Cultural Competency: My Understanding Of Cultural Humility

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Introduction Before taking this course, I believed that cultural competency was arguably the most crucial element for social workers to incorporate into their work with clients and when conducting culturally sensitive research. After studying the concept of cultural humility and analyzing its place in social work practice, I now understand why social workers prefer the concept of cultural humility over cultural competence. Cultural humility acknowledges that individuals are extremely complex beings, going beyond their racial and ethnic backgrounds, which ultimately helps the social worker to get a better understanding of who their clients are as individuals with unique life experiences. My Understanding of Cultural Humility My understanding of cultural humility …show more content…

The Move from Cultural Competence to Cultural Humility On a surface level, cultural competence and cultural humility describe very similar factors within ethical social work practice. However, cultural competence in practice often fails to encourage critical self-awareness that acknowledges the power imbalance between the social worker and the client (Fisher-Borne et al., 2015, p.169). Furthermore, cultural competency focuses on understanding an individual based on their culture as opposed to studying the many complexities that each individual possesses. This framework can cause unintentional harm in a helping relationship because focusing solely on an individual’s cultural identities can be a form of othering, focusing on what the differences are between groups of people. Cultural competence may define an individual/group based solely on their culture, not acknowledging the complexities that make each individual a unique member of