Cultural Competency & Diversity: Powerful Strategies to Improve Client Rapport & Multicultural Awareness – D. John Lee

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A Message from Your Speaker

I was raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, during an era when Canadians embraced the value of being a multicultural nation. I remember in college spending a semester studying French in Quebec City and experiencing what it is like to be a “fish out of water.” When I moved to the United States as a graduate student to study cross-cultural counseling, I had to learn how Americans think about diversity.

Now, after 35 years of research, teaching, consulting, and clinical work in the USA, I have a keen understanding of the challenges of providing mental health services in a multicultural and diverse society.

In this recording I will outline the knowledge, awareness and skills that clinicians should develop in order to work ethically, efficiently, and effectively with people from different cultures and ethnic groups. Your confidence will grow as you learn:

• The challenges of cultural competency 
• The need to build rapport and anticipate points of possible resistance
• Empirically-validated self-assessments to evaluate your strengths and growth areas, as well as design a professional development plan

You may just want to watch this seminar to receive 3 CE hours of cultural competency and 3.25 CE hours of ethics. But, I guarantee you will leave with so much more. This highly engaging and experiential program will challenge you to explore the intersection of your belief systems with your clinical work, and allows you to become more confident as a culturally sensitive clinician.

Gain a reputation in your community for being the premier therapist for working with diverse clients!

1. Apply DSM-5® cultural formulation to accurately assess cultural influences on diagnosis and treatment planning.
2. Review ethical standards for a culturally competent practice to inform clinical assessment and treatment.
3. Identify multiple intersecting identities and positionalities to build rapport and engagement with diverse clients.
4. Utilize clinical strategies to adapt interventions for clients from different cultural and ethnic groups.
5. Apply skills to overcome cultural barriers such as class, language, religion, and different belief systems to improve treatment outcomes.
6. Increase treatment effectiveness by recognizing different cultural values and unintentional microaggressions.

Cultural Competencies in Mental Health

• Evidence-based approach to cultural competence
• Trends in specific locale: variation and mental health needs
• Exercise: The universal, cultural, and individual

Ethics & the DSM-5®: Guidelines for the Integration of Cultural Competencies

• Cross-cultural variations in presentations
• Cultural concepts of distress
• DSM-5® cultural formulation
• Cultural factors influencing clients’ perspectives of their symptoms and treatment options
• Ethical standards for culturally competent practice

Overcome Dilemmas in Practice

• Working with limited English proficiency and bi/multilingual clients
• When to use an interpreter
• Distinguish cultural and racial factors in mental health care
• Recognize intersections of gender, race, age, ethnicity, religion, class, etc.
• Anticipate possible points of transference and resistance
• Exercise: Analyze intersecting identities and positionalities

Interventions & Strategies for Specific Populations

• Overview of trauma in cultural context
  • Assessments and tools
  • Medication: use and belief system
• Collaborate with traditional and/or natural healing practices
• Integrate and adapt interventions for different clients
  • Individualist versus collectivist adjustments
  • Cognitive-behavioral modifications
  • Psychodynamic variations
• Exercise: Broaching culture, ethnicity, and race

Limitations of Research and Potential Risks:

• Methodology and sampling
• Internal validity of design
• Generalizability of results
• Applications and utility