Reflect on your Own Cultural Competence and your Current View of Your Culture as Well as Other Cultural Groups
I live in the developing state of the USA, known as Dallas Texas. My roots belong to White Americans who share the most common culture. From a religious perspective, I am Protestant, unlike, the other Americans who follow Catholic, Muslim or Jewish practices. As I am White American, so my spoken English is quite clear than Latin Americans living in the same region. White Americans share a common culture, unlike the Black American people. My parents got separated when I was a child; my mother is a single parent who rose me up. As America is comprised of different cultures and ethnic groups, I experienced the same during my educational attainment phase. Independency, privacy, and equality are the values which my mother always taught me. I lived with my mother and grandmothers, and the positive thing is that my grandmother is a socialized person so we always surrounded by people.
I mingled with different people belonging to different ethnic groups. I had a basic understanding of different ethnic groups, their culture, views, opinions and religious background. I always wanted to choose my profession in the healthcare sector. For that reason, I chose healthcare provider as my profession. I worked in the healthcare system in Dallas Tx, where I interact with different ethnic groups. Service provision to those groups who have similar cultural backgrounds is much easier than those who have different cultural backgrounds. My organizational culture is quite similar to my culture as it provides healthcare services to all patients equally and also believes in providing equal employment opportunities.
Examine And Describe Which Cultural Groups Would Be Stimulating And Beneficial For You To Work With
I work in a healthcare sector where I confront with patients and staffs belong to different ethnic groups. As I had large social gathering since my childhood but to confront with the same cultural groups is more easy yet stimulating while working in a healthcare service provision sector. The reason is that people who belong to the same cultural background understand the psyche, language, and other details more easily with those who belong to different cultural backgrounds like Latino and Hispanics. At my workplace, most of the ethnic groups I face belong to Latino, African American cultural backgrounds. The reason is that they are more prone to the chronic illness because of their less involvement in the healthy activities like walking, dressing, bathing, etc. which may lead them to indulge in chronic illness. As we believe in providing equal treatment to all the patients irrespective of their cultural groups, so we try to use therapeutics that minimizes their sufferings at the best possible ways.
The ratio of patients who come to my workplace from attaining cure belongs to African Americans and Latino mostly. Their cultural values are completely different from mine, yet I face quite a challenging task to comprehend their language. If I say that the most stimulating and beneficial cultural groups after white Americans are Latinos and African American, then it is not wrong. As the estimated ratio of patients at my workplace is more of Latino and African American cultural groups, so that is one of the most stimulating and beneficial factors for me. More patients will be satisfied if I can comprehend their language, psyche, and needs which may lead to my personal and professional progression.
Discuss the ethnic groups that might be challenging for you to work within the field of human services and explain the reasons for this. Also, talk about steps you can take to become more culturally competent to work with this particular population
The most challenging cultural groups I face at my workplace is nonwhite American like Latino and African American. The problem with that cultural group is that they are less likely come for regular checkups which cause different chronic illness among them. The language barrier is another constraint which causes me difficulty in understanding what the information they provide to me. Due to this reason, they do not get the treatment one should get in the healthcare system. Most of the minorities believe that healthcare providers do not take an interest in their illness due to their ethnic group.
The negative perception leads them nowhere but a high level of dissatisfaction with the treatment received. It is suggestable that to attain cultural competency one should focus on providing high-quality healthcare services to each patient irrespective of their caste, creed, religion or cultural groups. Following are the steps that should be taken to improve the patient-provider relationship:
Include minority staffs who belong to different cultural groups in the workforce
Provision of interpreter services
Provision of training to create awareness, skills and knowledge about different cultural groups
Involve community members and family in the healthcare decision-making
Build accessible clinic in the nearby areas where specific cultural groups population reside.
Augment the operational hours (Hildebrand, Phenice, Gray & Hines, 2007).
Include a synopsis of the course concepts that were most meaningful to you and will shape and improve your work with clients and families in the field of human services
References
Diller, J. V. (2014). Cultural Diversity: A Primer for the Human Services. (5th ed.). Brooks Cole.
Hildebrand, V., Phenice, L. A., Gray, M. M., & Hines, R. P. (2007). Knowing and Serving Diverse Families. (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall.
Ngo, H. V. (2000). Cultural competency: A self-assessment guide for human service organizations. Calgary, Alta.: Cultural Diversity Institute.
