Western Highlands Network
Friday E-Mail Newsletter
Number 77
12/1/2006
The Friday E-Mail is a weekly update for providers by the Services Management Department of Western Highlands Network. Please distribute to all your staff.
How Can I Become a More Culturally Competent Clinician?
As the population of Western North Carolina becomes more diversified, cultural and linguistic competency in mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse treatment is more important than ever.
Research indicates that cultural and linguistic competency leads to higher consumer satisfaction and better treatment outcomes. Becoming culturally and linguistically competent is a process, not an event. It takes practice and commitment.
Below are 10 tips to help you become a more culturally and linguistically competent clinician.*
- Acknowledge and explore your own biases and prejudices.
- Learn about the traditions, culture, rules of interaction, family and social roles, health/ illness beliefs, and practices of the population groups you serve.
- Determine the consumer’s preferred language prior to the visit. Arrange for a professional interpreter to be present if necessary.
- Learn and use a few basic greetings in your consumer’s primary languages as a means of establishing rapport and trust.
- Use a little small talk initially to establish a personal relationship.
- Use cross-cultural interview techniques to avoid profiling or stereotyping! Question the consumer about beliefs relating to illness causation, treatment, and cure.
- Don't ridicule or dismiss these beliefs or any advice or alternative treatment the consumer may have been given by a traditional healer.
- Respect religious or cultural rules prohibiting touch or treatment by a person of the opposite sex.
- Learn and respect, as much as legally possible, consumer health decision-making practices and preferences regarding the disclosure of bad news.
- Negotiate a treatment plan that is acceptable to the consumer's
belief system and lifestyle as well as uses evidence based practice.
*WHN gratefully acknowledges the work of Suzanne Salimbene, PhD.
Charlie Schoenheit
Director of Services Management
Western Highlands Network
356 Biltmore Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
Telephone: (828)258-3511 x2219
FAX: (828) 225-2779
E-Mail: Charlie@westernhighlands.org
Website: westernhighlands.org
