We started today a new series of Cultural Competence trainings to staff members in the Alyn hospital in Jerusalem. We have facilitated three such trainings before in Alyn, mainly focusing on the out-patient clinics. The new series focuses on the in-patient rehabilitation department staff. These efforts are part of our program, together with the Alyn Hospital’s management, to transform Alyn into a cultural competent hospital, the first of its kind in Israel. The work with Alyn is a component of the Jerusalem Cultural Competence in Health Project initiated by the Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center and the Jerusalem Foundation.
In addition to adapting the training to the rehab department – using simulations and role playing cases that were developed specifically for this department, we also upgraded our methodology; we now use cases throughout the workshop as triggers for discussion on theoretical and practical knowledge and tools. We find this new approach to be much more effective in delivering the training’s input to participants, and in fact, it is also time-saving. It also serves to bridge between different proficiencies – as the participants come from various professional backgrounds – physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, administrative staff, etc. In the new model much of the training is based on events the participants share with us – and these, of course, are very meaningful to them.
Alyn Cultural Competence Training November 25, 2009
We received excellent feedback from the workshop and in the coming months we plan to deliver a few more such workshops to additional staff members of this department.
