INCREASING CULTURAL COMPETENCY:REACHING BEYOND THE MIDDLE CLASS

2017 NADCP NATIONAL CONFERENCE, JULY 9-12, 2017, NATIONAL HARBOR, MD

JANEANNE GONZALES, MA, MFC, CCJP

YVONNE JONES, CPSP

INCREASING CULTURAL COMPETENCY:REACHING BEYOND THE MIDDLE CLASS

Objectives:

1. Increase ones awareness of personal biases

a. Regarding race

b. Regarding socio-economic status

2. Encourage cultural awareness with individualized court responses to client behaviors

THE MECKLENBURG STORY

• IMPLICIT BIAS

• DISMANTLING RACISM

• BRIDGES OUT OF POVERTY

IMPLICIT BIAS

• TED TALK: UNCONSCIOUS BIAS

Published on January 18, 2017 (Filmmakers: Geeta Gandbhir and Perri Peltz)

• Denial Defense Minimization Acceptance Adaptation Integration

IMPLICIT BIAS

ARE YOU AWARE OF YOUR OWN UNINTENTIONAL BIAS?

IMPLICIT BIAS

IMPLICIT BIAS

DISMANTLING RACISM

• The Racial Equity Workshop is a two-day, intensive training that helps to provide a race

analysis, historical and contextual factors for race, and a foundational vocabulary. This

workshop also connects the dots between the origins of race in the early construction of

America to today’s current systemic racial inequities across our nation.

• The R.E.I. trainers are highly-skilled organizers who travel across the country offering this

racial analysis.

• Each workshop averages 40 multidisciplinary attendees that represent everyday citizens,

community and faith leaders.

RACE

RacialFacial.org

RACE

BRIDGES OUT OF POVERTY

Bridges Out of Poverty is a tool designed

for social, health and legal services professionals whose

daily work connects them with people in poverty. • Case studies

• Detailed analysis

• Helpful charts and exercises

• Specific solutions for individuals and organizations

Bridges Out of Poverty helps articulate “hidden rules” that

govern life for the poor, living in survival mode, and explores

the support systems largely nonexistent for those in poverty. • If your agency works with people from poverty, Bridges is a tool to

provide a deeper understanding of their challenges – and strengths –

to help you partner with them to create opportunities for success.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC

DEFINING POVERTY

• The official poverty definition uses income before taxes.

The poverty threshold for two adults and two children is $22, 283. (As defined by the OMB)

“The extent to which one does without resources”

SOCIO-ECONOMIC

WITHOUT THE FOLLOWING RESOURCES:

• Financial

• Emotional

• Mental

• Spiritual

• Physical

• Support Systems

• Relationships/Role Models

• Knowledge of Hidden Rules

• Coping Strategies

SOCIO-ECONOMIC

• History of Antisocial Behavior

• Antisocial Personality Pattern

• Antisocial Cognition

• Antisocial Associates

• Family/Marital Circumstances

• School/Work

• Leisure/Recreation

• Substance Abuse

CRIMINOGENIC RISK FACTORS SOCIO ECONOMIC FACTORS

SOCIO-ECONOMIC

HEADLINES AND STEREOTYPES

• Laziness isn’t why people are poor. And iPhones aren’t why they lack health care.

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/08/laziness-isnt-why-people-are-poor-and-

iphones-arent-why-they-lack-health-care/?utm_term=.9d85fa8e29b1

SOCIO-ECONOMIC

POVERTY IN THE US

Generational vs. Situational

SOCIO-ECONOMIC

IMPLICIT BIAS DISMANTLING RACISM POVERTY

INCREASED CULTURAL COMPETENCY

CULTURAL COMPETENCY

• The term “cultural” refers to an individual or group’s ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, and

educational frame of reference.

It also speaks to differences in family characteristics, language, dialect, gender, ability, values, sexual

orientation, life conditions, religion and community.

• How well are we able to serve individuals within a cultural context, if we as the professionals, seek to hold

clients accountable based on our mental models?

NATIONAL STANDARDS:

1. Recruit, promote, and support a culturally and linguistically diverse governance,

leadership, and workforce that are responsive to the population in the service area.

2. Educate and train governance, leadership, and workforce in culturally and linguistically

appropriate policies and practices on an ongoing basis.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER WITH CULTURALLY DIVERSE CLIENTS

• Belief Systems

• Traditions

• Communication

• Family Dynamics

• Health

• Sexuality

• Religion

• Perception of Time

• View of Helping Process

WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO HELP CLIENTS ACHIEVE?

What we think? ---------------------------------------------------------What they think?

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.

-John le Carre

You don’t see the world as it is,

you see it according to who you are. - Steven Covey

MENTAL MODELS

• Internal pictures of how the world works

• Exists below awareness

• Theories in use, often unexamined

• Determine how we act

• Can help or interfere with learning

MENTAL MODELS

POVERTY MIDDLE CLASS

POVERTY

MIDDLE CLASS

HIDDEN RULES

POVERTY

• I know how to keep my clothes from being stolen at the

laundromat

• I know what to look for in a used car

• I know how to get someone out of jail

• I know how to live without a checking account

• I can entertain my friends with my personality and my

stories

• I know where the free medical clinics are

MIDDLE CLASS

• I know how to order at a nice restaurant

• I know how to get my children into Little League, piano lessons

and soccer, etc

• I know how to get the best interest rates on my new car loan

• I know how to use most of the tools in the garage

• I repair items in my house almost immediately when they

break or know a repair service and call it

• I understand the difference among principal, interest and

escrow statements on my house payments.

DECISION MAKING

• DISCIPLINE

• CHOICES

• CONSEQUENCES

As a client, if you did everything your Case Manager told you to do, got a job and kept it for a year, never missing a day of work, how much closer (if at all) would you be to

being out of poverty at the end of that year than you were at the beginning?

http://playspent.org/

HIDDEN COST OF POVERTY

WORKING WITH PEOPLE IN POVERTYTRUST BUILDING BEHAVIORS:

DEPOSITS

• Seek first to understand

• Keeping promises

• Kindnesses, courtesies

• Clarifying expectations

• Loyalty to the absent

• Apologies

• Open to feedback

WITHDRAWALS

• Seek first to be understood

• Breaking promises

• Unkindness, discourtesies

• Violating expectations

• Disloyalty, duplicity

• Pride, conceit, arrogance

• Rejecting feedback

MINDFULNESS

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

-Maya Angelou

SELF EVALUATION & HOMEWORK

What are two ways YOU can improve your personal skills for working with individuals in your program?

1.

2.

What impact will this have on your agency?

HIDDEN RULES AMONG CLASSES

Could You Survive in Middle Class? Put a check by each item you know how to do. 1. I know how to get my children into Little League, piano lessons, soccer, etc.

2. I know how to set a table properly.

3. I know which stores are most likely to carry the clothing brands my family wears.

4. My children know the best name brands in clothing.

5. I know how to order in a nice restaurant.

6. I know how to use a credit card, checking account, and savings account – and I understand an annuity. I understand term life insurance, disability insurance, and 20/80 medical insurance policy, as well as house insurance, flood insurance, and replacement insurance.

7. I talk to my children about going to college.

8. I know how to get one of the best interest rates on my new-car loan.

9. I understand the difference among the principal, interest, and escrow statements on my house payment.

10. I know how to help my children with their homework and do not hesitate to call the school if I need additional information.

11. I know how to decorate the house for the different holidays.

12. I know how to get a library card.

13. I know how to use most of the tools in the garage.

14. I repair items in my house almost immediately when they break – or know a repair service and call it.

Could You Survive in Poverty? Put a check by each item you know how to do. 1. I know which churches and sections of town have the best rummage sales.

2. I know which rummage sales have “bag sales” and when.

3. I know which grocery stores’ garbage bins can be accessed for thrown-away food.

4. I know how to get someone out of jail.

5. I know how to physically fight and defend myself physically.

6. I know how to get a gun, even if I have a police record.

7. I know how to keep my clothes from being stolen at a Laundromat.

8. I know what problems to look for in a used car.

9. I know how to live without a checking account.

10. I know how to live without electricity and a phone.

11. I know how to use a knife as scissors.

12. I know how to entertain a group of friends with my personality and my stories.

13. I know what to do when I don’t have money to pay the bills.

14. I know how to move in half a day. 15. I know how to get and use food stamps or an electronic card for benefits. 16. I know where the free medical clinics are. 17. I am very good at trading and bartering. 18. I can get by without a car.