Improving Self-Awareness And Embracing Cultural Diversity In Australia: An Essay.

Avoiding Cultural Stereotypes

Question:

Discuss about the Diploma of Practice Management for Perspectives.
 

My perspective and bias on the Australian indigenous people is failing to know reasons why they have full financial  support  from the government on various amenities such health and education yet they don’t want to seize the opportunity to learn how to read and write like Cowan: who speak broken English and cannot write.

Avoiding generalization will be my first action on creating social self-awareness to enable me serves people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Cultural stereotypes are common in every group of people, but I will have to remember that not everyone in such group has the same behavior and thoughts as felt by others. I will stop from making generalization on such unfortunate indigenous people as some of them do not even take alcohol or smoke cigarette, hence I will treat each equally.

My second action will to practice individualism with such unfortunate people such as the indigenous Australians and make friend with one of them. The continuous socialization will help me understand why they require benefits and support that I don’t have to look after. Finally, I will concentrate on facts rather than gut feelings like the one shown by Serena; this will help me determine situations and address them correctly with humility.

The two areas that will help me improve my self-awareness are the attitude and values that will ultimately impact my organization behavior. Improving on attitude will help me to handle Cowan with respect and humility, for example, while helping him to fill the questions on the patient sheet; I will read the questions in a low tone, unlike Serena who the voice was loud that made Cowan feel uncomfortable in the office. Secondly, determining the values will help me appreciate the other people’s values as much as we don’t get equal benefits from the government. For example, I will make Cowan understand that how important are the information.

My culture insists on humility among people. All irrespective of the age and power are required to be humble to one another; therefore communication is always mutual, every person’s opinion respected. During the conversation, one is expected to keep quiet and listen, after that answer or seek clarification.

The cultural humility adopted, aids me in performing my everyday duty as a social and medical officer. The main aim of a medical practitioner is to bring a client out of the problem; therefore communication strategy is important to make the sick realize my commitment to helping them. Through the communication, I am capable of being in their shoes and have the same feelings.

Australia is a multicultural country with about 270 ancestries and speaking over 200 languages such as indigenous, English, Italian, Arabic, Vietnamese and among others. The strong diversity has attracted millions of people across the world into the country: with more than 76% having ancestry belonging, 3% being Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and 26% being international immigrants. However, before 1945 some races such Aboriginal were considered more inferior than others that led to the inadequate supply of basic amenities in such areas (Ghosh 2018, p.19). This changed after the passage of the Racial and discrimination Act in 1945 that have tried to eradicate discriminatory behaviors among Australians. Currently, about 80% of Australian’s immigrants feel strong belonging to the country. Australia is composed of 52% of Christians with a different denomination such as Anglican, Catholic, Uniting Church, Eastern Orthodox, About 8,100 Australians practice Traditional Aboriginal religions and 30% of Australians practice no religion.

Practicing Individualism with Indigenous Australians

The mixture of diverse culture from all over the world have shaped the Australian culture, for example about a decade ago, it was difficult to find a black African heritage in Adelaide, unlike now that there is numerous Sudanese community. The religion is also shaping as considerable percentage 3% and 2 % of Australian are practicing Buddhism and Hinduism (Kamp et al 2017, p.69). Tourism has changed the wrong initial perception of the suburbs areas such as those lived by Aboriginal have been turned into tourist centers that have changed their socio-economic life.

Social diversity helps in bringing together all the people from different social classes to live and work in harmony. For example, the diversity allows effective communication between a casual worker and a manager from different ethnic groups. The political diversity has ensured the accommodation and appointment of the less unfortunate people to various political or managerial positions to foster the interest of the unfortunate. The cultural diversity in work helps the staffs to share ideas and skills of doing a particular task, hence enhance the global cultural experience.

The western culture, system, and structure have positively impacted the lives of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander us most of them embraces the hospital delivery program, unlike their old ways that delivery was performed through the midwife at home(Ulloa,Kacperski & Sancho 2016,p.18). It is observable that most of them have realized the effect of drugs and alcohol abuse hence the help in reducing the spread by most of them aiding the anti-drug campaign programs.

Australian Racial Discrimination Act requires that all the ethnic groups considered with equity, therefore, the act impacts Serena’s work by ensuring that she cease from making negative social remarks such as Cowan’s people being an alcoholic who doesn’t work. The human rights also require fair treatment irrespective of the social class, therefore ethically Serena after realizing the Cowan was unable to read and write would have considered his emotions and read the questions in a low tone to avoid embarrassing Cowan. The breaches of these legal and ethical requirements are job dismissal and service of jail term.

PART B: Responding to Diversity

Question 1: Phone call script

Serena: Hallo, this Serena from Cashore Medical Practice.

Access line Operator: Yes how may I help you?

Serena:   Am calling to inquire some information about one of your own called Cowan who has poor communication ability.

Access line Operator: What do you want to know?

Serena: I want to get all the information to fill in his Patient information sheet.

Seeking an interpreter in this situation will not be relevant since the broken English spoken by Cowan is enough for Serena to receive and interpret the intentions and meaning of the message. Additionally, some of the information she seeks from the access line, Cowan is capable of supplying.

Question 2: Positive Response

Cowan: “I hope this is enough,” he says unconfidently.

Serena: “Excuse me, sir! You have not filled all the questions” she asks with a concerned voice

Improving Self-Awareness

Cowan: “my English is not very good,” cowans says.

Cowan: “I speak broken English, but dunno know how to write well,”

Serena: “It is okay sir, I will assist you to answer them, you tell me the answer, and I will write” Serena answers with humility stretching her arm for Cowan to join her.

Question 3: Work Professionalism

To help Cowan effectively engage with the health services at CareShore Medical Practice, I will first determine the level and understand the nature of his socio-economic status, to provide me a basis for conversion (Lee et al 2017,p.15). During the conversation, I will build his confidence, trust, change the beliefs on the program offered, and help him in any way possible to attain the set goals through a constant engagement plan.

The management of CareShore Medical should organize training and seminar to educate staffs of the different aspects of cultures and the importance of embracing and celebrating the cultural diversity to serve all people equally without bias (Mathews, Mahata & Sherrell 2018, p131). During the training, the employees should be able to have tips on how to be culturally safe. The management should also help the staffs such as Serena in understanding the vision, mission, and objective of the organization; which is service to all and additionally should conduct a social and cultural audit to determine the level of cultural competence and safety.

To maintain trust and confidence with Amarina, I will give her positive feedback regarding her concerns being attended by a male doctor. I will ensure that she understands the secretive doctors ‘code of conduct and show her the examination room and the types of equipment used that will keep her secrecy. During the talking, I will also give her physical space to make an uninfluenced decision or is she has adequate time to wait as I organize for a female doctor to come and attend to her. During the conversation, I will put a facial expression to shows surety of my words, but I don’t maintain constant eye contact with her as that is considered to be disrespect.

The critical issue that will create misunderstanding between Amarina and Serena is when they start to converse as Serena will talk with a negative attitude that has been built in the past (Sousa & Gonçalvesab 2017,p.112) .To help both of them, I will tell them the importance of respect to one another irrespective of the cultural background. To achieve this, all of them must know one another history and understand what created such attitudes, after which they will have a mutual conversation.

References

Ghosh, R 2018, 'Multiculturalism in a Comparative Perspective: Australia, Canada and India', Canadian Ethnic Studies, 50, [1] pp. 15-36, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 April 2018 

Kamp , A, Alam, O, Blair, K, & Dunn, K 2017, 'Australians' Views on Cultural Diversity, Nation and Migration, 2015-16', Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 9, 3, pp. 61-83, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 April 2018

Lee, R, Bamford, C, Poole, M, McLellan, E, Robinson, L, & Exley, C 2017, 'End of life care for people with dementia: The views of health professionals, social care service managers and frontline staff on key requirements for good practice', Plos ONE, 12, 6, pp. 1-19, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 April 2018.

Matthews, J, Mehta Barden, S, & Sherrell, R 2018, 'Examining the Relationships Between Multicultural Counseling Competence, Multicultural Self-Efficacy, and Ethnic Identity Development of Practicing Counselors', Journal Of Mental Health Counseling, 40, 2, pp. 129-141, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 April 2018.

Sousa, C, & Gonçalvesab, G 2017, 'Expatriates and Non-Expatriates: Effects of Cultural Intelligence and Multicultural Personality on Passion for Work and Satisfaction With Life', Psychological Thought, 10, 1, pp. 90-108, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 April 2018.

Ulloa, R, Kacperski, C, & Sancho, F 2016, 'Institutions and Cultural Diversity: Effects of Democratic and Propaganda Processes on Local Convergence and Global Diversity', Plos ONE, 11, 4, pp. 1-26, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 21 April 2018.