Cultural Competency

Culturally Competent Individuals:

• Demonstrate an awareness of their own culture and cultures other than their own.
• Demonstrate behaviors and attitudes that enable them to interact effectively with faculty, staff and students from various cultural backgrounds.
• Have the capacity to (1) value diversity, (2) conduct self-assessment, (3) manage the dynamics of difference, (4) acquire cultural knowledge and (5) adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of the communities in which they reside.

Cultural competence is a developmental process that evolves over an extended period. Both individuals and organizations are at various levels of awareness, knowledge and skills along the cultural competence continuum. (OMSS 2010, adapted from Cross et al., 1989)