Re: cultural competence

[lisa fontes <lfontes@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I know of no research to document the effectiveness of cultural
competency trainings in child welfare. however, after high quality
trainings
agencies often change their policies and individual
clinicians/interviewers/workers etc. often
report that they have some new ideas about how to work with people from
specific populations,
and where to find information about how to work with people from other
populations. Agencies make their paperwork more inclusive and make it
available in a variety of languages. They
learn how to use interpreters properly. They learn about cultural issues
in discipline and attitudes
toward "the system," etc. They learn about their own biases and how they
might impact their
work. They learn when cultural/ethnic matching might be important, and
when it is not adviseable.
THey learn about non-verbal communications in different cultures.

APSAC (the American Prof. SOciety on the Abuse of CHildren) has held a
full day of cultural diversity trainings in relation to child
maltreatment at the first day of its annual colloquium every year
for the last 5 years. The evaluations tend to be very positive.

In my
opinion, it is important that these trainings NOT be general Cultural
Competence 101, but
rather geared to the specific issues (e.g. interviewing, sexual abuse
therapy) and settings in
which people work.

Please let me know if you hear of any research in this area-I would
certianly welcome it. And feel free to contact me if you
have any questions  that I might be able to help with. I do quite a bit
of training
in this area.
Lisa Fontes, Ph.D.
lfontes@javanet.com

bill higgins wrote:

> Is there any research to support the effectiveness of
> culture competence training - with regards to child
> welfare caseworkers (e.g., lower placement rates,
> better treatment plans, etc.)?
>
> Bill
>
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