Cultural Awareness: Understanding Cultural Responsiveness and Diversity within Clinical Practice

Course Description

With an increase in the diverse cultural backgrounds of individuals seeking ABA services, it is essential for clinicians to educate themselves to deliver culturally appropriate services. Recognizing the importance of cultural competence and establishing standards to measure it is crucial in our field.

This course is designed to help ABA professionals incorporate cultural values and beliefs into their service delivery. It explores the origins of cultural competence, its significance, and the necessity of cultural awareness and responsiveness in clinical practice, especially when working with individuals and families in the ASD community.

Participants will learn about biases and barriers to cultural competence, compare person-centred and medical-centred models, and review literature recommendations for developing standards to measure cultural competence. This course covers a wide range of factors that define culture, including race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, and economic status.

Course Objectives

Participants will:

• Define person-centred vs. medical-centred models and their applicability to ABA
• Understand biases and challenges that act as barriers to cultural competence
• Identify factors that define culture and individualize targets based on upbringing
• Learn about different communication styles and their relevance to ethnic minority groups
• Understand BACB Ethics Guidelines promoting cultural competence and recommended standards for ABA clinicians
• Measure cultural competence and identify programming considerations for working with BIPoC, deaf community members, and LGBTQ2IA+ individuals

Why Choose This Course?

• Expert Instruction: Learn from experienced professionals in ABA and cultural competence
• Comprehensive Curriculum: Gain insights into both theoretical and practical aspects of cultural responsiveness and diversity within clinical practice
• Practical Skills: Develop skills to overcome biases and barriers to cultural competence
• Ethical Focus: Emphasize ethical practices in delivering culturally responsive services
• CEU Opportunity: Earn 1.5 Ethics CEUs while enhancing your skills

Who Should Attend?

This course is ideal for:

• ABA professionals and clinicians working with diverse populations
• Early childhood educators and therapists
• RBT/BCaBA/BCBA designation holders or candidates
• Anyone involved in designing and implementing ABA-based programming

1.5 Ethics CEU Available

This content is intended for those who: have or are pursuing RBT/BCaBA/BCBA designations; teachers, and therapists. This course is also designed for other individuals, professionals or anyone whose role uses ABA to design & implement programming to decrease behaviours and increase skill acquisition of individuals with autism or to support individuals with developmental disabilities in any capacity.