This course, Care for All: Cultural Competence, Inclusion, and Vulnerable Populations, focuses on the importance of understanding the scope and importance of culture and inclusion is addressed including its influences upon patients and families, the interdisciplinary health care team, and the health care or spiritual care provider him or herself. Emphasis will be on not only identifying the cultural and social issues that may arise, but the skills needed to demonstrate the ability to assist in incorporating those beliefs and values into the patient’s plan of care. In addition, this course will define and address “marginalized populations” – those without the same level of access to health care and other services that others depend on – including those who are illiterate or with low health literacy, people who are intellectually disabled, the homeless, and those who are incarcerated.

Note: This module refers to the North American Indigenous population rather than the Australian Indigenous population. It also includes a US reference to resident aliens rather than migrants.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course the learner will be able to:

• • Define cultural competency and cultural humility in health care.

• • Engage in self-awareness of and the ability to articulate one’s own cultural values, beliefs, assumptions, and biases and is able to set those aside in order to assess for, document, and provide interventions to patients and families.

• • Gain basic knowledge of different religious traditions and common beliefs and practices.

• • Gain basic knowledge of different cultural groups and common beliefs and practices.

• • Identify methods to employ in order to obtain knowledge on unfamiliar cultures, religious/spiritual beliefs, or existential norms.

• • Define inclusion in health care.

• • Understand ways to assess, document, and include in a care plan appropriate spiritual/religious interventions for cross-cultural situations, including them in documentation.

• • Describe the importance of identifying the unique spiritual/cultural/religious beliefs within vulnerable patient populations (including non-resident aliens, LGBTQ, homeless, incarcerated, low health literacy/illiterate, mentally challenged, severely disabled).

(Price includes GST and fully subsidised student registration fee for Australian and New Zealand health practitioners)