Cultural Competence in Social Care and Health
What does it mean to be "cultural competent"? Culture is a part of our identity. Culture is defined by shared experiences, such as language, history, beliefs and attitudes, cultural dress, diet, and other shared characteristics. Culture is essentially about understanding others from the same culture. Cultures are not inferior or superior, they are simply different. There has been a shift in the last few years to make 'cultural competence' a core aspect of professional practice in health and social services. Workers need to be able to work with people from other cultures. This is an improvement on being sensitive to others' needs. Recent years have seen professionals becoming more competent at working with culture and difference than being just'sensitive'. Cultural competence has largely replaced cultural sensitivity in health care and social work. Workers must be able articulate cultural competence if they are to be considered culturally competent. Compete...