| PROGRAMS & INITIATIVES |
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| Cultural Competency |
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Goals:
- To ensure that everyone we come into contact with is treated in a manner compatible with their cultural beliefs and practices, preferred language, physical ability and gender.
- To recruit, retain and promote a diverse staff at all levels of the organization.
- To develop collaborative partnerships and facilitate community and client/consumer involvement.
- To ensure that staff at all levels receive ongoing education and training in culturally, linguistically and gender appropriate service delivery, policy, and planning.
- To ensure that data on individual clients’/consumers’ race, ethnicity, gender, and primary language are collected in confidential records, integrated into data information systems and periodically updated.
What is Cultural Competency?
Cultural competency is based on respect for individuals and cultural differences. It means having the knowledge and skills to adjust perceptions, behaviors, and practice styles to meet the needs of different ethnic or racial groups. When professionals are culturally competent, they establish positive relationships with clients and colleagues, improving the quality of services they provide and producing better outcomes.
There are five essential elements that contribute to a system's ability to become more culturally competent. The system should:
- Value diversity.
- Have the capacity for cultural self-assessment.
- Be conscious of the "dynamics" that happen when cultures interact.
- Integrate cultural knowledge into all organizations within the system.
- Develop adaptations to service delivery that reflect an understanding of cultural diversity.
These five elements must be manifested in every level of the service delivery system and reflected in attitudes, structures, policies, and services.
The Role of OCCF in Cultural Competency
SB 555, passed by the Oregon Legislature in 1999, requires that local communities incorporate diversity in the development of their local coordinated comprehensive plans for children and families, as follows:
- Plans and planning processes must reflect the social, cultural and economic diversity in the community.
- Plans and planning processes must encourage the development of behaviors, attitudes and policies that enable organizations to deliver services in ways that meet the needs of diverse cultures and people with disabilities.
- Plans and planning processes must provide advocacy and opportunities for racial, ethnic, gender, and special needs individuals and groups to participate in the planning, design and delivery of plans and programs.
As the lead agency for guiding and coordinating comprehensive planning for children and families, the Oregon Commission on Children and Families (OCCF) and local commissions in each county play an important role in ensuring these principles are implemented. For that reason, the state Cultural Competency Coordinator is housed within OCCF.
The Cultural Competency and Gender Specific Services Committee (CC&GSS Committee), a subcommittee of Partners for Children and Families (PCF), serves as a significant state resource on ethnic and cultural diversity issues affecting each of the SB555 partner agencies. The CC&GSS Committee has developed a guideline of Cultural Competency Guidelines and Suggested Output and Outcome Measures to assist partnering agencies in developing and implementing cultural competency plans. In response to feedback gathered through both the Juvenile Crime Prevention and Local County Comprehensive planning processes, which identified a need for cultural competency training, the CC&GSS Committee developed and facilitated a Cultural Competency Training of Trainers. The goal of the training was to prepare a statewide cadre of qualified and accessible cultural competency trainers to provide trainings regionally, based on local needs.
For information contact:
Anya Sekino
Cultural Competency Coordinator
(503) 378-5115
anya.sekino(at)state.or.us
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