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Recognizing the role of cultural competence

Become culturally proficient

Youth Voice: What Does It Mean to My Organization?

Youth voice is a key underpinning of positive youth development. Benefits accrue to everyone when young people:

  • Make decisions alongside adults
  • Create or change public policy
  • Take leadership roles in organizations and the community

Youth voice is typically not an "either/or" condition in organizations and communities. It is mostly seen on a continuum ranging from zero youth voice to 100% youth -management.

Remember that for today's generation of youth, technology is a huge outlet for their voices. When possible, engage participants through such social networking avenues such as Facebook and MySpace. These are both great ways to "meet youth where they are at" and to demonstrate cultural respect for their method of interaction and communication. Source: YouthEngagementAndVoice.org

Everyone views the world through a cultural lens. As you plan your service program, examine how cultural perspective affects the way you, your staff, and other adults see youth and their families. Probe your personal beliefs and biases. Think about what you need to learn about prospective youth volunteers-and service recipients- so you're not operating on the basis of stereotypes. For example, you'll want to know their cultural backgrounds, personal beliefs, and values while providing opportunity for discussion around individual's viewpoints and self-identity.

Culture can refer to an individual's race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, immigration status and age, among other things. For organizations, cultural competency means creating practices and policies that make services more accessible and effective for diverse populations. In a youth-serving organization, issues of youth culture versus adult culture may be highlighted. Typically, adults have a tremendous amount of power over youth. This is especially true for youth in the foster care or juvenile justice systems, for who every aspect of life is controlled by adults. Encourage the adults in your organization to develop an understanding of youth culture, by reaching out to young people directly and asking genuine and engaging questions relevant to their lives. Gaining cultural competence is a long-term, developmental process that requires a commitment to diversity and consciousness-raising. Culturally competent individuals have a mixture of beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and skills that help them establish trust and communicate with others.

Depending on your community, program structure, and focus, practical implications might include:

  • Language barriers for non-English speaking youth and their families
  • Cultural traditions of youth and service recipients
  • High mobility of homeless youth and families
  • Generational differences
  • Transportation issues
  • Diverse family structures (i.e., teen parents, older youth caring for younger siblings) that affect young people's availability and schedules
  • Access for youth with disabilities
  • Recruitment and retention of diverse staff and volunteers

Anticipate these challenges—to the extent possible—and think about ways to prepare youth and adult volunteers and staff ahead of time. Explore how to tap into the cultural strengths of your youth volunteers, respect their differences, and show them you value who they are. This process takes time, so start small with getting-to-know-you activities that help build trusting relationships.

Gaining cultural competence is a long-term, developmental process. Culturally competent individuals have a mixture of beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and skills that help them establish trust and communicate with others. Visit the Planning Tools section of this toolkit for resources on building principles of diversity and inclusion into your service-learning program. For additional resources, visit: www.tolerance.org.

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