Competency Assessment

Cultural Competency Assessment

Team B

BSHS422

July 8, 2013

Terri Beard

Cultural Competency Assessment: Learning Team B

The number of minority families is quickly increasing in the United States. The ever-growing diversity can become challenging for professionals who work with minority populations. These professionals must be culturally competent to work successfully and provide positive outcomes for their clients. An effective way of checking oneself for cultural competency is to use the Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Tool. The following paper provides information on the tool, the results for team B members, and recommendations for improvement.

Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Tool

To assess the cultural competence for each team member, Team B elected to use the Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Tool. This cultural assessment tool is a questionnaire designed to explore and identify a person's cultural competence training needs (U Care, 2010). The Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Tool was created to help individuals recognize what they can do to become more effective in living and working in a diverse environment. There are seven questions total in this assessment, and each question uses a scale between one and four (1-4) that allows the person to state how confident he or she is with the information provided. The cultural assessment evaluates a person's cultural level of knowledge and should be considered only a tool and not a test. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer concerning this assessment tool. The score received after taking this cultural self-assessment is meant to help the individual determine the areas in which he or she may need further cultural development. This cultural assessment is extremely simple yet helpful because it gives the person taking it the opportunity to learn more about his or her knowledge, skills, and awareness of his or her interactions with others.

Competency Assessment Results

Results from completing the Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Tool (U Care, 2010) for Team B show a variety of outcomes. Benefiting as strengths for all team members, the prevailing beliefs and values of ethnic communities served professionally result as fairly well to very well. In the same area, the health and illness of ethnic communities served, Team B understands fairy well. Insight and respect to understanding or reaching out to members of ethnic communities soared with high scores from all team members. These strengths highlight the valuable balance from continual learning, open communication, and information sharing provided in class

One member on Team B tapped out as very competent in languages within her