Cultural Competence, Race, and Ethnicity in Community Based Recovery Treatment Programs

Abstract

Cultural competence is more than speaking the language or recognizing the cultural icons of a given group of individuals. Treating the individual is treating their culture. A culturally competent treatment professional must acknowledge an individual’s cultural strengths, values, and experiences while encouraging behavioral and attitudinal change. A significant variable in the change process is the relationship between racial or ethnic matching of clients and counselors. Successful treatment reveals a group of cultural dynamics on how this therapeutic alliance might affect treatment outcomes. To meet these complex cultural challenges, the movement towards a pluralistic cultural framework of helping with its bilingual and bicultural sensitivity appears to be a significant variable to engage the community and the individual in the healing process. Environmental exposures, such as pollution, high-crime areas, and lack of parks or playgrounds, social services, such as transportation, housing, and childcare, mental health care, significantly impact on lifestyle choices. Building strong, grassroots recovery community organizations (RCOs) and linking RCOs into a national movement to develop recovery leaders, offer many opportunities for the recovery community. It helps people in recovery, family members, friends, and allies to express their collective individual and neighborhood voices on issues of common concern by providing a forum for recovery-focused community services that support individual growth.