True cultural competence feels like…well, nothing. When you are competent, your clients and colleagues get to work and connect with you fully, and trust is built over time. When you don’t, the lack of competence and resulting hurts become the focus, and trust is degraded.

Many harms we do are unintentional, and we do them despite having non-judgement as a value. Because unconscious bias is a natural consequence of living in a biased world, conscious effort and structures are needed to ensure your practice matches your non-judgmental values.

This workshop will explore your own tendencies toward bias and give you ways to outsmart them. We will demystify common diversity/inclusion terms and concepts, and translate them into real life practice. The goal is to equip you so that you feel more comfortable and confident when working across any kind of difference.

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe cultural competence and barriers to achieving it
2. Observe professional tendencies toward bias in various realms (race, culture, age, class, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, body size, and so on).
3. Practice responding to diversity challenges from a grounded, regulated place
4. Recognize microaggressions and plan appropriate responses
5. Apply cultural competency concepts to real-life challenges and scenarios
6. Assess yourself for areas of growth and make a plan to address them

Activities: (Total 4 hours)

(10) Introduction to instructor and to cultural competence

(60) Power + Zones: How humans react to imbalances of power; two models for understanding feeling threatened or overwhelmed those reaction

(80) Unconscious Bias: Surfacing bias that is unconscious and/or embodied from various realms of professional and personal life

(60) Real Life: Applying strategies to real life challenges; addressing microaggressions, guilt, making mistakes, calling out/calling in, and more

(30) Action Plan: Creating a professional and personal action plan to cultivate ongoing Cultural Competence