Challenges to cultural competence training with health care workers.

The authors have conducted training courses with health care workers in a variety of settings and disciplines.
Drawing on their experiences and a research study this presentation will discuss the barriers and enablers to
conducting such training. Whilst the research study focused on providing cultural competence training to
mental health care workers, training has also been provided to a range of teams from physiotherapists, to
transcultural community mental health workers who specialise in providing services to refugees and people
from minority ethnic groups and to student nurses from different European countries. The training is based on
the Papadopoulos, Tilki, Taylor and Lees model for developing cultural competencies. Cultural competence is
now considered essential for all health care professionals; however, despite the considerable effort being
invested in this currently up and down the country, there is no common agreement as to its definition, or the
best ways to promote it. The presentation will outline the approaches used by the authors and will discuss the
impact of variables such as context, professional background, years of professional experience, nature of
clients, peer influence, etc in order to highlight the challenges which such training may pose.