Diversity And Cultural Competence In The Workplace And Local Community

Part A

The purpose of this assignment is to analyze the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The United Nations Forum estimates that there are near around 370 million indigenous people residing across 70 nations globally where each individual is practicing unique traditions and retaining cultural, political, social and economic features, which are different from that of dominant societies they live. These indigenous people are holders of specific languages, beliefs and knowledge systems. The indigenous people of Australia are of two cultural groups that includes- aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. 2018). There is huge diversity within these groups and also have their own customs as well as laws. The culture of aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are different from other communities with their unique beliefs and values. My perspective of diversity and cultural competence is reflected in the first section of this study. The second segment of this study highlights on how diversity in community affects the people’s work and life. It also focuses on the events that affected Aboriginal people of Australia.

1) Diversity involves having all kinds of people from variety of ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds consortium of varied perspectives. It is mix of cultures, genders, ideas, economic status and other features required to promote growth as well as learning among groups. Cultural awareness refers to varied cultural group awareness that involves- recognition of cultural practices, values and identity. Cultural safety refers to creation of environment where the people especially Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders are treated well and in culturally respectful way (Guillaume et al. 2017). This environment is safe for individuals as there is no challenge, assault and denial of recognition. Furthermore, cultural competence to the behaviors and policies which create cross cultural working relationships (Kirmayer 2012). For instance, in present decades, few service provider enterprise in Australia, specifically health and service industry have embraced cultural competency for facilitating more service provision (Robinson et al. 2012).

Diversity is also seen in workplace that refers to the divergence in gender, age and race. It encompasses certain range of the cultural dimensions that is from socioeconomic background to the fundamental objectives (Barak 2016). The different types of diversity that is expected to be seen in workplace are-demographic, experiential, fundamental beliefs and other considerations. There is greater requirement for tolerating the workplace diversity mainly because of different backgrounds of people. For example, one can show respect for diversity in workplace by following ways-

• Making an effort to know all employees in office. By having conversation with other employees, one cam show respect for diversity in business.
• While working in a team, listening to other employee’s ideas and having proper communication can provide the chance to know each other. This in turn will make the team more productive owing to balance of people within a group, thereby creating effective workplace (Sue and Sue 2012).

2) Stereotype perceptions can cause individuals in workplace to treat other groups in particular way that is based on the preconceived notions about those persons. The factors of diversity involving, race, religion, age, culture can contribute to stereotyping propensity in the organizations. One kind of bias or stereotyping perceptions that one have is that young employees are taken into account as incompetent owing to lack of experience. This thought process often works against those young employees who have strong work ethic. Conversely, aged employees might be considered as lifers as they puts less effort in work and count days towards retirement. This stereotype perceptions ignores hard work that is performed by employees. According to Wong and Niu (2013), stereotype perceptions originated from choice of word, body language, speech and jargon.  Language or choice of word plays vital role in shaping individuals perceptions and hence this impacts the workplace climate. Jargon relates to vocabulary that is used by particular profession or individuals within professions. This influences a person biasness as jargon may develop as type of short- hand for expressing ideas which are discussed between group members. Lowe and Yunkaporta (2013) found out that the body language and speech of any individual also influences other people biasness or stereotypical perceptions. Several researches have shown that an individual’s experiences in their family life influences one’s personality behavior and contributes to cultural values and beliefs. An individual’s interaction with family influences their behavioral traits and personality. Thus, one‘s learning process in their family contributes to shape their values and influences their stereotypical perceptions.

Part B

1a) ‘The People in our Community’

While working in an Australian enterprise, it has been seen that the people in local community have wide variety of culture and backgrounds. The researches done on local community reflects that this nation is one of the ethnically diverse community in the globe. The indigenous people residing in Australia have different cultures and backgrounds, which in turn helped to create Australian identity (Wong and Niu 2013). Australia has been regarded as classless society. The local community groups prefer in viewing their societies as egalitarian in which each individual has huge opportunity to select their way of life. The researches reflect that there are five types of social groups, which includes- established affluent, emergent affluent, mobile middle, established middle and established working. After surveying, it has been found that higher percentage of Australians belong to middle class while less percentage of Australians belong to working or upper class. This nation has the most culturally diverse communities in the globe. It has been estimated that near around 40% of Australians consists of immigrants and children, people speak over 120 languages, over 120 ethnic societies and 3.1% of people are indigenous.

1b) The two examples reflect that the local communities in Australia values diversity –

• One psychiatrist who worked in Aboriginal communities realized that western model of examination was inappropriate for meeting the requirements of these people with mental problems. For this reason, the local communities tried to communicate with this psychiatrist so that he can understand their issues and change his treatment accordingly (Kelaher 2014).
• School staffs in Australia are providing support by integrating every student cultural knowledge in the classroom for making learning highly relevant. The local community are also building schools and developing action plan for supporting cultural diversity.

1c) Political, social, economic and cultural diversity in local communities affects their varied areas of work and life. The people in Australia are facing difficulties in communicating with other people in the workplace. However, professional communication is also misinterpreted sometimes and thus leading to conflicts in workplace. In addition to this, the migrants face more difficulties in their life due to political, social and cultural diversity.

2) a) The name of land of traditional owners is Brisbane. The Turnbul people are the traditional owners of land where the service is located.

1. b) The three issues that  affected Aboriginal and Torres Strait People are- stolen generation, health issues and homelessness. The stolen generation problems has huge impact on Aborignal and Torres Strait Islanders rights as well as freedom as they did not have rights to raise their children. As a result, huge number of aboriginals were displaced into the white families. The second issue that aboriginal faces is homelessness or housing requirement, which caters their social as well as cultural needs. They experience homelessness mainly when they travel from Australia to use health services and attend cultural gathering. Several aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander experience poor health with respect to other Australians owing to less accessibility of health services in Australia (Parker and Milroy 2014).
2. c) Social, political and economic factors are affecting the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander in the present society. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are mainly not supported by the Australian policy. The paternalistic Australian government decisions have created barriers towards the womens specially for achieving equal health measures as compared to non- indigenous womens. This in turn reduced their social as well as emotional well- being (Parker and Milroy 2014)
3. d) Australian culture, systems and structures have adversely affected the Aboriginals and Torress Strait people in community services now- a- days. The Aboriginals in Australia are continuously affected in their day to – day life. It adversely affects their settlement, health services, search of job and their community (Hunt 2013). In addition to this, the structures and systems implemented by the Australian government adversely affected the communication between the indigenous and non- indigenous people residing in this nation. Thus in turn reduces the impact of non- indigenous sources on the aboriginals and Torres Strait people health behavior. Furthermore, this also separated the social connection between indigenous and non- indigenous people, which appeared to be fostered by the marginalization. Moreover, racism also affects impact of social networks on their health behavior (Lowe and Yunkaporta 2013).

3) a) The two probable needs for diverse people are-

• Improving the health care services and integrating policy for providing equivalent health service to indigenous women.
• Improved housing policy is needed specially for the immigrants arriving Australia.

1. b) The resources that must be used for supporting people who have these needs mentioned above are proper medical resources including, funds, personnel, materials and providing land for building more housing in Australia.

4) a)The two personal goals that will help an individual to develop cultural competence are-

• Assessing one’s stereotypes, biasness and cultural competence level
• Effective strategies for cultural communication while interacting with other people

1. b) The strategies for each goal to gain knowledge and awareness as well as develop skills and attitudes are-

• Listing the cultural groups within local community and probable stereotypes which impact the communication with them in workplace
• Listing the difficulties that immigrants in Australia face while finding house or making settlements.

1. For achieving these goals, this might impact daily practices of an individual while working with others. For instance-

• This might build strong relationship betcreasecween indigenous and non- indigenous people
• This will be modify present programs and redesign proposed activities and thus improve their communication with such indigenous people in workplace.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that Aboriginal and Torres Strait people in Australia are facing several difficulties still today due to Australia’s policies, systems and structures. It has been seen that disparities occur between health of non- indigenous and indigenous people residing Australia. Although the government of Australia have implemented several policies for reducing the gap between aboriginals and Torres Strait people and non- indigenous people, it did not led to positive outcome.

References

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. 2018. Indigenous Australians: Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander People. [online] Available at: <https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/indigenous-australians-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people> [Accessed 28 August 2018].

Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.

Guillaume, Y.R., Dawson, J.F., Otaye?Ebede, L., Woods, S.A. and West, M.A., 2017. Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace diversity?. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(2), pp.276-303.

Hunt, J., 2013. Engaging with Indigenous Australia-exploring the conditions for effective relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Kelaher, M.A., 2014. Experiencing racism in health care: the mental health impacts for Victorian Aboriginal communities. Education, 55(56), pp.8-3.

Kirmayer, L.J., 2012. Cultural competence and evidence-based practice in mental health: Epistemic communities and the politics of pluralism. Social science & medicine, 75(2), pp.249-256.

Lowe, K. and Yunkaporta, T., 2013. The inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content in the Australian National Curriculum: A cultural, cognitive and socio-political evaluation. Curriculum Perspectives, 33(1), pp.1-14.

Parker, R. and Milroy, H., 2014. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health: an overview. Working together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and practice. 2nd ed. Canberra: Department of The Prime Minister and Cabinet, pp.25-38.

Parker, R. and Milroy, H., 2014. Mental illness in Aboriginal and Torres strait Islander peoples. Working Together, p.65.

Robinson, G., Tyler, W., Jones, Y., Silburn, S. and Zubrick, S.R., 2012. Context, diversity and engagement: Early intervention with Australian Aboriginal families in urban and remote contexts. Children & Society, 26(5), pp.343-355.

Sue, D.W. and Sue, D., 2012. Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons.

Wong, R. and Niu, W., 2013. Cultural difference in stereotype perceptions and performances in nonverbal deductive reasoning and creativity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 47(1), pp.41-59.