Environmental Health Sciences Breadth Course

Environ Sci, Policy, and Management 114, 001 - Spring 2014 Creative Commons 3.0: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

"Well-meaning", experienced and novice practitioners are often unaware of their own biases and cultural incompetence that impede culturally-based intervention strategies such as Family Group Decision Making (FGDM). Such impediments serve to feed ethnic minorities involvement into child welfare systems and do little to repair disproportionality. Although FGDM is inherently a culturally competent practice, intervention strategies related to specific cultures are necessary for true cultural competence. This workshop will provide further evidence of the merits of FGDM. As well, through theory and empirically-evidence practice, participants will leave the session with practical strategies to introduce FGDM to new arenas and improve existing practices. A wide range of cultures and various populations will be examined from a theoretical and clinical perspective. This is a strength-based approach to reaching cultural competency rather than a "guilt-ridden" exercise. This workshop will present theory, step-by-step implementation strategies; practice methods and corresponding data outcomes, all of which are needed to enhance practitioner skills, increase FGDM outcomes and reduce the rate of ethnic minority disproportionality in child welfare.

Foundations of American Cyber-Culture