In a 2- to 3-page paper: Not including Title and reference page. APA Format. Provide references. See attachments

• Select one mini–case study from the Learning Resources for this Assignment that represents a cultural group different from your own. (See attached document for mini-case studies)
• Imagine you are the counselor for the individual in the case study you selected and describe how you are culturally different from that person.
• Explain how you might demonstrate cultural competence, providing examples to support your response.
• Based on your current level of self-awareness, knowledge, and skill related to cultural competence, provide one or more strategies you could use to improve your cultural competence with this client.

References

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2013). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2012c). Inter-ethnic relations: Counseling interventions across demographic boundaries. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Cultural Competence application in Counseling

Defining Culture Competence

Ginny has been working in the field of counseling for ten years. She loves her job because it gives her the chance to provide emotional support to people in need.

Recently, though, Ginny has been getting more negative reviews from her clients, who feel that she does not always understand the way that culture is impacting their lives and emotional needs.

Ginny realizes she has to work on her cultural competence, or awareness of cultural norms, values, and traditions other than her own, if she is going to continue to be an effective counselor.

Culture is often defined as the combination of language background, traditions, ethnicity, religion, values, and beliefs that come together to inform many aspects of a person’s identity. Culture can also be tied to socially-defined groups such as class and sexual preference.

Understanding Yourself, Owning Your Biases

As a starting point, Ginny takes some time to reflect on why cultural competence might feel difficult to her. She realizes that it has been a long time since she reflected on herself and her own biases, or unconscious assumptions and preconceived notions about others.

Ginny starts keeping a journal to reflect on her own cultural background and how it informs her work as a counselor. For instance, she knows that as an Italian-American, she has always believed in the importance of close relationships with family.

She also finds it easy to express strong emotions and speak her mind. Ginny knows that some of these values have to do with her specific temperament, but they are also culturally informed.

This can make it hard for her to relate to clients who are, for example, determined to pull away from their families. She also sometimes experiences bias against clients who might be very reticent or ashamed to articulate strong emotions.

One of Ginny’s current clients is Japanese-American, and this client really thinks it is shameful to put strong emotions into words and let them out there for just anyone to see. Ginny has to work hard to overcome her bias against this approach to emotion and her ensuing assumption that all Asian clients will share this framework.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

• Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
• Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
• One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
• I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

• Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
• In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
• Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
• Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

• Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
• Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
• I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

• I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
• As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
• It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

 

LopesWrite Policy

• For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
• Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
• Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
• Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

• The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
• Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
• If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
• I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
• As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

• Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: 
  • Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
  • Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.