Culturally Competent Counseling: Building Skills and Awareness

Counselors who possess a deep sense of self-awareness, engage in continual learning, and are accepting of change have the capacity to be more culturally aware and responsive to the needs of their students and community members. In this course, you will learn about the elements of being a culturally competent counselor, engage in reflective work to compassionately identify and address counseling interfering behaviors, unpack your own cultural lineage to gain a more precise understanding of your own cultural identity formulation, practice the foundational skills needed to provide culturally competent care to your community members, and collaborate with other international counseling professionals. This course offers you requisite knowledge to initiate, sustain, and expand upon your personal and pedagogical knowledge as an international counseling professional.

Intended Audience

Professional School Counselors, Aspiring School Counselors, Educational Psychologists, Licensed Mental Health Clinicians, etc.

ISCA Student Standards

This course will support you in providing strategies for your students to be able to:

SE:A1:3 Develop self-awareness and self-management skills essential for mental health

SE:A1:6 Develop healthy ways to identify, express, and respond to one’s emotions

SE:A1:7 Identify personal and social identities

SE:A2:2 Develop empathy, respect, compassion, and acceptance of differences which are essential components of healthy relationships

SE:B1:4 Accept responsibility for own decisions and modify behavior accordingly

GP:A1:2 Differentiate between surface culture and deep culture GP:A1:3 Explore how cultural traditions impact one’s identity GP:A1:5 Examine the ways in which cultural values and beliefs may conflict

GP:A1:7 Examine the impact that cultural values may have on the privilege or marginalization of groups

GP:A1:8 Examine prejudices and biases

GP:A1:9 Engage in local cultures and languages where one lives GP:A2:2 Identify shared values between self and others GP:A2:6 Accept feedback as a means to personal growth with regards to understanding other perspectives

GP:B1:3 Analyze the complexity of a person’s identity in relation to the concept of intersectionality

GP:B2:6 Compare and contrast one’s own cultural identity to the cultural identity of others

GP:B2:7 Use awareness of self to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups

GP:D1:3 Demonstrate awareness of cultural adjustment

ASCA Professional Standards and Ethical Standards and Practices

Standards and Practices

This course is aligned to the following school counselor standards and competencies:

A.3.a. Provide students with a culturally responsive school counseling program that promotes academic, career and social/emotional development and equitable opportunity and achievement outcomes for all students.

A.9.d. Provide culturally responsive mental health resources to parents/guardians.

A.15.c. Promote equity and inclusion through culturally affirming and sustaining practices honoring the diversity of families. Recognize that all parents/guardians, custodial and noncustodial, are vested with certain rights and responsibilities for their children’s welfare by virtue of their role and according to law.

B.3.k. Honor the diversity and identities of students and seek training/supervision when prejudice or biases interfere with providing comprehensive school counseling services to all pre-K– 12 students. School counselors will not refuse services to students based solely on personally held beliefs/values rooted in one’s religion, culture, or ethnicity. School counselors work toward a school climate that embraces diverse identities and promotes equitable outcomes in academic, career and social/emotional development for all students.

Essential Questions

1. How do your cultural background and lived experiences influence your perspective and worldview?
2. How will becoming a more culturally competent counselor impact your current and future work with students and other members of your community?
3. How can investing in your continued professional growth and development provide a framework to help you work through personal biases as you build rapport with members of your community?
4. How can you embody the roles of counselor, advocate/ social justice advocate as you grow through the process of cultural understanding?

Participants will have knowledge about:

1. Why being culturally competent is imperative when supporting a diverse, globally minded student body
2. What being a culturally competent counselor looks like
3. The importance of multi-tiered systems of support when creating a culturally responsive, comprehensive counseling program
4. Interventions, supports, and communities to engage and collaborate with to grow their counseling knowledge and practice
5. The impact one’s own culture and family of origin have on their present perspective and worldview
6. Intersectionality and how adopting an intersectional framework is foundational to being a culturally competent clinician
7. The evolution from cultural competence, to cultural humility, to culturally responsive.
8. Learn how to adapt the genogram to gain more historical insight and learn about different patterns of behavior, etc.

Participants will be able to:

1. Implement more culturally diverse and responsive interventions to help students and families.
2. Better advocate for underrepresented and marginalized students in their schools.
3. Create a plan to increase their level of cultural humility.
4. Identify intrinsic and exterior barriers that impede their growth in being more culturally responsive.
5. Increase their level of cultural competence, understanding, and sensitivity through collaborative learning and ongoing supervision.
6. Use the Cultural Formulation Interview to gain a deeper, more robust understanding of their students’ and the cultural connection to their presenting problems.
7. Create drafts of plans for programs to support marginalized communities in their schools.

Jacinta Williams

Jacinta Williams is a social justice and racial equity practitioner with almost 20 years of experience facilitating change in public, independent, and international education as well as in nonprofits and corporations. Jacinta started her work in social justice as a front-line advocate to ensure women of color in the city of Atlanta had access to HIV/AIDS testing, programmatic resources, and clinical trials. In 2002, she co-created the Metro Atlanta Women of Color Initiative (MAWOCI), Atlanta’s first and still leading HIV testing program for women of color.

After her time in public health, Jacinta continued her work in ensuring equitable access for marginalized communities in the education field where she worked to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion into teaching and learning and school systems, policies ,and processes. Jacinta is a skilled coach, process designer and facilitator and has experience designing and leading meaningful engagement and learning experiences across the entire ecosystem.

As a former teacher, instructional coach, and DEI leader in large non-profits, she brings a wealth of context and experience with engaging individuals, teams, and organizations in strategically addressing challenging and complex issues and integrating equitable processes to achieve equitable outcomes in structures, systems, policies, programs, and practices.

Most recently, she served as the Head of Equity and Inclusion at Atlanta International School and now works with local and international schools and companies to recognize and disrupt any cultural norms, processes and practices that prevent the community from living into its expressed diversity, equity, and inclusion commitment and goals. She focuses her work on building the capacity of people to materially shift conditions so that everyone can thrive and partners with organizations and people who are serious about ensuring conditions that work for everyone.

She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology summa cum laude from Emory University and a Master’s Degree in Education from Oglethorpe University. In her spare time, you can find her working out, traveling, reading fantasy novels, and supporting community development efforts.

ISCA Member Price: $300

Non-Member Price: $385

Dates and times of offerings: Coming Soon

Contact Hours: 6 hours

Time commitment between sessions: 5 hours

Required Resource(s): 

1. Computer
2. Cultural Formulation Interview
3. Cultural Genogram template Journal
4. Chapter 1: Setting the Stage for Competency (Multicultural Counseling Workbook, pgs. 3-40)
5. ASCA Code of Ethics
6. ISCA Student Standards
7. ADDRESSING framework