April rounds off her Washington whirlwind adventure with one last stop in Kent, WA (just an hour or so away from Seattle). Here she is working with a supervisor group focusing on how to provide culturally responsive care and work from a culturally humble approach. In our combined efforts to do so, the CANS Core has shifted items and domains to align with SOGIE (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression).
Items in the Strengths and Cultural Factors Domain, specifically, aim to be inclusive and relevant of all cultural/personal experiences and needs. A few of those items include:
LANGUAGE
This item looks at whether the youth and family need help with communication to obtain the necessary resources, supports and accommodations (e.g. translator). This item includes spoken, written, and sign language, as well as issues of literacy.
TRADITIONS AND RITUALS
This item rates the youth and family’s access to and participation in cultural traditions, rituals and practices, including the celebration of culturally specific holidays such as Kwanza, Dia de los Muertos, Yom Kippur, Quinceanera, etc. This also may include daily activities that are culturally specific (e.g., wearing a hijab, praying toward Mecca at specific times, eating a specific diet, access to media), and traditions and activities to include newer cultural identities.
CULTURAL STRESS
This item identifies circumstances in which the youth and family’s cultural identity is met with hostility or other problems within his/her environment due to differences in attitudes, behavior, or beliefs of others (this includes cultural differences that are causing stress between the youth and his/her family). Racism, negativity toward sexual orientation, gender identity and expression (SOGIE) and other forms of discrimination would be rated here.
