Multicultural Competence: Frontline Human Service Providers Perspective

This article review will examine the information published by Caldwell, Tarver, Iwamoto, Herzberg, Cerda-Lizarraga, and Mack in the journal entry of Definitions of Multicultural Competence: Frontline Human Service Providers’ Perspective (2008). This article is a qualitative study where the authors explored definitions of multicultural competence given by frontline human service providers. While analyzing the different topics that were discussed in this article, information will be provided on the various aspects: assessing multicultural competence, limitations, research method, results, and summary. Additionally, this article review will provide an in depth summary and my opinion of what I thought about this article.
Article Information
This
article was a response to the concerns about the cultural competence of human service systems. The authors presented the research they have found on multicultural competence in this review. Valuable information has been mentioned in the different sub-topics. The authors mentioned that MCC (multicultural counseling competence) doesn’t have a dependable and articulate definition. Also, MCC has been limited to only participants in graduate counseling training programs or professional counseling organizations (Caldwell, Tarver, Iwamoto, Herzberg, Cerda-Lizarraga, and Mack 2008, p. 89). The qualitative study was for frontline human service providers (FLSP) in a small city in the mid-west to see how they defined cultural competence and recommend that training in multicultural competence be given to several human service providers.
Multicultural competence definition has been changed over the years.
It is now a 3 x 3 interaction of skills, attitudes competences, and knowledge with counseling domains (Sue, Arredondo, and McDavis. pg. 89). MCC consist of six dimensions or competences: self-awareness, general multicultural knowledge, multicultural counseling self-efficacy, ability to understand unique client variables, effective counseling alliance, and multicultural counseling skills. Any counselor or someone who works in the human services field should be open-minded to a client’s worldview and attitudes. Also, they should be knowledgeable in different cultural
backgrounds.
Research have shown that majority of the samples of multicultural competency are participants in graduate programs or professional organizations. There has been issues about the limitations addressing the overall service system and training of human service providers. Also, the question that was asked could have been misconstrued by some respondents. The time constraint for the participants to complete the questionnaire could have been another limitation because some people need more time than others.
In this particular study, there were 99 human service providers who volunteered in two cultural competency workshops in a small city with a population of 225, 581.
The primarily race was European American which made up 90% of the total population. Fall of 2001, data from 34 participants were collected and Fall of 2002, data from 65 participants were collected (Caldwell et al., 2008, p. 91). Majority of the participants were female except for 24 which were males. Also, 76% had earned a Bachelor’s Degree and 80% of participants worked in nonprofit organizations (Caldwell et al., 2008, p. 91).
Each participant has to complete a Multicultural Training and Experiences Questionnaire. This assessment was for the participants to self-report previous training experiences. They were asked to respond to four questions. The responses were coded on a 4-point scale (Caldwell et al., 2008, p. 92). Also, they were given an open-ended question, which they had to describe in detail what “Cultural competency for human service providers” meant.
The results of the study conclude: 57 % moderate training (3 or more classes), 29% little training, 9% extensive training, and 5% had no training (Caldwell et al., 2008, p.93) in response to services to ethnically/ racially diverse people. The results gave a more clear understanding of why human service providers need training in cultural
competency.
Personal Reflection
Overall, this article was very intriguing and informational. The information provided research on a great topic that would benefit human service providers especially ones that are currently not in graduate programs or professional organizations. I think this research project encourage the need to talk about multicultural competency and the need to have cultural competence training by offering brief training sessions to social service agencies. This will help eliminate the health disparities in the minority community if everyone has some type of background training in cultural competency.
I hope in the near future that everyone that will be working in the field of human services will be required to have training in multicultural competence. Individuals will benefit from this greatly. As mentioned above, this was such a great article that brought valid information to the light.