HHS 320 Cultural Awareness in the Human Services WK5-1

p. 209-214

Multicultural Competency

Earlier chapters of this text have alluded to competencies and skills that successful counselors acquire and apply when assisting culturally diverse clients. Chapter 9, for example, covers the skills of the multicultural counselor, discusses appropriate assessment, diagnosis, and treatment decisions, and briefly presents group procedural issues in working with diverse populations. In addition, the “Counseling Inferences” section of each chapter has addressed some competencies in general terms. This section presents more specific information about the development of multicultural competencies.

The Professional Standards Committee of the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD) is credited with developing basic competencies and standards of practice for multicultural counseling (Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992). This landmark document delineated essential cultural competencies across three major categories: counselor awareness, knowledge, and skills. A few years later, Arredondo, Toporek, Brown, Jones, Locke, Sanchez, and Stadler (1996) provided further explanation about how counselors apply these competencies in practice. Specifically, they illustrated how awareness, knowledge, and skills manifest themselves in attitudes, beliefs, understanding, and interventions chosen by counselors. The following sections briefly summarize the three basic categories with a few explanations and apply them across the helping professions. Readers are encouraged to review the original references for detailed explanation and understanding of these competencies.

Competency I: Counselor’s Awareness of Own Cultural Values and Biases

Attitudes and Beliefs.

Competent counselors and human service professionals believe that self-awareness, particularly about their own culture’s influences, and sensitivity to their cultural heritage are essential. They realize the impact culture has had on their self-development, in both positive and negative ways, and are able to identify particular cultural groups, values, and beliefs that have had the most significant influence in developing their self-view and overall worldview. Furthermore, they are aware of how they translate these perceptions into common thoughts, personal feelings, and daily behavior. Exercise 11.2 asks you to explore some attitudes and beliefs that might affect your performance as a culturally effective counselor or human service professional.

Successful professional counselors and helpers are also aware of the multitude of ways that cultural background and experience might influence thought processes, decision making, and problem-solving behaviors. Identity factors such as race, religion, sexual orientation, and others are understood as significant contributors to self-development and psychological/cognitive processes for both counselors and their clients.

Exercise 11.2

My Cultural Awareness

Instructions: Complete the sentences about your racial, cultural, ethnic, sexual, and other identities. After completing each sentence, contemplate how these views and beliefs might affect your functioning as an effective helper. What might you do to increase or heighten your cultural awareness?

1. About my racial identity, I believe ________________________________________________

2. About other races, and in particular ________________, I believe _______________________

3. About my sex, I believe _________________________________________________________

4. In general, I believe members of the opposite sex _____________________________________

5. The most important person in my life has been (or is) _________________________________

6. The most important group to which I belong is _______________________________________

7. I believe that sexual orientation ___________________________________________________

8. People who have a different sexual orientation than I do _______________________________

9. What I know about my own culture ________________________________________________

10. About religion, I believe _________________________________________________________

11. My awareness of diverse religions _________________________________________________

12. People who follow no religion ____________________________________________________

13. My ethnic awareness ____________________________________________________________

14. Awareness of my family background and roots _______________________________________

15. The most influential aspects in my development have been _____________________________

Additional attitudes and beliefs associated with this first competency relate to counselors’ understanding of their professional limitations when working across cultures. Such limitations may be related to lack of knowledge, undeveloped skills, or unwavering beliefs and values that hinder the establishment of effective counseling relationships. In addition, these attitudes and beliefs might limit a helper’s effectiveness due to discomfort regarding certain differences in identity factors that exist in the relationship between the counselor and client. As examples, counselors and other therapists sometimes have difficulty with racial issues presented by clients, struggle with differences regarding religious beliefs, or are unable to overcome prejudices about particular groups that hold different views or lifestyles, such as homosexuals.

Knowledge.

Culturally competent professional helpers attain knowledge about their cultural heritage, including racial and ethnic identity, and understand how this background influences their definitions of and beliefs about normality and abnormality in counseling relationships. In addition, their knowledge includes an understanding of how racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of oppression, discrimination, and stereotypic behavior influence the effectiveness of professionals, particularly their functioning with diverse clients. Furthermore, successful counselors and therapists know how a particular racial, cultural, ethnic, or other social identity grants them certain unearned privileges. By being White, tall, male, heterosexual, physically attractive, able-bodied, or affluent, some people may receive privileges that society denies to other persons or groups that do not share these characteristics.

Self-knowledge includes an understanding by counselors and other professionals of how clients might perceive and interpret their behaviors and functions in the helping process. Knowing that certain verbal and nonverbal behaviors may be inappropriate or why selected assessment or intervention strategies might prove counterproductive with particular clients is indicative of a culturally sensitive and knowledgeable professional.

Skills.

Counselors and other professionals who are culturally aware continuously seek educational opportunities and learning experiences to expand their knowledge and capability. In addition, they willingly consult with colleagues and other professionals as appropriate to verify their understanding of particular cases and counseling practices when working with challenging situations. Similarly, they know when to refer cases to ensure that all clients receive the best possible care, and they remain informed about appropriate, culturally sensitive referral sources in their community.

Another skill related to becoming a culturally aware and sensitive helper relates to a continuous search for understanding oneself as a racial/cultural being who actively works to establish a nonracist identity and, furthermore, seeks to create a nonracist society. This skill parallels the characteristics of advocacy and social justice explored in Chapter 9 of this text. Counselors and human service professionals who use their skills to establish a nonracist identity while seeking to create nonracist societies move beyond typical counseling relationships to more proactive interventions in the larger community.

Competency II: Counselor’s Awareness of Clients’ Worldviews

Attitudes and Beliefs.

Effective helpers understand how their beliefs, including biases and prejudices, will enable or prevent them from becoming aware of how clients view themselves and the world around them. Specifically, culturally competent counselors and therapists understand how their reactions toward clients and stereotypic views might inhibit their ability to establish effective helping relationships. Genuine awareness of their biases and stereotypic thinking enables competent professionals to refer clients to more appropriate sources for assistance. As counselors and other helpers are able to move toward less judgmental positions regarding specific races, cultures, or groups, they expand the clientele they are able to serve effectively.

Knowledge.

An understanding of how traditional philosophies and theories of counseling might conflict with diverse cultures helps culturally competent professionals appreciate the Euro-American context within which counseling approaches were first established. Counselors and therapists balance this understanding with knowledge of cultural differences that stand in opposition to commonly held and promoted perspectives about so-called appropriate counseling and therapeutic methods.

Other knowledge acquired by culturally competent helpers concerns historic institutional barriers that have prevented, and continue to prevent, diverse populations from receiving appropriate care in existing mental health systems. Knowledge about such barriers enables counselors and others to be proactive in advocating for clients and seeking alternative methods of treatment when traditional systems fail to serve clients equitably. This knowledge includes an understanding of potential biases in assessment instruments and procedures, and subsequent misuse and misguided interpretation of assessment results.

Knowledge of family structures and functions including values and beliefs of diverse cultures is also important as noted in an earlier chapter of this text. Truly competent professionals are able to put aside personal values and beliefs that might conflict with family values and beliefs of their clients. By knowing community resources that will respect diverse family structures and values, counselors are better able to assist diverse groups of clients.

Finally, knowledge of social forces and community practices that continue as vestiges of discrimination, oppression, racism, and other conditions or beliefs negatively affecting the mental health and well-being of members of society, particularly those who receive assistance from counselors and other professional helpers, is essential. As noted earlier, proactive counselors and human service providers are knowledgeable about laws, policies, programs, and other aspects of society at the local and national levels that have negative impacts on diverse populations.

Skills.

Many skills relate to the selection and use of appropriate interventions. First, competent professionals are capable of sending and receiving a variety of verbal and nonverbal messages in the helping relationship. Furthermore, they are able to adapt and alter their communication styles to fit the needs of clients. By communicating effectively with all clients, counselors and therapists are better able to discern if clients’ problems are a result of external forces rather than internal thought processes.

Successful helpers are also able to help their clients negotiate institutional regulations and policies that might unduly inhibit or unjustly discriminate. In addition, they have skills to reach out to other professionals, religious and spiritual leaders, and indigenous healers when appropriate. The skills used to reach out also enable counselors and other helpers to seek alternative processes when language is a barrier. By locating interpreters and seeking information and publications written in languages understood by clients, they demonstrate acceptance of and respect for diversity.

Assessment skills are another area of competency. Successful counselors and human service professionals are skilled in the use and interpretation of traditional instruments and procedures, but they consistently use those skills with cultural awareness and sensitivity. Likewise, they use skill and understanding to assess and educate others in an effort to eradicate biases and prejudices that have persisted in society and fostered oppressive and discriminatory practices. Equally important, professional helpers use their assessment and educational skills to inform clients of their rights and about what to expect within the helping relationship.

Human Service Education

Before leaving this section on preparation and education of helping professionals, we consider again the standards of the National Organization for Human Service Education (NOHSE, 2004a). Section II of those standards includes 17 statements—#38 through #54. Each statement provides guidance to human service educators about principles and processes for preparing competent human service professionals. They include language about academic freedom, explicit program goals and objectives, relevant curriculum, quality supervision in field experiences, and other aspects of strong education programs of study to ensure preparation of competent professionals. The introduction to these statements encourages educators to be informed by and accountable to the standards of their respective disciplines. The American Counseling Association, the National Board of Certified Counselors, and the National Organization for Human Service Education are included in the list of organizations that represent various professional disciplines.

The preceding sections summarize counselor competencies and explanations presented in the multicultural literature (Arredondo et al., 1996). In addition to learning about these competencies and gaining awareness, knowledge, and skills to apply them consistently and accurately with clients, counselors and human service professionals also want to know about laws and other policies that have affected diverse populations in the past and continue to do so in present-day society. The next section presents an overview of legislation and legal issues that have influenced the multicultural movement.