Developing Professional Confidence in Working with Culturally Diverse Families

This two-day course has been designed to help Practitioners in adopting a well-informed approach to working with a diverse community of children and families, in terms of ethnicity, culture, religion and language.

It assists Practitioners to look at their own experience of ‘family’, including how this informs their ideas, values and beliefs about how we make contact with people who are similar or quite different from us.

Benefits of attending…

• You will gain insight into how the family unit functions, (the structure, history, roles and communication patterns according to ‘family culture’).
• We will explore this family’s history within the UK, including whether they are part of a long-established community, a newcomer displaced from a region or country of origin and the accompanying account of arrival.
• We will discover how we can ask questions respectfully, including gaining confidence in asking the unaskable.
• You will learn how to equip yourself with a practical framework for understanding safeguarding concerns as they relate to ethnicity, culture and/or religion.
• You will develop an enriched approach to working with families whereby historically taboo enquiries become the norm, addressed in a respectful way, appreciative of diversity.

The course will build on the Practitioner’s understanding of child abuse and its links to family culture, ethnicity and religion, including building much deeper awareness of:

• Honour-based violence, domestic abuse and forced marriage
• Human, including child trafficking
• Sexual exploitation
• Spirit-based possession
• Female genital mutilation

We will also explore personal attitudes and beliefs, including those which are in step with modern, inclusive ‘helping professionals’ and those which may be unwelcoming, ill-informed or even discriminatory.

NB. Applicants to this course must be willing to explore their own family experience as this is the primary influence on professional engagement with children and their families.