Developing Cultural Sensitivity in the Internship
During the internship, you will have an opportunity to interact with clients who have different cultural backgrounds and experiences. Consequently, it is important to be able to demonstrate culturally competent and appropriately inclusive behavior when interacting with people from cultures and backgrounds different from your own. Utilizing your internship site to appreciate the types of diversity that are present in your community may help you determine what type of cultural skills you need to develop. For instance, if your site assists the Amish and Mennonite communities, you may wish to learn the differences between the two groups to better tailor your approach and services.
Of course, knowing all the nuances for every culture is impossible. However, familiarizing yourself with those cultures you are most likely to encounter is a reasonable expectation for interns, agencies, and clients to have. If the type of internship you select is like your own cultural background, you may want to consider volunteering at an agency that is more diverse.
Keep in mind that you are still in a learning process, which means it is appropriate to ask the supervisor about the suitable methods of interaction with various types of people or groups. The willingness to understand, appreciate, and experience cultural diversity will help you develop greater communication skills and cultural competency. Your internship may even be a platform for expanding your cultural awareness and ability to work with people of different perspectives and orientations. Indeed, the experience may even help you identify personal biases. Becoming aware of them is often the first step in overcoming and preventing the types of countertransference that can arise based on such things as how one sees gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and so forth.
The Reality of Cultural Differences
Cultural diversity is a much broader concept than just differences based on race or ethnicity, as it may also include equally powerful and important differences in gender, religion, and socioeconomic status. Sometimes these differences are obvious and can even be expressed by the type of clothing that is worn. At other times, the differences may be far more subtle, such as in the way conversations are held, how frequently people touch others, or how much interpersonal space they prefer.
Example: In Western culture, patting a child on the head can simply mean “Atta boy” or “What a sweetheart,” whereas, in some tribal cultures, touching a child’s head signifies that you have a negative or even evil wish for that child.
Preparing for and gaining knowledge of cultural norms prepares you to notice important differences, increases your understanding of those you work with, and helps you to communicate more effectively. What human services worker would not want those types of skills in their work with others? Cultivating a culturally sensitive approach is vital to having a successful client-human services worker relationship and benefits both professionals as well as the clients they serve.
Developing Cultural Awareness
When experiencing cultural differences at the practicum site, you may come to have new or uncomfortable emotions. As a human services worker, one way to prepare yourself for these new experiences is to become more aware of your own cultural preferences and habits, both positive and negative ones. Knowing your cultural practices better helps you assess whether they are appropriate in a situation and better enables you to adjust, if necessary. Otherwise, you may appear naive, underprepared, insensitive, or even ignorant.
Each one of us is a partial product of our biology, gender, age, and social class. If all we had to do in life is interact with people who have the same backgrounds, there would be little need for cultural awareness, sensitivity, and competence because we would all reflect similar environments and could take them for granted. However, that is hardly ever the case in the real world. Instead, one thing all of us can do is to become aware of, and learn how to recognize, our own culturally-based perceptions, expectations, and reactions and then make appropriate adjustments when dealing with others from different backgrounds.
Learning about the various cultural differences of the people you are likely to encounter or work with will assist you as an intern. Becoming more culturally competent will also help you in your career. After all, consciously or unconsciously holding on to thoughts, ideas, jargon, or mannerisms that one’s culture is superior to another will certainly be noticeable to clients. Such narrow views may create unnecessary barriers in your work that only make it harder for both parties.
Self-Awareness
In order to appreciate cultural differences, it is often necessary to enhance your own self aware ness. To be effective in the field of human services, professionals need to be aware of the dynamics of power that are associated with privileges that you may have based on your race, ethnicity, gender, age, or social class, including education and income. The first step in that process may be to recognize that historical inequality does exist in these areas. Every culture has a hierarchy of power and privilege. Awareness of your own biases, power, and preconceived ideas of various populations is essential to be an effective culturally-competent worker. By recognizing your privileges, you can begin to understand the disadvantages other cultures experience.
Example: In Western cultures, privilege is often given to people who are heterosexual, white, young, tall, Christian, wealthy, educated, healthy, and male. Conversely, any person who does not fall into one of the favored or privileged categories may suffer some type of social, emotional, or economic disadvantage. It is also important to realize as a human services worker that even if a client does fit into a “privileged” category, it is still necessary to treat that person as an individual and not as though they are “privileged.”
Activity: At this point, it might be worth reflecting on what you have experienced that could be a privilege in your life, stemming from such things as your race, ethnicity, gender, or age. What about your socioeconomic status, including that of your family, your current social class, level of education, and so on might be important to know? Do you have any privilege based on these factors? What are your feelings about these factors in relation to others, especially the client population you are working with? Remember, you also can have unconscious feelings and beliefs about these things. Knowing about them is important because they can give rise to both transference and countertransference when dealing with others. If you like, make a list of those you are likely to encounter in your internship and what you feel or believe about them, and then reflect on that list.
Personal Style
Everyone deals with cultural diversity differently. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to one’s verbal and nonverbal ways of reacting and communicating. Personal style, or the way you characteristically perceive, react to, and attempt to deal with the world, is going to affect how you comport yourself in cultural situations. If you find yourself reacting or acting uncomfortably or anxiously in a situation that has strong cultural undertones and do not feel able to navigate this territory appropriately, then talking to co-workers, teachers, or a supervisor may be the best course of action. After all, they might have experience in that area and could make helpful suggestions. It may seem as though these encounters are uncomfortable at first, but the reason for doing an internship is to gain knowledge. Part of that process involves finding one’s own strengths and weaknesses so that you can maximize the former and minimize the latter.
An ethnocentric individual often judges other people and groups by comparing them to the culture that the person grew up in or favors. Fortunately, this type of bias can be moderated by increasing self-awareness, avoiding stereotypes, and being open minded, all of which help a person to step out of their cultural box and see people as individuals instead. Appreciating diversity in this way can benefit any agency, organization, or nation. Hence, it is best to try to respect and appreciate the diversity in one’s immediate environment. After all, every culture is unique and has its own strengths.
It does take time and effort to gain a deeper understanding of other cultures. Yet, the more you learn about clients and their cultures, the better able you are to help them. Probably the most effective way to increase your awareness and appreciation of other cultures is through direct experience and observation. However, indirect methods help as well. For instance, reading books or articles, watching movies, viewing internet videos, listening to TED talks, and so forth are effective ways of accessing cultural information. In addition, your practicum supervisor may have some suggestions about expanding your awareness while at the site. You may find it useful researching certain cultures to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of offending someone by unintentionally saying the wrong thing or acting inappropriately.
Relating to Other Cultures
As an intern, you are likely to meet people who are different from you every day. There are many ways to react to these differences, and your ability to display a non-defensive posture, to learn about the client, and to become aware of your own reactions will need to be developed. Most human services workers will try to learn about the client population in a variety of ways to improve the quality of the services they provide. The better the intern can relate to the client, the more likely the client is to develop trust in the intern and share their concerns and problems. Continuing Education programs often help professionals learn more about how to effectively deal with cultural diversity and inclusion or multiculturalism. Once a professional relationship begins to form, some clients are willing to discuss their culture and belief systems, especially if you have expressed interest in learning about them.
Acceptance and Cultural Competence
Successful internships usually require developing some degree of skill in cultural competence. After all, one mission of human services is to empower the client, so knowing how that works in each individual’s environment is important. Each discipline, from social work to law enforcement, will require its own set of skills. However, some things are important for all of them. In general, the principle of acceptance is part of a foundation for building a working relationship between the client and the human services worker. Although it is not necessary to agree with any given practice, acceptance usually involves some degree of empathy or concern. Mutual respect is also established as a result of affirming someone’s individuality and recognizing the strengths of the person, including those of their cultural background. In a sense, successful human services workers embrace each person’s unique contribution to humanity.
Self Monitoring
It is important to be aware that your personal views and beliefs may have an impact on your client’s life. Consequently, it behooves you to practice monitoring your own reactions while interacting with them. After all, you will probably express your own beliefs nonverbally through such things as facial expressions, speech patterns, and the like. People pay a lot of attention to nonverbal signs, so it is important to self-monitor (the process by which an individual analyzes their own behavior and actions). This activity involves self-reflection so that you can identify times when who you are either helps or hurts your work. Such awareness increases your chances of responding more effectively in the future. Self-monitoring, then, is an important skill to have, and your internship is an excellent place to begin to acquire this ability or improve it.
Dealing with Mistakes
Mistakes are inevitable. However, each one is also an opportunity to learn. As a student, you are in a unique situation to take advantage of this possibility because you are under an umbrella of protections provided by your professor, supervisor, and your role of being a learner, and not a professional yet. This status allows you some room to stumble as you learn to walk, so-to-speak. Indeed, the internship may be the last time in your career you have this much room to learn without suffering serious consequences.
As an intern, if you find yourself in an awkward situation you do not know how to handle, it is not the end of the world. This status also permits you to be honest about mistakes, apologize for them if necessary, and then discuss them with your supervisor or instructor so that you can move forward by learning from the situation. Dwelling on the mistake is not going to change it, so it is helpful to focus on how it can be handled better next time.
Doing a little homework is another way to deal with being new or inexperienced. For instance, if you know that some duty or interaction is likely to be challenging for you, then it may help to prepare for it. Role-playing is often helpful because it allows you to practice alternate ways to deal with such situations and learn what feels most comfortable or compatible with your personality and style. A colleague or coworker may be willing to assist with this role-playing activity. It also helps to know that interns are seldom in situations where what they do can result in serious damage or harm, providing they pay attention to safety.
