2. Outline for the day
What is culture .. for you ?
Competence .. The challenge !
Defining cultural competence
The Fanon Care approach
How are we doing ?
3. Exercise 1 Who am I ?
Pairs – 5 mins. each
Explain… who am I,
Explain… what is my culture
Feedback to larger group
4. Common responses (1)
Lack of knowledge - resulting in an
inability to recognize the differences
Self-protection/denial - leading to
an attitude that these differences are
not significant, or that our common
humanity transcends our differences
5. Common responses (2)
Fear of the unknown or the new -
because it is challenging and perhaps
intimidating to get to understand something
that is new, that does not fit into one's world
view
Feeling of pressure due to time
constraints - which can lead to feeling
rushed and unable to look in depth at an
individual patient's needs
6. Exercise 2 small groups
1. How do you react when confronted with a "new"
patient situation that does not fit your expectations?
Does the situation provoke feelings of anxiety and
discomfort? Are you able to assess what is going
on within yourself as well as within the patient?
2. Do you have strategies to use to gain clarification of
a puzzling situation, and to enhance both your own
and your service users understanding?
3. Are you able to support and help service users to
understand that they are impacted by the same
factors as you, regarding cultural differences in
beliefs, expectations, behaviours?
7. Knowledge / Awareness / Sensitivity
The idea of more effective cross-cultural
capabilities is captured in many terms
similar to cultural competence. Cultural
knowledge, cultural awareness, and
cultural sensitivity all convey the idea of
improving cross-cultural capacity, as
illustrated in the following definitions:
9. …Awareness
Cultural Awareness developing sensitivity
and understanding of another ethnic group.
This usually involves internal changes in
terms of attitudes and values. Awareness
and sensitivity also refer to the qualities of
openness and flexibility that people develop
in relation to others. Cultural awareness must
be supplemented with cultural knowledge
10. …Sensitivity
Cultural Sensitivity Knowing that
cultural differences as well as
similarities exist, without assigning
values, i.e., better or worse, right or
wrong, to those cultural differences
11. Culture … a definition
culture is the integrated pattern of
human behaviour that includes
thoughts, communications, actions,
customs, beliefs, values, and
institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or
social groups
12. Competence … a definition
competence is having the capacity to
function in a particular way: the capacity
to function within the context of
culturally integrated patterns of human
behaviour defined by a group
