A Youth Leader's Guide to Building Cultural Competence [PDF]

As a youth leader or teacher who cares about cultural competence, you want to provide youth with effective programs that engage them, speak to their cultural experience, reinforce positive health messages received at home and help them be comfortable with their racial and ethnic identities and sexual orientation. Some tips for doing that include:

1. Include program leaders, guest speakers or volunteers who share the same cultural background as the group members. Have both men and women involved with the program.
2. Incorporate traditional cultural elements.

• Find the cultural beliefs and practices that reinforce the attitudes and skills your program seeks to build. Be creative in using traditions that can inform and shape a variety of program activities.³⁶

1. Assume there is a wide range of views, particularly about sexuality issues, in your group.

• Understand how some of the HIV/AIDS prevention messages might be the same as, or different from, family values and practices.
• Model the willingness to hear ideas different from your own.

1. Remember that group members are individuals, not representatives of their ethnic or racial group and that even the best understanding of a particular ethnic, racial or cultural group is no substitute for getting to know the individuals in the program.
2. Encourage the involvement of your teens' family members in program plans and activities.

• Reach out to families. Plan family-based experiences during hours convenient for families. Assign fun "homework" assignments that encourage young people to talk to their parents or other family members.
• View the family as a positive source of spiritual and cultural strength as well as a primary source of information, education and support.³⁷ 
• In planning family involvement, however, bear in mind that not all families are supportive

1. Make sure that activities, discussions, videos, written materials, and guest speakers reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of the students, the community and society in general.³⁸

• Choose wisely: a terrific video featuring urban African-American teens would be an excellent selection for urban African-American teens, but would probably be inappropriate for a middle class suburban African-American group.

1. If your group has diverse cultures and backgrounds represented in it, help build alliances across groups by using structured and purposeful activities. Mix young people up in teams and partnerships and have them work together to reach a common goal.³⁹ 
2. Recognize the cultural roots of some teenagers' behavior.

• Know that children and teenagers in different cultures are taught to behave differently. In some cultures, children are encouraged to submit without question to parental authority, keep quiet and to contribute to family harmony by keeping to strict gender role behaviors. In other cultures, children are taught to speak their minds, to question parental authority and to not limit their behaviors in gender-specific ways.
• Don't expect all teenagers to be animated, talkative, openly curious or eager to question "what boys can do and what girls can do."⁴⁰

1. Support young people's exploration of their ethnic and racial identity.

• Seek information from teens about the views they hold about their racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
• Support teens as they "try on" various identities and try out different roles.
• Help young people understand that loyalty to one group does not mean disloyalty to another. Ethnic or racial pride does not mean rejection of other groups. Biracial teens in particular need help in this area.
• Recognize the power of your influence on the young people in your program and be mindful of biases you might have about what identities teens should assume.⁴¹

1. Support young people's sexual orientation.

• Learn about the range of issues related to teens and sexual orientation. Seek further resources if this topic is unfamiliar.
• Know that it is highly likely that some young people in your program identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Understand that they may or may not have engaged in same-gender sexual behavior; a lesbian, gay or bisexual orientation involves more than just sexual activity.
• Accept their self-definitions. Do not assume that a young person who says he or she is gay or lesbian is "going through a phase." On the other hand, understand that for some young people, their sexual orientation is unclear to them well into adulthood.
• Work to make your program a safe place for lesbian, gay and bisexual young people by ensuring that disrespectful language and comments are not allowed to pass unchallenged.
• Know what community resources exist to support lesbian, gay and bisexual youth.

1. Engage young people in open and on-going dialogues regarding stereotypes and the limits they impose.⁴²
2. Seek multicultural training opportunities for yourself and continue the process of building cultural competence in all ways available to you.