Paper Example on Occupational Therapy: Culturally Diverse Families

The Profession, Responsibilities and How the Interviewee Started his Work/Career Path

The Interviewee, Mr. X, who apparently is a reputable Occupational Therapist, identified some of the fundamental function when working with families consulting culturally diverse members. Mr. X identified Occupational Therapy (OT) as a profession within the healthcare domain that specifically involves mastery and use of assessment and intervention skills to assist people, apparently of all ages, to develop, recover or maintain health related skill and productive social relations that are particularly necessary for establishing profoundly healthy living conditions and practices in their collective daily life. According to Mr. X, Occupational therapy patients may be victims of mental, physical, developmental or emotional illness that impede them from performing fundamental tasks or basic daily-life sustaining activities. An Occupational therapy practitioner perform a complete assessment of the client, after which he or she develops an explicit care work plan that is aimed at helping the client achieves a specific set of goals or objectives. These goals anger management and, social relations, budget management, among many more. In specific, when working with a culturally diverse families, his role and objective is always to establish a point of mutually founded social relationship benefits upon which harmony, respects and peaceful coexistence as a family can be established.

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Mr. X started working with real clients during his first internship program as a student. However, he was under very good guidance an experienced clinical supervisor. According to him, Mr. P, his mentor, was a very proactive advisor with profound mentorship competence.

Description of a Families He Worked With

The family was an extended family that constituted of a Mr. and Mrs. K., who apparently, were elders, aged 78 and 75 respectively. The two American spouses lived with their two sons and one daughter. One of the son is married to an Asian wife from china - where he works and resided. The Chinese wife did not understand any other language at all. The younger son is married to an Indian - who apparently despised the Islamic religion, practices and Muslim cultures. She fostered a strong mindset that they are all terrorist and that one day she many decide to kill them all in their sleep. Mr. and Mrs. K are both born Christians, at given their age, they barely comprehend their first language, English. Their elder son has four children - 3 teenage girls and one 22 years old son. The younger son had three son, aged 10, 13 and 17. The sister was also married to a Muslim from UAE, who spoke Arabic fluently and with little understanding of English language. The sister however, knew both languages and in most cases, acted an interpreter for him. The two had one daughter whom they name Amina. She was 14yers. The family was in critical state of disarray and disputes. They were in a significantly chaotic disorder especially in during the month of December when they were all back from abroad for thanksgiving celebrations. They fought all the time basically due to disagreements on issues that were majorly culturally, ethnically and religiously founded.

Cultural Disparity

Mr. X noted the different backgrounds of the three nuclear families - as a whole - have been significantly exclusive and distinct form his own. This especially owe to the fact that the children form all the individual families were exclusively raised in different countries, each with different cultural frameworks and ethnic practice.

Rewards for Working for Culturally Diverse Families

One of the greatest rewards for working for culturally diverse families, that Mr. X identified, is that the exercise opens one's mind towards new experiences and knowledge regarding the dynamics of social and cultural paradigms, as they take place in the real world in real time. According to Kalyanpur (1998), the practice allows one to grow intellectually, acquires profound moral integrity as well as develop personal principles and prospects. Mr. X also emphasizes that there is an inherent element of fulfillment and satisfaction that a profession working for such families acquires especially when one successfully manages to help a family live happily. It is basically a holistic function through which an individual gets the opportunity to make a differed and change lives.

Challenges

When working with, particularly Mr. P's culturally diversified extended family, Mr. X, identified language barrier, or rather the lack of a common language for communication among the family members, collectively, to have been one of the most challenging issues.

Response to Challenges

Any intervention activity aimed at developing a constructive social relation in a culturally diverse family solely relies on communication between the members and the occupational therapist or interventional professionals. This chain of reality was broken especially by the son in law; who was particularly aggressive all the time due to the inability to expiring himself directly when he needed to. This aspect was very demoralizing, making it difficult for Mr. X's nieces to gain interest of learning English. For instance, Mr. X noted that there is a great difference and multiple meanings of 'yes' and 'no' in Arabic when compared to American English. Language complexity discourage the son in law and his daughters from making efforts of learning English efficiently or engaging in family conversation. Also the Arabic level of formality, compliance with official rules and directness made it difficult for the family members to adapt. In this light, and according to Mr. X, the theory of planned behavior was a perfect tool that he reflected on to identify and explain why the son in law fostered a negative attitude of towards western cultures. It also identified the basis of behavioral control on the grounds of attitudes and perceptions (Suh, 2004).

Preparations and Cultural Competence

In order to face these challenges, Mr. X ensured that he made prominent preparation beforehand. For instance, he researched in advances and reflected in the specific cultural aspects that were inherent in the social behaviors of each and every family members. Mr. X also acknowledged that his cultural competence was defined solely defined by his specific knowledge of the culturally diverse families and more importantly, the influences and roles that their respective cultural identity played on the, personality, ethnicity, problem presentation attributes, help seeking deportments and the capacity to communicate confidently. In this regards, he improved his skill and knowledge through consultation with colleagues and peers. He also kept an open mind and reserve judgment in all his practices. Additionally, he endeavored to learn as many languages and cultures, especially those dejectedly related to his culturally diverse clients. These Strategies Fueled his Cultural Competence

Suggestion to People Who Are Interested in Working With Culturally Diverse Families

While working with culturally diverse families and individuals may sometimes prove to be challenging, it is however one of the most exiting practices especially when it relates to the healthcare profession (Weaver, 1999). In essence, working with culturally diverse families and individuals influence one to acquire and mindset that regards and acknowledges the significance of cultural diversity in the today's multicultural world society as it gets.

References

Kalyanpur, M. (1998). The challenge of cultural blindness: implications for family-focused service delivery. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 7, 317-332.

Suh, E. E. (2004). The model of cultural competence through an evolutionary concept analysis. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 15, 93-102.

Weaver, H. N. (1999). Indigenous people and the social work profession: Defining culturally competent services. Social Work, 44, 217-225.

FCS 3150: Global Ecology of the Family Interview Paper: Cultural Competency