Cultural safety
Key ideas
- Identify what the term 'cultural safety ' means.;
- Explore ways in which cultural safety can be employed in the workplace.
Understanding cultural safety
There are many ways of interpreting the term 'cultural safety'. In general, we want to think of the term in the way that Maori nurses and their researchers identified and described it in the 1990s. Basically, they suggested that people working within a professional field (such as nursing) have the right to work in a environment where their cultural heritage and background is valued and felt to be valued. Where you fell valued and you are not discriminated against because of your cultural heritage, the potential exists for you to be able to work more effectively and apply you best to your job.
Think about this is terms of your own position. How effectively could you do your job, if you and your culture were implicitly or explicitly devalued? How comfortable would you feel if you had to work within an environment where you were continually having to apply the practices of someone elses' culture to your professional practice, especially when you had a long history of success and a good record of professional practice.
Your cultural safety
When you
are working, you are usually expected to operate from within the cultural
parameters of the dominant cultural group. For example as a nurse, there are
many expectations that are placed on your workplace behaviour that are
cultural. Doing some of those things differently or responding differently,
because you come from a different cultural background may not necessarily
make you less professional as a nurse. in fact there are some instances
where you, working from within your own cultural practices, would provide a
better level of professional care.
One of the keys to cultural safety is a ability to think about and reflect upon yourself and your own cultural practices. By developing an understanding of what your own culture is and how you operate within that, provides the space from which it becomes sensible and often easier to reflect upon the cultural safety of others.
Reflection
Do you think cultural safety applies to situations outside your professional area of expertise or your workplace? Is there a cultural safety in recreation perhaps?
Take a look at some of the links identified on the right. what do they say about cultural safety? how might cultural safety be applied in different professions?
Applying cultural safety in the workplace
The question is " What does cultural safety look like in the workplace?" and once we have defined what it might be, "How do we then apply it?". Firstly, cultural safety will be different for everyone. Because we come from different backgrounds, our needs will vary. In general though, the sorts of things that make people feel culturally safe in the workplace are:
- Inclusion: often people from different cultures feel excluded. When people from the dominant cultural group seek to include and involve others, this can sometimes be enough to ensure cultural safety.
- Valuing of cultural practices and different knowledge traditions: if people from different cultural backgrounds find their culture valued within the workplace, there is more likelihood that they will feel culturally safe. If different ways of doing things are seen to be effective and meeting the needs of clients/patients etc, a culturally safe workplace will support these different practices and facilitate their use.
Cultural safety is about creating an environment of security, where people feel comfortable to be themselves within the bounds of professional practice.
Discussion
In the Discussion Board, consider the following questions:
What is it that makes a workplace or other environment where you are interacting with people on a professional basis, feel safe and comfortable for you, allow you to be productive and feel as though your contribution is valued?