Guidelines for Presenters
Addressing Cultural Competence
- Acknowledge your areas of expertise with specific populations, and identify to the audience your comfort level and knowledge base with culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
- Use language that is respectful of culturally and linguistically diverse communities (e.g. do not use jargon).
- Recognize that different communities have different learning and communication styles that are inherent to their particular cultural group. Factors such as timing and tone of speech may influence the learning process.
- Use “people first” language, e.g., children with substance abuse, co-occurring, or mental health issues rather than substance abusers or mentally ill children.
- Incorporate the perspectives of family members and youth of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds into sessions by including them as presenters where possible.
- Incorporate information and perspectives related to serving culturally and linguistically diverse populations and achieving cultural and linguistic competence into sessions.
- When providing examples, include those that are representative of culturally and linguistically diverse populations by using case studies and/or vignettes.
- Become knowledgeable of communities with diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds and be aware of how members of these communities describe themselves taking into account that self-identity descriptions are dynamic and may change over time.
- When providing demographic and statistical information, identify the presence or absence of culturally and linguistically diverse populations, and provide information about ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse populations.
- The choice of graphic materials for PowerPoint presentations, overheads, handouts, and visual aides in presentations should reflect the population being discussed.
