Cultural Competence | The Jerusalem Intercultural Center

Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity

We’ve given lectures as part of the diversity management course of the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity for several years. In the course, we present the JICC’s activities in cultural competency, and present relevant tools. The current course opened in January 2021, and includes 18 participants from leading organizations and companies in Israel, including the Israel Police, Strauss, Weizmann Institute, the electric company, Elbit, a large legal office, and more.

the course participants

This year, because of Covid, the course is taking place via Zoom. The first meeting (of the two we were invited to) took place on February 10 and was led by Dr. Rachely Ashwal and Orna Shani Golan, who are leading the Cultural Competency Desk at the JICC. We presented tools to help organizations improve their ability to include everyone, not through broad organizational activities, but through personal skills that each diversity manager should have: tools for effective work in the face of generalizations, and tools to deepen inter-cultural dialogue.

Dealing with generalization

The meeting ended with a simulation in which a manager had to address an employee’s request to take vacation on the Novi God holiday, after the organization had decided not to give vacations. The simulation engaged all in understanding the unique cultural aspects of this request. In the next meeting we’ll play the HoliGame, a unique tool we developed together with the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity to deal with social and political tensions in an organization.

orna2021-03-30T16:09:21+00:00March 21st, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in the Workplace|

Cultural Competence in Academia

It’s no secret that Cultural Competence affects all areas of life – from healthcare, to welfare to businesses and academia. We’ve written here and here about our work with academic institutions.

Cultural Competency in Academia

Throughout Covid academic institutions have continued to hold class, online. And like many aspects of our everyday lives, post-secondary studies, as well as the online format, raise numerous inter-cultural and inter-identity issues, which cultural competence can help to address effectively. This year, we’ve been working with the Zefat Academic College, the Sapir Academic College in Ashkelon, Shenkar College – Engineering. Design. Art and Bar-Ilan University.

In February we led an online workshop for 20 participants, which dealt with issues such as culturally competent academic teaching, dealing with bias and stereotypes, cultural axes, adaptations that are necessary for different identities, and more.

In March we began a four-workshop series at Shenkar, and we’re scheduled to play the HoliGame in April with faculty and staff from Bar-Ilan University.

Here’s the Facebook post from our Dr. Rachely Ashwal from the meeting in February with Sapir Academic College:

And this trend will hopefully continue in the next months and years! The message of cultural competence in academics will spread to more campuses!

Naomi Roff2021-03-30T16:04:43+00:00March 20th, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Academic Institutions|

Training the Trainers for the Man and Medicine Course

For the past several years the Hadassah – Hebrew University School of Medicine (located at Hadassah Hospital at Ein Kerem) operates a course called “Man and Medicine,” which seeks to give medical students tools and awareness about the meeting with the person behind the sickness, and to help the future doctor look not at the sickness to be treated, but at the person as well. Members of the JICC’s Cultural Competency desk have been lecturing in the course almost since its beginning. We lectured, operated simulations and played movies to help impart the principles of cultural competence. After a few years, the course structure was changed, and we trained the course instructors how to use our training videos and teach the principles themselves.

Talking about Stereotype

On March 10, 2021, an orientation meeting was held for 30 course teachers (each one works with 12 – 13 students), most of them senior physicians at Hadassah Hospital. We were asked to give them tools to guide the students they mentor. This included: reviewing cultural competency and its principles, reminding how to use the training videos, as well as tips of how to do this via Zoom, since most of the course is currently being held remotely. The training was led by Orna Shani Golan, Director of the JICC’s Cultural Competency Desk.

The two-hour training included how to deal with generalizations about different groups, such as: “Muslim women don’t get epidural shots,” or “Ethiopians don’t look you in the eyes,” or “Vegans are anti-vaxxers,” and more. The participants discussed the communication gaps that arise when there are cultural gaps. Overall, they understood how to teach their students how to have an inter-cultural dialogue understanding the patients’ point of view from a cultural standpoint.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its support of cultural competency in Jerusalem since its inception, and to the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine – Hadassah Medical Center, for their long-time partnership.

orna2021-03-20T08:21:43+00:00March 17th, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Health Services|

Cultural Competency with Division for the Advancement of Youth, Jaffa

We’ve written here. here, and here how Cultural Competency deals with inter-cultural communication, and how to ‘read’ the person sitting in front of you and ensure maximum communication.

It’s not always between cultures, it’s also sometimes between ages, and between different groups of people.

Ezadeen with Youth Center Director

Such was the case on March 9, 2020, when our Ezadeen Elsaad led a cultural competency workshop for the Division of Advancement of Youth in Jaffa. Ezadeen spoke with them about methods and skills to cope positively with diversity and how to create a sense of belonging even when they face differences between students and colleagues in their daily routine.

The discussion included how to engage the youth, and how to de-stigmatize the youth center and turn it into a place where youth would want to come. He also spoke about ways to listen to the youth and engage with them on an eye-to-eye level, in order to help them understand their own way forward.

Applying principles of cultural competency in everyday work with at-risk youth

Here’s a Facebook post (in Arabic) by the director of the Center for Youth at Risk:

This is part of our work with a number of offices of the Division for the Advancement of Youth throughout Israel. Stay tuned for more updates!

Naomi Roff2021-05-06T07:43:23+00:00March 16th, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Government Institutions|

New Arabic-language Digital Tools to Fight Covid

We’ve been on the front lines helping to fight the spread of Covid in East Jerusalem for the past year, the first NGO ever invited to join a public command center that was set up together with the Jerusalem Municipality, the Ministry of Health, and the IDF’s Home Front Command, among others. At the same time, we actively set up and coordinated a Forum to Fight Covid in East Jerusalem, network of 150 Arab Palestinian civil society actors in East Jerusalem, representing some 80 organizations.

The new web site lists the updated numbers of cases in East Jerusalem

As a result of this work, an idea was raised to create a go-to web site that included all the possible information about Covid – healthcare information, where to go for testing, information vaccinations, information to counter fake news, and more.

This web site draws from official sources and authorities to ensure accuracy of information. Also critically important – the web site is considered an independent initiative. Official Israeli channels are often regarded with suspicion in East Jerusalem, so the fact that it is independent adds to the website’s legitimacy.

Updated testing information also listed

You can view the website here.

And the Facebook page here:

For example, here’s a post about vaccinations in the Shuafat Refugee Camp:

And another, a video by Jerusalemite doctors about the importance of the vaccine:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, the Russell Berrie Foundation, and the Leichtag Foundation for their emergency support of our efforts to stop the spread of Covid in East Jerusalem.

Naomi Roff2021-03-30T16:08:09+00:00March 14th, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence in Health Services, Effective Activism, Palestinians/Arabs|

Even Coffee is a Multicultural Business

Cultural Competence is needed everywhere – from healthcare, to welfare and city services, even to your coffee provider and other workplaces.

We’ve found that the HoliGame, produced as a joint project of the JICC’s Cultural Competency Desk and the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity, has been a useful tool in introducing important concepts of cultural competency while having a bit of fun.

On January 18, 2021, the desk led a session of HoliGame with the Israeli division of the Nespresso coffee company.

Diversity workshop for Nespresso

Noa Tron, Director of the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity, opened the session with a fascinating lecture on the importance of diversity in organizations, especially in light of the diversity in Israeli society. She also spoke about the viability of diversity, the immense benefits that a diverse and inclusive work environment has for the organization, given the great diversity of the society in which we live. More than 50 managers and workers gathered via Zoom to discuss dilemmas and questions surrounding events, dates and holidays in the Israeli calendar and other issues that often arise in a diverse work environment.

Michal, vice president of human resources at Nespresso, said as she opened the meeting:

Nespresso, as an organization, has set a goal of expanding and deepening its diversity, given the enormous benefits of a diverse and multi-identity work environment, and has been undergoing this process for the past two years. Therefore, as managers, employees and actors in an organizational environment, if we just open up our thinking about the existing diversity – with all the dilemmas, challenges – and opportunities – that this diversity entails – we will profit from an organization with a rich and interesting work environment, which is much better for its employees.

Here’s a Facebook post from Rachely Ashwal:

Many thanks to Nespresso, and to the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity!

Naomi Roff2021-02-13T09:54:47+00:00January 21st, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in the Workplace|

Cultural Competency with the Jerusalem Mental Health Center

Cultural Competency – the ability of systems and individuals to effectively and positively adapt themselves to relevant identities, cultures, ethnic groups, etc. – is an ongoing personal and organizational process. We were thrilled by the opportunity to continue working with the center, having held workshops on cultural competence in mental health, and training bilingual staff in interpreting techniques. Almost a decade ago, when we started working with them, one of the organization’s legendary administrative directors, Shneor Havkin, told us: “We know the basics of cultural competence, we get along. But that’s not enough.” He explained that culturally competent health care, especially mental health care, is so complex, need more advanced and nuanced training is needed to make sure that patients receive the best care possible.

Hagai always takes a good picture

What does this actually mean? The Jerusalem Mental Health Center, including its hospitals and outpatient clinics, are diverse organizations. Because of their location in Jerusalem – the employees as well as the patients – come from diverse groups as well as the patients. Employees must adopt culturally competent skills in order to treat patients in a way that takes into account their perceptions, preferences and limitations. Culturally adapted treatment is particularly challenging in the context of mental health, where it is not always clear whether a person’s particular behavior is the result of his personality, the society in which he lives, or the mental illness he is dealing with.

A snapshot of the workshop

A culturally competent organization must also look inward – and examine how it manages the diversity among employees in the best way possible. Diversity is the ability to manage employees from diverse human backgrounds. Inclusion, another related term, refers to the individual’s feeling as part of a group, the employee’s ability to express himself while maintaining his uniqueness, without the organization’s even slightest demand to downplay his identity or assimilate it into the organization altogether (from the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity website).

The interest and investment in issues of diversity and inclusion has increased greatly in recent years, and has also received backing and government support through sets of guidelines, standards and training. We recently completed a course on diversity management and cultural competence for employees from the human resources and welfare, and heads of nursing departments at the Jerusalem Mental Health Center. In the 4-session course, participants learned about the benefits of diversity, the challenges of managing diversity and inclusion, and areas where existing knowledge and resources can be utilized to improve diversity management. For example, we spoke about Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are voluntary, employee-led groups that foster a diverse, inclusive workplace aligned with organizational mission, values, goals, business practices, and objectives. Examples of ERG’s can be promoting the discussion of LGBT workers’ rights, marking holidays and celebrations for members of different cultures, organizing culturally competent training days and more. We also learned about how to correctly manage conflicts, tools for effective intercultural communication, and even some techniques to simplify complex information for employees with different levels of literacy.

Managing diversity is important to the organization, employees and the community, but it is a challenging matter that sometimes causes dilemmas. For example, employees shared with us dilemmas on how to properly manage situations such as evaluating employees’ work and efficiency, firing employees, or managing crises that included a cultural element. There is not always a right solution to the issue, but even the opportunity to look at such situations from an intercultural standpoint can give the manager a new perspective, and enables them to choose the most professional solution and still give the employee the feeling that their cultural needs have been seen and heard.

We are pleased to continue to accompany the Jerusalem Mental Health Center in the process, which will continue with projects initiated by the participants on the subject of diversity and inclusion. Such mini-activism in the organization is important to continued engagement of the employees.

Dr. Michal Schuster, who led the training at the Jerusalem Mental Health Center, described the workshop in this Facebook post (Hebrew)

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continued support of cultural competency in Jerusalem since its inception in 2008.

Naomi Roff2020-11-28T12:36:01+00:00November 23rd, 2020|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Health Services|

Cultural Competency Lectures at Hadassah, despite and because of COVID-19

Over the past few months, especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, workshops to improve cultural competency, especially in the healthcare field, have been more important then ever. You can read about our activities here, here and here.

Coming to Hadassah for cultural competency workshops

Many of these activities have been remote meetings, via Zoom.

But at Hadassah Hospitals (both Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus), the need was for in-person meetings, especially since professionals came off shifts from the Hospitals’ different departments, including the COVID-19 wards. Our lectures focused on issues of intercultural encounters with patients and their families in cultural competency workshops for coordinators in charge of improving patient experience.

Meetings according to Ministry of Health guidelines

The lectures were of course held in accordance with Ministry of Health regulations. We were able to give them tools and knowledge that would help them get through their shifts more easily.

There is no need talk about the medical staff’s commitment and dedication. For a variety of reasons, they do not always receive cooperation from patients and their families, and / or they do not always fully understand the complexities of the different Israeli identities and their approach to medical care.

Cultural competency an important part of healthcare, In the midst of hospital shifts

We were happy to come, and honored to be part of the effort to make Israeli healthcare more culturally competent, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

Here’s a Facebook post that lecturer Dr. Rachely Ashwel wrote after the workshops:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continued support of cultural competency in Jerusalem since its inception in 2008.

Naomi Roff2020-11-20T14:07:15+00:00November 15th, 2020|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Health Services|

Cultural Competence Training for Academic Institutions during COVID-19

The COVID-19 crisis has changed so many aspects of all of our lives. Since so much of our communication has become less and less face-to-face, the need for cultural competence and cultural sensitivity is more critical than ever.

Teaching lecturers how to navigate diverse classrooms, especially during COVID-19

This includes, among other places, the academic classroom. Like many college and university campuses around the globe, COVID-19 has turned the bustling academic campuses into spaces that are largely virtual. In Israel, the school year began with full online academic learning, and, as part of the preparations, the JICC Cultural Competency Desk was invited to lecture at the Zefat Academic College on how to teach online courses, with diverse classes, in a culturally competent manner.

Raising questions, discussing answers

How can lecturers hold classes online that will be both culturally competent and culturally sensitive, taking into consideration the cultural differences between students and faculty, as well as between the students themselves?

What aspects should be taken into account vis a vis the students, where not everyone might have a suitable Internet infrastructure, but they do have a strong desire and motivation to learn? How do you take attendance when everyone can choose a Zoom nickname and / or turn off the camera?

And most importantly – how can dialogue and the skills of listening and recognizing intercultural differences help a lecturer overcome these challenges? The culturally competent perspective and these questions were raised by Dr. Rachelly Ashwall in the online lecture held on September 15, 2020 for academic staff at Zefat Academic College.

Naomi Roff2020-11-20T14:05:32+00:00October 11th, 2020|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Academic Institutions|

Culturally Competent Community Work – JICC Setting Professional Standard

Just before the New Year, our Cultural Competency Desk, led by Orna Shani Golan, and JICC Director Dr. Hagai Agmon-Snir, together with Orit Yulzari, a community social worker, previously the head of the “Gisurim” program, and Dr. Orna Shemer, Lecturer in Community Social Work at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published an article (in Hebrew) in the professional social work journal, Meidaos, called, “I Don’t Know, You Tell Me: A Culturally Competent Dialogue Model.”

Seven Step Dialogue Model

The article sets out a 7-step model for social workers in performing their everyday work in a culturally competent manner. These stages, which include, explanations and understanding of the problem and possible solutions by both the social worker and the service recipient can go a long way in providing effective social work services.

You can read the article here and the whole journal here.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continued support of Cultural Competency in Jerusalem.

Naomi Roff2020-10-23T11:04:36+00:00September 30th, 2020|Blog, Cultural Competence|