Cultural Competence In Human Service

736 Words2 Pages

Cultural Competence
I choose Chapter 4 Cultural Competence for the class discussion, and I addressed the following two points from the chapter. The first one was about Your Ethical Responsibility while working in the Human Service profession and the second was about Important Points to be Remember in Cross -Culture Interactions.
Let’s begin with what is the Culture? It is defined as “the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them" Lederach, J.P. (1995). Now let’s understand what cultural competence is. It can be defined as “the ability to honor and respect the beliefs, language, interpersonal styles, and behaviors of individuals and families receiving services, as well as staff who are …show more content…

Why is so important to possess cultural knowledge in the field of human service? Firstly, is my understanding based on the class discussion and the text book information, that as human service professionals, we must constantly maintain direct interactions with other human beings. Secondly, knowledge about the client’s culture may prevent so many misunderstandings and help a lot to bring the expected outcome within the timeframe. Let’s make it clear with one example. Several days ago during a class discussion about a cultural topic, one of the students comment in the class discussion that she belongs from Haitian culture and in their culture making eye contact while talking is considered disrespectful. On the other hand, in American culture while speaking, if someone does not make eye contact, leads to believe that the person speaking is lying. Thus, it is a significant contradiction between two cultures and may creating misunderstanding if individual does not aware about these culture. That is why having some basic knowledge about a client’s culture plays a vital role In the Human

Open Document