Cultural Competence Essay

Words: 474
Pages: 2

Cultural competence is one of the eight key practices outlined in the EYLF to sup-port children's life long learning and development. Apart from being aware of cultur-al diversity, educators ability to understand and effectively communicate with people (children, families, peers, community) across cultures is essential. To me, ‘cultural competence’ basically means having the Attitude, Skills and Knowledge ;
• ‘to understand and gather information about the different cultural identities of the children and families within the community/service’ so that we under-stand each others expectations, beliefs, values and attitudes. Children and families feel a sense of belonging if they feel understood and accepted - as a result, families are confident/convinced
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• most importantly to understand each individual child’s (and families) beliefs and values in order to support their learning and development so that they become life long confident learners e.g educators may find a child who looks away when spoken to is considered rude (viewed in her own cultural lens) but if educators can understand different beliefs and values, it creates an op-portunity for discussion and negotiation.
In summary, cultural competence consists of 3 main pillars namely Attitude, Skill and Knowledge which needs to be operated/applied/carried out on 3 levels namely Individual level which encompass knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and beliefs, Service level which relates to management and operational frameworks and prac-tices e.g.policies and procedures and Systems level whereby how the service re-spect and relate to community at large, Elders, agencies and local community