Effectiveness of Strategies for Cultural Competence When Applied to Different Practice Settings

Abstract

Cultural competence is the ability to interact with people from cultures other than your own through the development of personal and interpersonal awareness. It is important for educators to utilize efficient strategies that can be used across different settings and with different age groups. This portfolio analyzes the literature on strategies that have proven effective in certain settings with a specific focus on the Teach-Back Method. This Teach-Back Method, which has proven effective in healthcare one-on-one adult settings, calls educators to ask patients to repeat instructions and information provided to them in their own words to ensure that the educator has provided knowledge in a way in which their patients understand. This portfolio applied the Teach-Back Method to non-traditional settings to observe its effectiveness in these settings. With The National Kidney Foundation, the Teach-Back Method was applied to younger age groups in a non-traditional group setting. This was taken further by applying the Teach-Back Method to Lawakua Tutoring, where the method was used to teach different, academic content to a non-traditional age group. A handbook for Lawakua tutoring was made to incorporate the cultural competence strategies from the literature into the tutoring setting. A journal from the experience with The National Kidney Foundation outlined the success of incorporating the strategies into different settings. These experiences have shown that the Teach-Back Method is an effective tool for cultural competence not only in its traditional healthcare, one-on-one adult setting, but also in the classroom setting with younger age groups. Implications for future work includes utilizing the teach back method with school-age children and families in healthcare and community health practice settings.