Cultural Competency Consultant
Are You Looking To Enhance Your Cultural Competency?
If you are a leader, group facilitator, or healthcare provider of any kind, you may be curious about how to approach your work with increased cultural awareness. Especially if you are a white therapist, you may be wondering how you can create a more empathetic and sensitive counseling atmosphere for diverse client populations and/or those impacted by racial trauma.
How Has Racism Affected Your Workplace, Group Dynamics, And Overall Experience?
Perhaps as a white clinician or group facilitator, you have witnessed microaggressions based on negative racialized stereotypes. As you have witnessed these microaggressions play out, you may not have known how to respond, intervene, or effectively show up in solidarity with a BIPOC colleague, client, or friend.
Alternatively, you may have made microaggressions yourself and are now unsure of how to rectify the situation. Though you would never intend to be insensitive, you may have become increasingly aware of how your behaviors as a white-bodied counselor might negatively affect your clients and colleagues of color.
As we attune ourselves to how much white supremacy and racialized violence infiltrate every aspect of American life, it’s normal for white clinicians to develop anxiety about how we interact with diverse populations. Instead of facing an uncomfortable situation and opportunity for growth head-on, we may become avoidant, shameful, or default to a “color-blind” ethos, ultimately creating more harm.
As a seasoned licensed psychologist and cultural competency consultant, I am passionate about helping leaders and providers improve their cross-cultural awareness, communication, and relational dynamics. By working through discomfort and emotional reactivity, you can feel more confident in identifying potential blind spots and navigating tough conversations. This work is the interpersonal aspect of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to help shift towards cultural change.
As Therapists, We Overestimate Our Cultural Competence
Racism is an epidemic in this country, and many clinicians have committed themselves to becoming antiracist allies for those who have been systemically oppressed. Yet, many of us overestimate our cultural competence, and we don’t realize how certain comments, behaviors, and silences may be perceived as racist until a misstep is made.
For those of us working in leadership and/or mental healthcare, we likely began our careers with a strong desire to help others. Unfortunately, however, we all have been conditioned in a tribalistic, white supremacist culture that makes even the most well-intended clinicians susceptible to racist behaviors. It’s estimated that the majority of BIPOC therapy clients—between 53 and 81 percent—have experienced microaggressions in the counseling space, despite most therapists self-reporting a high aptitude for multicultural awareness.
Microaggressions And Bias Can Hinder The Healing Process
Research demonstrates that clients who perceive racial/ethnic microaggressions from their therapists are less likely to have positive outcomes in treatment.] Without feelings of safety, trust, and mutual respect, the therapeutic process may be compromised.
Cultural competency consulting allows providers to authentically “Be With” clients and colleagues from diverse backgrounds, acknowledging the layers of impact that bias and racism have had on BIPOC individuals. Not only can a consultant guide you in becoming more aware and skillful with your communication—they can help you navigate and repair cross-cultural group dynamics in a positive, inclusive, and healing way. Through our work together, you can learn to feel more comfortable with discomfort.
I Am A Cultural Competency Consultant Who Can Help
It’s common for white people—especially those in leadership positions—to avoid admitting that we don’t know how to handle culturally sensitive situations. As a cultural competency consultant, I will work with you to become increasingly aware, humble, and ultimately more effective in addressing racial trauma. In addition, I will work with you to discern what may get in the way of connecting cross-culturally, including exploring the ways that intersectionality impacts relational dynamics.
Cultural competency consulting is a preventative and reparative measure that any clinician or leader can take in order to be a more effective provider. Whether you are looking for cultural competence strategies for individual or group settings, one-time or ongoing cross-cultural trainings, I will tailor the process to meet your needs. By boosting your cultural intelligence, consulting is a meaningful way to combat racism in the workplace.
What To Expect
My approach to consulting stems from body-based approaches and getting to know parts of ourselves that carry historical and present day internalized biased beliefs. Operating from an Internal Family Systems (IFS) framework, I will help you get more in tune with your internal process when working with those from different racial, cultural, or ethnic backgrounds and identities from yours.
In addition, I use a modality called somatic abolitionism to heal racialized, intergenerational, and collective traumas. By paying attention to where activated responses show up in the body, you can feel more prepared to identify racialized behaviors and also show up in your relationships with more humility, authenticity, and sensitivity.
Genuine antiracism and allyship require commitment and accountability. Oftentimes, white people don’t know what next steps to take in terms of our own inner work when it comes to how to be accountable. A cultural competency consultant can pave the way for you to become a changemaker in your community through increased awareness and sensitivity.
Perhaps You Have Questions About Cultural Competency Consulting...
I have a hard time admitting that I can’t effectively recognize/respond to racism.
All of us have blind spots, and the first step to learning is having the courage to admit what you don’t know. As a cultural competency consultant, I am not here to judge or shame you—rather, I am here to help you become a better leader/therapist when issues of racism arise.
Does needing cultural competency consulting mean that I am racist?
Each and every one of us has been conditioned by a white supremacist culture in the United States; there is no way around it. Yet even though we have ingested racism—particularly among those of us who identify as white—deep and lasting change in the way you approach your practice is possible. Research shows that an absence of repair (rather than the presence of an alliance rupture itself) is what ultimately leads to poor therapeutic outcomes for BIPOC clients.
Even as a consultant specializing in cultural competency, I have made missteps and lost out on opportunities to show up in a more meaningful way for my clients. Through my own learning journey, I have developed a passion for consulting providers on how to build their cultural intelligence, become more trauma-informed, and deepen the therapeutic connection.
Will my confidentiality be honored in the consultation?
Cultural competency consulting is not psychotherapy, but your confidentiality is honored throughout the process as if you were a client in therapy. When working with groups, in particular, I am careful to do what I can to honor confidentiality, which might include inviting attendees to participate anonymously so that they can feel safe to ask tough questions. In group consultations, I ask attendees to keep everyone’s disclosures and identities confidential to build communal trust for this work.
As a consultant, I aim to approach you with grace and humility for wanting to work on yourself in overcoming blind spots.
Heighten Your Awareness, Improve Your Effectiveness
If you are a healthcare provider, group facilitator, or leader of any kind, my guidance as a cultural competency consultant can help you to better ensure antiracist, trauma-informed dynamics in the workplace. Cultural competency consulting is available to providers nationwide and customized to your unique needs. I offer my consultation services on a one-on-one basis and as group consultation. I also offer group trainings to organizations, non-profits, counseling centers, group private practices, hospitals, and companies in the private sector. To find out more about how I can help, email me.
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