Everyone has a culture. Should everyone get culturally competent service?
The practical standard is that extraordinary effort will be directed toward any cultural group:
- whose understanding of health, mental health, illness or disability is sufficiently different from the mainstream to create a risk of sub optimal service as a result;
- whose family customs, social patterns, child-rearing practices and religious values are sufficiently different from the mainstream to create a risk of inaccurately. assessing family functioning;
- whose primary language is not English or whose means of communication is sufficiently different from mainstream as to risk misunderstanding essential elements of the clinical or professional interaction; or
- whose primary language is not English or whose means of communication is sufficiently different from mainstream as to risk misunderstanding essential elements of the clinical or professional interaction; or
- whose history of experiencing war or ethnic, racial, social or class-related discrimination is likely to have produced trauma or stressors beyond the norm.
Being of a cultural minority does not make a case manager culturally competent.
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