Cultural Competence

Cultural Competence Paper

Whitney Cervantez

CJS/221

Stephen Humphries

Cultural Competence Paper

Cultural competence is understanding and being able to adapt by responding to the unique combination of cultural variables of all walks of like. Full range of dimensions of diversity that the professional and client/patient/family every day person regardless of their ideology, education level, gender, sex, color, age, disability, religion bring to interactions. As people develop cultural competence we realize it is a dynamic and complex process, even for those who are noticeably more inclined to it or who picked up on this earlier. It requires ongoing self-assessment and continuous expansion of one's cultural knowledge. It evolves over time and never stops. It begins with an understanding of one's own culture, while continuing through interactions with individuals from various cultures, and extending through one's own lifelong learning. It takes empathy as well to at time to understand where someone else is coming from which gives us an emotional side of their culture, being that everyone has emotions but expresses them variously. Though there is a foundation to emotions such as happiness reflecting smiling, that does not mean a catatonic schizophrenic is not happy because they are not smiling. Cultural competence is more than what we visually see, that is only using sight for observing when we have other senses that help us relate, determine similarities and differences. I will be going over the advantages of cultural competence, how it should be used in the criminal justice agency and my personal experience.

Becoming cultural competent has benefits when it comes to social, health and business for healthcare organizations such as State hospitals. “The San Antonio State Hospital provides intensive inpatient diagnostic, treatment, rehabilitative, and referral services for seriously mentally ill persons from South Texas regardless of their financial status. Admission may be voluntary or involuntary depending on whether the patient is determined by a court to be seriously mentally ill, dangerous to self or others, or if left untreated would deteriorate to the point of becoming dangerous to self or others. SASH attempts to involve the patient's family in the treatment/rehabilitation process to the degree legally and clinically feasible.” The goal os the San Antonio State Hospital is to treat each patient of the hospital with a comprehensive, individualized treatment program that they feel enhances the patient's ability to function successfully in the community. The San Antonio State Hospital expeditiously places each patient in the most appropriate, least restrictive environment possible. If you can convery cultural competence to the mentally ill in hopes of them to lead a successful life, anyone can catch on to cultural competence. Advantages of cultural competence is taught best through praise and reward. People want to feel like they are accomplishing unity so to be color blind, unbiased, impartial requires one to drop all doubt. Teaching cultural competence is a value in the same way it would be in a state hospital, the goal is to remold someone to coexist within society.

Cultural competence is vital in the criminal justice system because to know what justice is and injustice you cannot look at life necessarily always in your own eyes, that leads to false perspective. For people get a fair trial we hold them accountable for their actions not by what they look like, even in the event that a person is mentally ill they too are held to the same standards if we are going to say there is no ignorance to the law. Also In an ever-growing diverse society, it is quickly becoming imperative upon essential for estate planning attorneys to be culturally competent to effectively serve their diverse and evolving clients. Culture we can see is described as the combination of a body of knowledge, a body of belief, and a body of behavior. It is imperative to be mindful of a client’s cultural background, it’s important to be stay mindful of the characteristics that can define different cultures.

I was born in Lindsay. California my family moved to Idaho, Arkansas, Kansas and then we made our way Texas. At the beginning of my life’s journey I had a pretty good understanding of what it was to be culturally competent. While living in Wichita, Kansas I lived on an Air Force base and my time on the base was mind expanding in a cultural sense. Life on base is patriotic from everyone’s point of view from Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, African American and more. There was nothing unusual about meeting a new friend who was born in Germany but they were black or Hispanics born in Japan. Globalization I feel like happens through the military and slowly expands with it. Living on base being a part of the military life gives you a even broader perspective on culture and what it means to be unbiased and impartial. Troops are trained to use critical thinking, be a step ahead of probability. They can’t go into other countries and be prepared to raise their weapons. Instead they go in mindfully and react accordingly with society, they represent citizens, their government, the law and more.

Being that it is the year 2018 it is quite clear that as much as we are evolving and becoming more culturally competent we need to stress this to society. In America President Donald Trump was voted in to be America’s President; a man who quote said “Grab them pussy” speaking about women implying that women want to be sexually groped. Where is the cultural competence there you may ask but our President is more culturally competent in the ways of trade, money, foreign exchange and life is but a business transaction rather than an overall pursuit to lead this country in a forward direction. It will take the citizens of not only America but everyone across the globe to come together in alliance to agree upon that cultural competence is progressive and is where we want to see ourselves truly be as we evolve, adapt and continue histories timeline.

References

American Bar. (). Retrieved from http:// https://www.americanbar.org/publications/probate_property_magazine_2012/2016/march_april_2016/2016_aba_rpte_pp_v30_2_article_madaan_cultural_competency_and_the_practice_of_law_in_the_21st_century.html

DSHS. (). Retrieved from http://www.dshs.texas.gov/mhhospitals/SanAntonioSH/SASH_Goals.shtm