Reaching New Heights

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Reaching New Heights

• Achieving Cultural Proficiency
• Working with the Changing Populations of Family
  Planning Clinics
• 2007 Family Planning Project Directors Meeting
• Austin, Texas
• November 13, 2007
• Alfonso Carlon
• Center for Health Training

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Learning Objectives

• Define culture, cultural proficiency, community
  proficiency, diversity and parity
• Describe the power of a systems approach to
  cultural proficiency
• Explore steps to building organizational cultural
  capacity

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Exercise Diversity Profile (Pam Wilson, Wilson
Consulting Group, 2007)

• Silently complete (2 minutes)
• Find one person you do not know
• Share one item that is very different for you
  today than 10-15-20 years ago
• One partner shares for 4 min, while the other
  listens, then switch when time is called

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What part of ourselves do we leave at home?
What do organizations loose when they do not
see, hear or understand this diversity?
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Definitions

• Culture
• Ones worldview, values, beliefs, customs and
  behaviors influenced by ones race, ethnicity,
  national origin, primary language, religious
  beliefs/spirituality, class/socioeconomic status,
  gender, sexual orientation, age, history, gender
  identity, geography, etc.

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Definitions

• Cultural Proficiency
• Possessing sufficient knowledge, skills, and
  experience to communicate effectively with and
  work together with someone from a different
  culture
• Community Proficiency
• Evolves from the concept of cultural proficiency
  and is tied to the history of a community
  (connected to the current actions you want to
  take)

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Definitions

• Diversity
• Having individuals or organizations of different
  backgrounds as a part of a group (static make-up
  of a group, rather than processes).
• Parity
• Being equal in process and outcomes and having
  the ability to equally participate in the
  planning and implementation of key activities,
  programs and policies

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Power of a Systems Approach

• Moves beyond cultural proficiency training for
  board, staff and volunteers
• Focuses on organizational components that impact
  cultural proficiency
• Promotes ongoing assessment and staging of
  recommendations for action

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Components of Systems Assessment
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Terry CrossModel of Cultural Competency

• Offers an organizational and individual framework
• Describes cultural competency as movement along a
  continuum
• Can be at different stages of development
  simultaneously on the continuum
• --Terry L. Cross, Towards a Culturally Competent
  System of Care (Vol. 1), June 1989

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Cultural Competency Continuum
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Steps in the Assessment Process

• Meet with the organizations leaders
• Collect data and documents
• Conduct a management assessment
• Conduct staff and volunteer surveys
• Conduct client surveys and community assessment
• Review results and implement action planning
  process

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Case Study Board Findings

• Board has a goal statement that explicitly
  incorporates a commitment to cultural
  proficiency.
• Staff not aware of Boards commitment.

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Case Study Staff Findings

• There were efforts to recruit more diverse staff.
• Lack of bilingual staff and no formal interpreter
  services.

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Case Study Client-Level Findings

• LaWonderful agency has a client satisfaction
  survey in English and Spanish.

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Case Study Community Findings

• Staff identified specific populations they were
  reaching, but could not identify current
  organizational community partnerships.

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Where to go next? Action!

• Use a stages of readiness model to develop,
  launch, and sustain cultural and community
  proficiency efforts.
• Model informed by Prochaska and DiClementes
  stages of change
• Pre-contemplation
• Contemplation
• Preparation
• Action
• Maintenance

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Action!

• The key is evaluation of organizational progress
  from one stage to the next on any of the areas
  listed in the work plan.
• Tracking changes can inform a plan to address
  cultural proficiency within your organization.

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Stages of Readiness Model
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Instructions

• Select an issue
• Identify the stage of readiness for your
  organization
• Brainstorm strategies
• Identify one strategy that will help move your
  organization to the next stage

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ApplicationStages of Readiness Model
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ApplicationStages of Readiness Model

• Reflection and Dyads

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Culture can be vibrant and loud or sometimes
quiet and subtle, but it is always there, shaping
the ways in which we view the world.

• Mona Lake Jones

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Alfonso Carlon Project Director/Senior Staff
Trainer acarlon_at_jba-cht.com