Getting to Know the Piece of Fluff in Our Ears: Expanding Practitioners' Cultural Self-Awareness

Abstract

Israel being a multicultural society with a variety of ethnic groups, the delivery of culturally competent services is a crucial issue in social work practice. This paper describes the outcomes of a training model for cultural competence applied with social work graduate students in Israel. The model, based on work with immigrants' narratives, increased the cultural self-awareness of the trainees. Presented are conceptual and technical aspects of the training model as well as outcomes of an evaluation study. Fifty-one trainees submitted a short account of their personal experiences following the training. The reports indicated expansion in the trainees' cultural self-awareness: awareness of their own and their families' immigration experiences as well as of other transitions in their lives. Training elements that made this outcome possible are discussed.