Your practice has just employed a dental assistant who is profoundly deaf. As you are the senior assistant at the practice, your manager has asked that you mentor this person to ensure their smooth transition into the business. While you have mentored other new employees in the past, you have never experienced working with a deaf person. What strategies will you use in order to reflect on your own beliefs and values and ensure that the new person receives all the assistance they need?
The mentor is also known as role model, as a person with experience in personal and professional development, who helps in achieving career goals. Mentoring a deaf dental assistant such that he is able to make smooth transition into business is integral. In the current reflection strategies that will be used for reflecting on values and beliefs for ensuring the person gets all the attention needed.
The role of a mentor is in encouraging believes in skills. According to my understanding, strategies will be taught to be done to build confidence and skills to improve career and increase chances in dental profession. The mentor’s strategy must be based on mutual trust and respect. A mentor’s strategy needs to be patient and understanding, such that assistant can communicate with them. Interest and care for others guiding them towards their roles, is another strategy that needs to be adopted. A mentor needs to answer questions and possess social skills. A mentor needs to possess experience in specific field in which the assistant wants to develop career. Networking strategies needs to be present in a mentor. A mentor continuously thinks of input and dedication. Information, leadership and emotional support are essential qualities which allow mentors implement strategies. Such a moderator can promote the socialization of corporate culture, the development of the leadership, the salary increase and the satisfaction of the work.
Your practice has made a commitment to embrace diversity, and management is eager to demonstrate how they are promoting and acknowledging difference. Your supervisor has asked you to attend a diversity meeting with other team leaders and would like your input about what to include in a diversity policy. Outline the types of inclusions that should be in that policy.
Organisations across Australia are embracing commitment to include diversity in their management. In order to do so, they are promoting and acknowledging differences. The following principles support diversity approach to integration and diversity need to be present, which has to be discussed with other team leaders :
- Integration and Diversity for colleagues, customers, company and shareholders
- Acting honestly and respectfully with people.
- Acknowledging and embracing all differences.
- All responsible for creating inclusive and diverse work.
- Leaders represent the team behaviours. Inclusion is an active process for invoking and evaluating individual features.
- Equal share of all employees. Exclusion requires truth and respect and a sense of competence.
Imagine that you have been transported to a place in the world where the culture, language, traditions, values, beliefs and practices, food, dress, gender roles, religious beliefs, individual rights, family roles, and child rearing practices are completely different to your own. You are required to live in this place for six months without any contact with your home or family.
Describe how you might feel and what would you miss most. What assistance would you like from your new community to help you settle in and feel safe? Describe how you might translate this self-reflection to your work with customers and colleagues from a culture other than your own.
Living and staying at a different place in the world requires matching up with culture, language, traditions, values, beliefs and practices, food, dress, gender roles, religious beliefs, individual rights, family roles, and child rearing practices according to the new culture. Living at a new place without family, I would miss my family the most and the food that we generally eat. I feel totally out of place in the new cultural role. In order to acclimatize to the new culture, I would require help and assistance from the new community. Such help includes helping me understand their cultural beliefs, values and customs. It also requires familiarizing with the necessary traditions that are practiced at their place. This would allow me to get into less conflict at the new location. Once I am able to gain knowledge and skills related to such practice then I will use such knowledge while handling and interacting with my customers and colleagues, who belong to the new culture. I will ascertain that I do not create any negative understanding or feeling related to their customs or cultures.
A new trainee has begun working at your practice. He has only recently arrived in Australia from a country that expects women to behave very differently to the way women behave here. He holds those attitudes, and this has resulted in a number of incidents where there has been friction between him, other staff, and customers. When his manager has a discussion with him, he responds positively and understands that he needs to modify his behaviour in order to continue working at the centre. Outline at least six qualities that the trainee could embrace in order to achieve success.
The trainee who has arrived newly in Australia and undertaking practice will have conflicts in his role, due to the difference in behaviour. In order that he embraces new behavioural understanding of the Australian culture and achieves success, the following qualities he needs to embrace;
1.Patient learning of the new culture
2.Understanding of the difference in behavioural context before reacting
3.Having a more positive and acceptance towards new culture
4.Getting into minimum conflicts
5.Being less arrogant and aggressive
6.Handling patient and colleagues with utmost care
Your manager recognises the value of inclusion and mentoring and has asked you to become a mentor to the new trainee from the scenario in Q.4. The manager believes that you are a hard worker with excellent interpersonal skills. What are the positive effects that the manager believes will result from this pairing, and how will you go about mentoring the trainee?
In order to mentor a trainee from a different culture, I will continuously counsel him. Through contiguous counselling and guidance to our culture that is prevalent in Australia I will aim to motivate him to react differently. My aim in this mentoring would devise ability such that the person is able to familiarize with the customs and tradition as well as respect that are present for women.
Allira is a Murri woman. She enjoys sharing her culture with customers and colleagues and feels proud that she has contributed to a better understanding of her people. She is an active member of her community and both contribute to and participate in a range of social and cultural activities. Allira has been granted a week of special leave to assist in planning activities for Sorry Day. The practice manager becomes extremely concerned when he hears two employees discussing the unfairness of Allira being granted special leave for Sorry Day. “I don’t know why they have Sorry Day anyway. It’s time they moved on!”
Why should the practice manager be concerned about this discussion from a business, legal, and ethical perspective? What would be a more positive and worthwhile response to Allira attending Sorry Day activities? What information could the practice manager provide?
All employees need to be provided equal grants and leaves. A practice manager will be concerned regarding discussion of Allira by two other employees because there is business, legal and ethical perspectives related to the same. In business no employee can be treated in a special manner as that would harm the business and have ethical considerations. Such type of behaviour can be seen as un-ethical consideration as undertaking partiality to one employee. It could also attract a legal case from other employees related to unfair and unequal treatment.
My positive and worthwhile response to Allira, who is socially and culturally active, would include asking her to not take leave for the purpose. Allira can attend Sorry day activities after she has attended office work and completed her necessary duties. She could also undertake a half day of for the same.
The practice manager could provide information that all other employees are attending office and she cannot be granted any special leave. Allira could opt for her other type of leaves such as Casual leave for the same.
The meaning of marginalised people reflects a group of people who are socially excluded. Such groups are treated in a different manner compared to the rest of the people in the society. These people had been traditionally been excluded from various societal roles and responsibilities from a long period of time. Therefore, such roles and responsibilities of marginalised people need to be brought about at par with others such that they can also make significant contributions. These groups are often at threat from other societal groups due to the threat that they receive.
The potential need of these groups is immense as they get to socialise and others in the society gets awareness regarding their presence. Presence of such people is integral for any type of society as they have less representation compared to others. They are also treated in a separate manner which imposes considerable threats. There needs to be brought about greater amounts of participation from such groups so as to maintain similarity of status and social roles amongst them.
looked at the scenario of a practice employing a dental assistant who happens to be profoundly deaf. What types of resources are available for this person to ensure that their needs are met,
In order to meet needs of a profoundly deaf dental assistant there are multiple types of resources that are needed to ensure that their needs are met. A deaf assistant will not be able to conduct his roles and duties similar to others in the same manner and he needs to be assisted. Therefore, there has to be resources present that allow such persons to be at par with others in the dental services. However, in order to bring about such services, there has to be greater role participation needed for varied personnel. Such resources include reading resources for guidance to clinical practice, collaborating on varied training needs and hands-on training related to dental practice.
All employees of the practice have to ensure that they have awareness related to such needs. Such awareness will allow catering to the needs of the deaf person.
There are a wide range of influences and changing practice in Australia related to the diversity community. There are policy developments such as inclusion and equality. There is greater inclusion for diversified communities and their roles are also emerging. Their impact on the Australian diverse communities is immense as backward communities are coming forward and contributing in societal roles. Practices in Australia are also including accepting other communities to be at par with the society. Especially in regards to the Aboriginals and Indigenous people, who have been treated as backward communities for ages, there have been great amounts of progress to be seen. The backward communities and other marginalised people of the society are gradually coming forward and taking up various roles of importance within the society. The society’s diverse communities have been for a long period lagging behind and unable to cope with the social standards and reap benefits. Therefore, there needs to be practices adopted such that there can be attracted more participants from such diversified groups.
