Cultural competence is a set of congruent behaviours, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, agency or among professionals; enabling that system, agency or those professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations (Cross et al, 1989).
CEH helps our clients to increase their cultural competence. Using a cultural competence framework, we assist organisations to review their work with clients from CALD backgrounds, and improve their planning, service delivery and evaluation.
Tip sheets on cultural competence
This series of tip sheets will help you to assess and improve cultural competence at an organisational level. Each tip sheet in this series covers a different domain of activity.
A framework for cultural competence
Introduction to cultural competence and the framework used to measure it
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Organisational values
How to demonstrate the value that your organisation places on cultural competence
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Governance
How to embed cultural competence in your advisory bodies, policies, standards and goals
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Planning, monitoring & evaluation
How to ensure that programmatic and operational plans address cultural competence issues, and track and assess your progress
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Communication
How to support the effective and culturally appropriate exchange of information between your organisation and its clients, and between staff members
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Staff development
How to equip staff and service providers with the attitudes, knowledge and skills needed to deliver culturally competent services
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Organisational infrastructure
How to identify and allocate the resources needed to plan, deliver and evaluate culturally competent services
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Services and interventions
How to deliver or facilitate clinical, public health or health-relayed services in a culturally competent manner
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Reference: These tip sheets are based on Indicators of Cultural Competence in Health Care Delivery Organisations: An Organisational Cultural Competence Assessment Profile, prepared by the Lewin Group Inc. under contract with the USA Department of Health and Human Services (2002).
Case study: Western Region Health Centre
In 2008, Western Region Health Centre contracted CEH to review its capacity to deliver culturally competent services, and develop recommendations for planning and service delivery.
Using the framework outlined above, CEH identified a number of key strengths in Western Region Health Centre's work. We also offered several practical recommendations in the areas of policy and procedure, data collection, planning, training and communications.
Read the executive summary of the WRCH Cultural Competence Report.
(PDF, 600KB)