Ethics in Multicultural Practice - Essay Example

Ethics in Multicultural Practice Ethics in Multicultural Practice Ethics are beliefs and practices that guide the practice by different professionals and considered right by the members of the society. Care givers are guided by the Guidelines on multicultural education, training, research, practice, and organizational change for psychologists, when dealing with individuals from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures. Multicultural practice entails the practice by helping professionals and other health care professionals that takes into consideration differences in culture and divergent beliefs of the patients. Over the years, there has been an increased in diversity of the population in the United States and other areas of the world. There is a need for people to realize the need for accepting the need to have a multicultural perspective in carrying out daily chores especially in the provision of care. APA ethics codes (2002) states the need for psychologists to provide ethical and competent services in the course of working with individual with diverse backgrounds through provision of clinical services within their competence that meet the needs of the divergent populations they serve. The conduct code also point further that it is the need of the psychologist to take essential steps including training, education, supervision, and consultation for the provision of services to individuals of diverse backgrounds. This at least 18 percent of the American population speaks a language other than English in their homes. It is from this in mind and augmented globalization that there was a need to have a better understanding of the ethics in multicultural practice. This study aims at expounding the issues that arise in relation to ethics in multicultural practice. Cause Multicultural practice is a concept that can no longer be ignored globally due the reasons that have made the world a global village. These reasons include increased communication and transportation abilities leading to the need to accept the heterogeneity of people’s beliefs and practices. There has been movement of people from different regions and nations globally professing different faiths, races, culture, nationality, and beliefs. There have been increased intermarriages, migration, and immigration leading to an increase in association and presence of different cultures. This results in the patients and counseling clients having different backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs requiring the multicultural practice. Other causes for the increased cultural intermixing leading to multicultural practice is issuance of residency certificates to noncitizens and asylum seekers. One example where there I a need for the consideration in multicultural practice is death practices where there is a great variation indisposing the death among cultures from Buddhists and Sikhs who believe in cremation of the dead, the Semites bury their dead, to the Zoroastians who believe in leaving the dead for the consumption by vultures. Multicultural competence One of the issues that come with multicultural practice is the ability to provide counseling and other help activities that meet the needs of the different cultures served in the course of practice (Corey et al., 1998). Competence in a multicultural perspective entails the ability and commitment to consider cultural data with the intention of formulation accurate, comprehensive, and impartial conceptualization of a specific case. Multicultural competence is an issue since the lack of it by a counselor results in unintentional racism, use of biased instruments inappropriately, and misinterpretation of cultural based behaviors leading to inappropriate assessment of the individuals. The lack of multicultural competence could be in the form of inability of determination of cultural acculturation, lack of consideration of cultural behaviors during assessment, and lack of cultural information to resolve multicultural dilemmas. Multicultural competence can be developed through help providers having an understanding of their beliefs, attitudes, and values for that may result in bias in the course of interaction with individuals from different ethical and racial backgrounds. Multicultural competence requires understanding multicultural differences that result in the ability of a counselor respect and appreciate cultural and racial diversity (Corey et al., 1998). Multicultural competence can be promoted through development of multicultural-focused curriculum and multicultural training and refresher courses that aid in enhancing knowledge, skills, and competence of caregivers (Leung & Barnett, 2008). Adaptation and translation The ability to adapt the needs of a given situation and provide the required care mainly depends on the ability o the patient and the caregiver to have effective communication. This, however, may be hampered by a multicultural society affecting the ability of the patient and the caregiver to communicate due to language barrier and other culturally related behaviors and cues (Leung & Barnett, 2008). An example is an Arabic speaking patient trying to communicate to an American caregiver about their condition requiring the need of a translator. Lack of appropriate expertise in translation may hamper and lead to language discrepancy translating to ineffective assessment. There is a need for the use of a trained interpreter in a situation where there is a language barrier between a caregiver and a patient to avoid pitfalls on language between culturally different individuals in practice. There requirement for the conduct of assessment in the patients preferred language is affected by some factors in multicultural practice. Most assessments are conducted in English but a requirement for translation may be complex, costly, time consuming, and is prone to errors (Corey et al., 1998). There may also be translation validity problems in the course of the translation affecting the assessment for example psycho technical assessment may pose problems on translation. The quality and accuracy of translation may be ensuring by back translation, and multistep translation validity processes. Administration Administration of help by psychologists may be affected by the interaction approach selected, requiring the need for the selection of the most appropriate interaction approach considering cultural, racial, and ethnic differences. Development of a personalized delivery approach, increase awareness on cultural differences, and tailoring the interaction style towards the cultural orientation of the participant are the measures for effective interaction approaches. Having informed consent ensures the trust is built between the psychologist and the participant for a successful assessment process on participant of a different cultural background. Provision of full information, confidentiality limitations, risks of the assessment, benefits from the assessment, alternatives and other issues on the assessment that may be needed to ensure the success and cooperation of the assessed despite cultural differences (Leung & Barnett, 2008). Assessment tools Most of the standardized psychology assessment tools are tailored for the white middleclass population since they are developed from westernized approaches and there is a requirement for the use of unbiased assessment to the ethnic minority. There is an assumption that these instruments are applicable with different cultures that may not be true to the absence of studies to validate this statement owing to the absence of multicultural assessment techniques studies. Provision of culturally sensitive assessment has an enormous impact on the quality and quantity of help care services utilized by the minority. There is a need for help care professionals to use instruments that have metric equivalence for cross-cultural comparison and cross-cultural construct validity to ensure the construct is used in measurement across cultures for multicultural competence. Consideration of cultural and linguistic characteristics is the other measure than can be taken by psychologists prior to assessment to ensure the assessment is accurate, reliable, beneficial, ethical, and credible. This can be exemplified by the susto, a folk illness prevalent among Latino immigrants and profess freight symptoms from a stressful event. This is not captured by the most used assessment tool in Minnesota, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory II, showing the need for the development of culture relevant conceptualizations and consideration of cultural and linguistic characteristics of the population for the selection of most suitable assessment tool. Results interpretation On completion of the assessment, culturally appropriate result interpretation is a requirement for the psychologists when dealing with ethnic minority clients. There is a need for the realization by the psychologists of the influence of experience and linguistic and cultural background of the participants on the results (Leung & Barnett, 2008). The impact of the environment stressors during the assessment has also to be considered when interpreting the results. The use of standardized interpretation instruments by the psychologists also requires careful consideration and judgment for the interpretation of the results to reflect the culture and beliefs of the participants. An examination of assessment issues including bias, fairness, and cultural equivalence have to be taken into consideration for the success of the interpretation in multicultural practice. There is also a need for a psychologist involved in multicultural practice for the consultation of the services of other professionals with relevant expertise for accurate interpretation of the results obtained from the assessments. For success in interpretation, it has to done in a culturally informed and sensitive manner to ensure it addresses factors that are relevant and influence the performance of the participant in the course of the assessment. Correct interpretation of the results is very important due to the impacts it might have including limited access to treatment by the participant and resistance to treatment from an impaired trust of the psychologists (Leung & Barnett, 2008). Report Presentation and discussion Results of an assessment by psychologists have to be presented to the participant in a jargon free manner and in a language understandable to the participant. There is a need for the psychologist to have a one-to-one discussion with the participant and explain the results to them offering the participant an opportunity to request for clarification or ask questions appertaining to the results. This is aims at avoiding misinterpretation and misunderstanding. The need to include ethnic group member(s), community or family members is very necessary at this stage to allow for the implementation procedure and results to be presented and explained in further detail with the participant. The family members or any affected person will then after take the responsibility, facilitate, or authorize interventions to be taken after the presentation of the results. The psychologist has to take into consideration the views, suggestions, and wishes of these members on the wellbeing of the participant in making decisions for the recommendations of the interventions or services. However, consent has to be sought from the participant for these significant others to participate in the assessment, feedback, and intervention recommendations and treatment of the participant for the psychologists to include their input in the process. Multicultural practice by professionals also provides opportunities including the ability of the practitioner to access personal and professional benefits. These benefits include a facilitation of growth and openness in other areas for example sexual orientation and spirituality. Multicultural practice also allows for increased motivation for taking different perspectives, accepting differences between cultures and commonality despite cultures, racial and ethnic differences, and ability to solve problem faster when dealing with diverse groups. In conclusion, there are many factors to be considered in multicultural practice for success. This has been necessitated by the increase in the cultures, races, and ethnic communities that reside together leading to care provision to a large population of people from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures. These factors include multicultural competence, assessment techniques, and interaction approaches, interpretation of results, adaptation, and assessment, and administration of the care requiring the change of [perception and consideration to fit the multicultural population. There is a need for the caregivers to have a change of attitude and understanding that there are divergent cultures and differences in the participants exploit the differences positively through ensuring the techniques and practices are ethically in line with the culture, beliefs, and practices of the participant. Multicultural practice requires training on different cultures, incorporation in curriculum of the differences in cultures and mechanisms to avoid biasness, continuous personal and professional development of psychologists, and tailoring practice to the different cultures dealt with in the course of practice. References American Psychological Association. (2003). Guidelines on multicultural education, training, research, practice, and organizational change for psychologists. American Psychologist, 58,377– 402. Leung, C.V.V., & Barnett, J.E. (2008). Multicultural assessment and ethical practice. The Colorado Psychologist. Corey, G., Corey, M. S., & Callanan, P. (1998). Issues and ethics in the helping professions. Pacific Grove, Calif: Brooks/Cole Pub. Read More