencies and capacities for serving persons with connections to cultural factors and experiences. The presenters will offer testimonials of experience with International and U.S. based field immersion, decades of community practice, and the significance of cultural humility in human services interventions. The emphasis will be on defining intercultural competency as a lifelong practice which takes us to the point of cultural humility.

WelcomeIntroduction & Welcome, Self-Reflection Why this topic? Why now?

Values & Language

Testimonials

Values and Language

Field Immersion, Research & Community Practice Areas

Changes in Diversity & Intercultural Competency Education, Practice and Organizational Development

Moving Away from Westernized and Appropriated Practices

Models for Cultural Humility ~ Client Engagement & Human Services Practice

Multicultural Counseling, Culturally Grounded Practice

Integrative Transnational Model

Insights and Lessons Learned

Resources

Self Reflection ~ Choose a few questions that stand out for you and reflect briefly on them.

• What is a core value you hold that helps you to be present in your work?

• What is a cultural identity factor that you would use to describe yourself?

• What is a skill you use to be effective in your role?

• What is a word you would use to describe your experience with clients?

Another question for Reflection – Where is the common ground

• Legacies

•Wanting to serve well

•We are not our ancestors

Self Reflection for Parallel Process

Concepts

•Identity•Values

•Roles

•Resources

Golden CircleWhat we do~How we do~Why ~ Values

Cultural Humility – How is it significant Now? Why is it significant Now?

The Language of Unlearning Oppression, Centering on Lived Experiences of Others, Moving Toward Cultural Humility

Bearing Witness to Lived Experiences

Listening to Testimonials

Images

Stories

Roles

Understanding Language and Values

Racism Heterosexism

Sexism Privilege Classism Bullying

Power Internalized Oppression Hate Crimes

Micro-aggressions & invalidations

White Supremacy Behavior

Cisgender Privilege Fear & Safety Issues

Social Determinants of Well-being

Institutional Discrimination

Bias in Service Delivery

Understanding Intersectionality

• noun: intersectionality; plural noun: intersectionalities• the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class,

and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

• "through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us"

• Intersectionality is a concept often used to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another.

MEDIA RESOURCE: African American Women and the Struggle for Equality, https://youtu.be/X5H80Nhmn20, National Museum of African American History and Culture

Images of Intersectionality

International Field Research: ‘Exploring Effective Interventions to Reduce Psychological and Emotional Stress in College Students from Central and Latin America’

• Need to gain knowledge and awareness of pre-migration factors influencing student success.

• Exploring culturally-sensitive interventions that mitigate acculturative stress and promote good mental health.

• Culturally Grounded & Connected Practitioners

• Culturally Grounded Engagement, Education and Direct Practice Models

• Equitable Treatment v. Equitable Outcomes

Testimonials - Highlights

• Cultural diversity among indigenous groups

• Language Barriers among indigenous groups

• Sports & Music, Rituals are connectors

• Poverty, violence, war, ecological disasters

Question:

• Impossible to know everything about everyone, so are we comfortable treating as experts on their own lives?

International Field Research: An Exploration of Culturally Responsive Human Service Provisions in Uganda and Rwanda

•Women and Girls’ Issues in Uganda: health, education, intimate violence, sexual exploitation and economic development•Healing/Recovery issues and relevant organizations for

women in a post-genocide community development framework in Rwanda, focus on Intergenerational community involvement, Example: Community Drumming• INZOZI NZIZA: Women’s Cooperative, Provides employment,

post-genocide counseling services, prevention-education and community based drumming to women in Rwanda

International Field Research: Connections of Mayan indigenous communities to First Nations communities in U.S. Great Lakes regions

Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake

Superior

Chippewa Indians

Testimonials - Highlights• Roles of faith, intentional communities, resistance,

partnerships and recovery in building and

rebuilding resilient communities.

• Understanding our interventions in the context of neo-colonialism, community development, and culturally grounded practice

• Impact and innovation of post-war recovery (in each country).

• Assumptions we had to check at the borders … When Helping is Hurting

Values and Language Moving Toward CULTURAL HUMILITY

Cultural Competency, Intercultural competency

•Developmental approach

• Involves individual, team and organizational systems

• Involves continuum: 1) cultural destructiveness, 2) cultural incapacity, 3) cultural blindness, 4) cultural pre-competence, 5) cultural competency and 6) cultural proficiency. (Resource: Cross, et. Al.)

Cultural Competency Models

Self Awareness and Understanding Multicultural Groups: An Introduction to Cultural and Linguistic Competency

Multicultural Counseling Competencies-Derald Wing Sue

MEDIA - Multicultural Counseling: https://youtu.be/4sCvBlb6JP0

Stages and Levels (Cross)

Multicultural Orientation Theory-Sidney Shaw

Cultural Competency Models

Self Awareness and Understanding Multicultural Groups: An

Introduction to Cultural and Linguistic Competency

Multicultural Counseling Competencies-Derald Wing Sue

Stages and Levels (Cross)

Multicultural Orientation Theory-Sidney Shaw

Integrative Transnational Model (Lundy & Hilado)

Values and Language, continued

Culturally Responsive Service Delivery •Addresses intercultural competency, bias in service

delivery, equity (social determinants of well-being), culturally-based methods

Culturally Responsive Engagement & Empowerment Strategies• Building Social and Cultural Capital•Understanding and Responding to Stereotype Threat•Growth Mindset

Culturally responsive approach: brief definitions

STEREOTYPE THREAT – When individual outcomes are impacted by a

perceived cultural stereotype. (A theory resulting from the research of Claude

Steele.)

MINDSET ORIENTATION – Individuals exhibit fixed and growth mindsets which

impact learning. (A theory resulting from the research of Carol Dweck.)

CAPITAL –Capital helps individuals recognize the connections they have and

can develop which enable and empower them as they develop and pursue

their goals.

(Adapted from Community College of Baltimore County CRT Training Resources)

*Culturally responsive student DEVELOPMENT:

stereotype threat

•Undercuts conventional assumptions that genetics or cultural differences lead some individuals

•Group stereotypes can threaten how individuals evaluate themselves, which then alters academic identity, mental health and intellectual performance

•This social-psychological predicament can, researchers believe, beset members of any group about whom negative stereotypes exist.

*Two competing mindsets: for practitioners and clients

FIXED MINDSET

• Ability is fixed and unchangeable.

• We tend to sort ourselves and others regarding intelligence and ability.

• Difficulty or failure is confirmation of inferiority.

• No responsibility, control or reference to effort.

GROWTH MINDSET

• Ability is not limited but improvable.

• Difficulty or failure is information about what to do to improve.

• Effective effort enhances intelligence.

MindsetsFOR CONSIDERATION:

• Mindsets of practitioners influence our expectations of clients

• Client mindsets about their abilities affect their self-efficacy and behaviors

• Holding a particular mindset can be either mobilizing or debilitating to client outcomes

HOW WE CAN RESPOND:

• Share our own journeys with our clients

• Recognize client mindsets about their abilities

• Use tools to help clients use difficulty, error or failure as feedback for improvement

• Work to better affirm productive persistence (tenacity+strategy)

Theory of SOCIAL CAPITAL, (Source: Ladson-Billings)

Three Criteria behind building SOCIAL CAPITAL:

1) Clients must experience success, by using relevant, dedicated and accessible resources.

2) Clients must develop and/or maintain cultural competency, by learning processes and resources to navigate surroundings.

3) Clients must develop a critical consciousness through which they can challenge the status quo as needed, by gaining confidence, knowledge and efficacy through support from ‘whom I know.’

One of assumptions is that the Practitioner is COMMITTED TO COLLECTIVE AND NOT MERELY INDIVIDUAL EMPOWERMENT OF CLIENTS.

Building and usingsocial economic and cultural capital

WHAT CLIENTS CAN DO:

• Develop a list of their Social Capital by filling out a worksheet of personal connections, resources, relationships, and online opportunities.

WHAT WE CAN DO:

• Provide clients with resource lists of people, programs and services who can help them succeed.

• Refer to the clients’ own Social Capital sheets.

• Discuss and reinforce the value of the connections they are making.

Values and Language, continued

Culturally Responsive Service Delivery

• a client engagement and organizational development approach

• values, recognizes and honors clients’ unique cultural, social and interpersonal experiences and how they impact their experience receiving services

• Characteristics: Validating, Comprehensive, Multidimensional, Empowering, Transformative, Emancipatory (Resource: Geneva Gay, et. al.)

Values and Language, continuedAcculturative stress

• Acculturative stress is the psychosocial impact of adaptation to a new culture. For persons who come to the United States, particularly from Central America and Mexico, there are a number of significant stressors that are likely to be pervasive, intense, and lifelong. Practitioners need to learn the reality of the immigrants, refugees and asylees, and help them adapt to these stressors.

EXAMPLES

Values and Language, continued

Feminist theory

•Awareness of power, privilege and oppression issues impacting the client/student experience, client-helper partnership, culture of feedback, treating individual as whole person

EXAMPLES

Changes in Diversity and ICC Education

MODELS OF CULTURAL COMPETENCY AS A DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS

FROM DIVERSITY EDUCATION TO MULTICULTURAL & INCLUSION

DIALOGUES

BEYOND HOLIDAYS AND HOLY DAYS TO

CONSCIOUS INCLUSION AND ALLYSHIP

BEARING WITNESS, ADVOCACY AND ACTIVISM

INCLUSION, EQUITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Where I am on the Social Action Continuum?

Moving Away from Westernized Approaches

Why is this significant?

Considerations

The Power and Privilege that comes with the professional practitioner relationship.

Owning our cultural identity factors.

Achieved versus ascribed credibility.

Introductions, Greetings, Connections without Privilege.

Mindfulness, Meditation & Contemplative Practices

‘Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you're mindful, you carefully observe your thoughts and feelings without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to your current experience, rather than dwelling on the past or anticipating the future. (Howard Zinn)

What, Why, When?

~Valuing culturally

Grounded

Paradigms

Contemplative Practices

Mindfulness & Trauma-Informed Practice

What, Why, When? • Push Factors – poverty, violence, war

• Experiences during migration

• Cumulative Impact of migration – unique and collective trauma narrative, losses, guilt, isolation, acculturative stress, mental health

• Connections to teaching about Legacies and Social Trauma (Genocide, Slavery, Hate Crimes, Experiences of Colonialization, Past and Current Immigrant and Refugees experiences)

• Connections to Teaching about Social Justice issues

Moving Toward Cultural Humility ~An Overview

Cultural humility – the ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented (or open to the other) in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the individual (student/client).

Moving Toward Cultural Humility

MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING COMPETENCIES (MCCs) Derald Wing Sue

• Counselor knowledge about different cultures and cultural perspectives.

• Counselor skills to utilize culturally appropriate approaches.

• Counselor awareness of their own and their clients’ cultural heritage and the influence of culture on attitudes, beliefs and experiences.

Role of Language

•Differential access, social determinants of well-being

•Misuse of family members

•Difference between translation and culturally appropriate interpretation

Example: Cross-Cultural Interpretation Services, Heartland Alliance

https://www.crossculturalinterpretingservices.org/

Moving Toward Cultural Humility

MULTICULTURAL ORIENTATION (MCO) Sidney Shaw (Research)

• Clients’ perception of the counselor’s level of cultural humility

• The degree to which the counselor addresses culture and cultural opportunities in the session.

MCO influences outcomes by:

• Reducing the frequency and impact of microaggressions (which are associated with poorer outcomes)

• Effectively utilizing dynamic sizing in sessions.

• Creating a culture of feedback

Moving Toward Cultural Humility

‘Multicultural Orientation: Cultural Humility and Responding to Cultural Opportunities in Counseling, Sidney Shaw• Outcomes (WITH cultural humility)

• Counselors who are high in cultural humility typically engage in collaborative, open exploration with clients regarding their cultural identity as a salient factor in treatment.• Strong positive correlation between client’s perspective of the

counselor’s cultural humility and client outcomes (client/counselor bond, increased wellness at end of treatment)

• Also, CH mitigates the impact of ‘missed opportunities’.

Moving Toward Cultural Humility

‘Multicultural Orientation: Cultural Humility and Responding to Cultural Opportunities in Counseling, Sidney Shaw

• Outcomes (w/ cultural opportunities)

• Client improvement and increased wellness at the end of counseling were strongly negatively correlated with missed cultural opportunities. In other words, outcomes were poor when counselors missed opportunities to discuss cultural identity when related to treatment.

Can you picture these Opportunities in your experience with clients?

Moving Toward Cultural Humility ~ The Culturally Grounded Social Work/Human Services Practice Continuum(Marsiglia and Kulis. Diversity, Oppression & Change: Culturally Grounded Social Work. 2015)

Culturally

Grounded

Competence

Sensitivity

Awareness

Contemplation

Resistance

Unaware

Moving Toward Cultural Humility ~ Intro to the Integrative Transnational Practice Model

Transnational Practice – encompasses a variety of generalist, educational and clinical approaches that can and have been used to support the diverse needs of ethnically, culturally, religiously, and linguistically diverse individuals and communities. We use the term transnational, as opposed to international practice because of the multidirectional nature of connections we have with communities throughout the world.

(Lundy, Hilado, 2017)

The Integrative Transnational Model: Models for Practice with Immigrants & Refugees

Collaboration

*Cultural Humility

Self-Determination

Solidarity

Intersectionality

Post-colonial Perspectives

Moving Toward Cultural Humility ~ Foundations of The Integrative Transnational Model

Collaboration

• Working with the client/student system

*Cultural Humility

• Acknowledge what we do not know and need to learn in order to be useful for student/ client self-determination of goals.

Self-Determination

• Believing in and working with students/clients toward their hopes & dreams for their own lives and the lives of their families

Solidarity (IT Model) • ‘Walking’ with an other on his/her/ journey in a new land

• Social Justice: challenges unjust power structures & systems that negatively impact the vulnerable and oppressed

• Importance of Human relationships: Engage people as partners in social change and promote the well-being of all people

• Implications for direct and indirect services with Immigrant and Refugee groups, and People of Color

What can Solidarity Look like?

• An awareness of oppressive systems of power

• Courage and Committed to Growth

• Awareness of Privilege

• Knowing when to step up and more importantly, when to step back

• Using social position and power to challenge cultural hegemony

• Educating and informing members of our own community

• Acting in Solidarity is Allyship, which is a vehicle for change

Examples:

Having the courage to challenge assumptions of blame.

Actively stating observations of bias in service delivery.

Finding common ground for what provides safety and welcome.

Supporting single causes that are led by POC.

Media Example

‘Social and Racial Justice’, by Tim Wise

https://youtu.be/gRpoI_E0kiQ

Moving Toward Cultural Humility ~ Foundations of The Integrative Transnational Model

Intersectionality

• Intersectionality: the view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity. - Kimberlé Crenshaw, 1989.

• Layers of complexity that combine identity, structures, unique circumstances and discrimination (isms and obias) to impact a person

Moving Toward Cultural Humility ~ Foundations of The Integrative Transnational ModelPost-colonial perspectives

• Theoretical approach concerned with human consequences of colonialization.

• Integrates post-colonialism with perspectives of social justice and self-determination.

• Recognizes implications of systems of

oppression and privileges

• Service providers leverage privilege to serve

others and acts as allies to promote

well-being of immigrant, refugee and

communities of color

Moving Toward Cultural Humility ~The Integrative Transnational Model (2)Personal Context and Experience of Transnational Individuals & Families

• Resiliency

• Spirituality/Religion/Faith

• Cultural Values

• Process of migration experience for individuals and family systems

• Health and Mental Health

• *Resources

• Education

• Client Self-Determination

• *Role expectations

Moving Toward Cultural Humility ~The Integrative Transnational Model (3)Personal Context and Experience of Transnational Individuals & Families

• Intergenerational conflicts, separation, loss of communication

• Acculturative stress due to new identity and context, and gaps between parents and kids

• Stress directed at family unit

• Trauma, PTSD; war, poverty or targeted violence in home community

• Seeking higher wages, education

Best Practices for Integrative Transnational Model

1 – Core commitment to client/student self-determination

2 – Belief in social justice

3 – Readiness to adapt Western theory to fully respond to the needs of the person/family

4 – Honors perspectives and history of different cultures, migration patterns and lived experiences

5 – Develops culturally sensitive, collaborative, affirming and mutually respectful relationship

Best Practices for Integrative Transnational Model

6 – Upholds cultural imperatives to bridge, maintain and connect generations

7 – Upholds cultural imperatives to bridge, maintain and connect intergenerational and relocated family systems as desired by I and R’s

8 – Align with social change and an active commitment to it.

9 – Cognizant of reality that needs relevant, culturally sensitive services.

Best Practices: Keys to Service(various settings)• Don’t categorize; use your client’s terms

• Know why you’re asking questions (in an intake, example) , and understand why agency needs that information

• Consider the whole person

• Partner with your client

• Manage your curiosity

• On an organizational level, examine relevance of assessments and processes to service delivery, i.e. inclusive communication

Narratives of Lived Experiences

Examples of how cultural humility gives us new perspectives ieconcept of what constitutes positive community health, mental health/illness, poverty/homelessness, responses to persons with disabilities, charity vs social justice, etc.

Insights and Lessons LearnedAre you open to treating others as experts on their own lives?

Use intervention models focused on cultural humility?

Intentionally creating safe and brave spaces?

Can I? Do I? Will I?

Insights and Lessons Learned

What are your insights?

HOPEFUL INSIGHTS– Realize the Learning process for ourselves as practitioners (studying, experiential)

– Awareness of blind spots in self awareness of knowledge or biases

– Understand relevance to intersectionality of cultural identity factors

HOPEFUL INSIGHTS

– Look at community services and partnerships/organizations as Resources

- Be Aware of Current Issues

Impacting our Immigrant, Refugee,

and communities of color

- How do we create a safe and brave

spaces for our clients?

Being an Ally

‘Assume that in spite of the ways we have been divided,

it is possible through those divisions, to listen to each other well and

to change habitual ways of acting which have kept us separated.

Dr. Ricky Sherover-Marcuse,

Diversity Trainer and Psychologist.

http://www.unlearningracism.org/

Contributions, Questions

We can be the peace

amidst the storms.

Thank you!!