Psychology

What are the main characteristics of the culturally skilled practitioner Develop an outline of a training program designed to enhance multicultural competency. Include the beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, and skills needed for culturally skilled practitioners.

As each one of us may come to agree, being culturally competent is essential in the practice of ones profession, especially in the field of healthcare, allied health and other professions whose nature is to constantly interact and deal with diverse people. As such, it is important that practitioners must be equipped with knowledge, attitude, skills, and values in order for them to be hailed as culturally skilled practitioners.

What does it take to be a culturally skilled practitioner is a good question that necessitates a conscientious enumeration of the main characteristics in order to become one. According to literatures, a culturally competent and skilled practitioner embodies traits or elements that include (1) self-awareness, (2) trustworthiness, (3) cultural sensitivity, and (4) ability to communicate effectively (Berman et al., 2008 Videbeck, 2006).

Videbeck (2006) upholds that self-awareness is important in examining ones own culture, beliefs, and personal prejudices, and how these qualities affect others. It is considered as the first step in realizing that a practitioner is different from other peopleclient a separate entity (Videbeck, 2006, p. 13). For this reason, before a practitioner can begin understand othersclients, he or she must first know himself or herself (Videbeck, 2006, p. 89).

Trustworthiness is also an imperative characteristic as practitioners need to win the trust of the clients in order to cross individual gaps, thereby paving the way to sharing of delicate information and exchange of ideas. In other words, trust must first be established before clients can be expected to divulge sensitive details about them (Berman et al., 2008, p. 324).

In the same way, being sensitive to the culture of others lets the practitioners to be more careful of their choice of words and be wary of their actions. Moreover, cultural sensitivity roots from the knowledge and understanding of the similarities and differences between cultures. Sensitivity also goes with respect respect for dissimilarities that may be present between the cultures of the practitioner and the client, respectively. In this way, culturally skilled practitioners will be able to convey a genuine desire to understand the clients beliefs and values (Berman et al., 2008, p. 324).

The ability to effectively handle communication is vital in the emergence of a true culturally skilled practitioner. This is because communication is the only means by which exchange of ideas and constant interaction between practitioners and clients are made possible. Notably, timing is a crucial aspect in communicating with clients that must be considered, particularly in introducing questions (Berman et al., 2008).  According to Berman and associates (2008), it matters as to how and when questions are asked, thus requiring correct timing coupled with sensitivity and clinical judgment.
Consequently, the most essential characteristics that help an ordinary practitioner to transcend and transform as culturally skilled practitioner have been explicated in the above discussion. With all those traits, the perceived outcomes in practice include promotion, maintenance, regaining or acquisition of mutually desired and attainable levels of health within the realities of life circumstances (Kagawa-Singer and Kassim-Lakha, 2003, p. 580). As such, the emergence of a culturally competent and skilled practitioner who delivers careservice that integrates the mind, the body, the spirit, and the cultural values of the individual could highly be evident (Fontane, 2005, as cited in Berman et al., 2008, p. 325).

In line with the key characteristics that are listed above, a training outline has been formulated in this paper in order to typify the culturally skilled practitioners multicultural competency.

A Proposed Training Program for the Enhancement of Multicultural Competency for Culturally Skilled Practitioners
Preparation Stage
Encouragingpromoting self-awareness among practitioners.
Orientation to possible cultures that could be encountered in practice (e.g. Asian, African American, Hispanics, etc.)
Strengthening of communication skills.
Strategic planning of activities including immersion and familiarization of languagesdialects spoken by prospective cultures.
Application Stage
Assessment of actual culturally diverse clients.
Conscientious practice application of multicultural knowledge base and relevant learned concepts.
Evaluation Stage
Appraisal of actions taken through reflection. This entails the use of a reflective model like the Gibbs Reflective Model (1988).
Assessment of outcomes on both parties (the clients and the practitioners).
Augmentation of multicultural knowledge base and possible re-training in line with the outcomes and perceptions derived from the application stage.