To Evidence Your Preparation for Practice, Demonstrate Your Cultural Competence in Relation to the Service User and Carer Groups with Whom You Will Be Working in Your Practice Placement. How Do You Position Yourself and

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When researching Cultural competence, American writers seem to favour Cross et. Al (1989) definition that ‘Cultural competence is a set of congruent behaviours, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency or among professionals and enable that system, agency or those professions to work effectively in cross-cultural situations’ (ncccuricula, NASW, 2010). But does cultural competence have to be an exact formula for delivering professional - service user relationships? It seems a process by which all human encounters can benefit and build upon developing awareness of each-others values, attitudes and beliefs; adapting to diversity and recognising a continuum of learning about how a person identifies with the world differently from themselves - the idea being to create an equal and fair role within a relationship. Homan’s (2007) definition portrays this more holistic approach to ‘individuals’, stating that ‘Cultural competence is the capacity to respond appropriately to the various cultural environments in which we may participate, enabling us to strengthen our relationships and accomplish our mutual purposes’, adding that ‘Cultural competence is both a value and an essential set of skills in our mobile, fluid society’. More recently, Ben-Ari & Strier (2010) concludes that all fluid concepts of cultural competence currently share two basic assumptions. Firstly that it is a “necessary and sufficient ‘condition’ for working effectively with differences and secondly; that it can be taught, learned, trained and attained”; and therefore presumably measured? Miller et al. (2010) talk of ‘Camphinha-Bacote’s Cultural Competence Model’ (2002) which states that there are five key constructs of cultural competence – ‘cultural desire, cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skill and cultural encounters’. Although this comprehensive model

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