Darin

Cultural competency training: Five things to consider

Part of community engagement is understanding other cultures. It is important for all community engagement facilitators to understand and appreciate different cultures. It is imperative our police, fire, EMS, local and city government officials, as well as other individuals involved in community relations be experts when it comes to understanding and accepting individuals from other cultures.

Many organizations—both government and private—mandate periodic or ongoing cultural competency training. The term “cultural competency” is vague and people tend to think that going to a Chinese restaurant for lunch would be considered as aspect of cultural competency.

In a previous life, I did considerable research and practical work on the topic of cultural competency. I wanted to provide a top five list for teaching or facilitating cultural competency training:

Culture does not just equal ethnicity;
Levels of competency are misleading and redundant;
The best method is through interaction and partnership;
Our culture shapes everything we do, say, and think; and,
Learn cultural humility.

Culture does not just equal ethnicity. Our society has so conditioned the word “culture” to indicate ethnicity. People think of “cultural food” as ethnic food. People visit cultural fairs to see how other, different-ethnicity people groups live.

While ethnicity is a component of culture, there are many other aspects that make culture important to people. As I will discuss in another point, culture is ingrained in us. It describes our view of how we respond to individuals who are late to meetings or how much we eat. It is a component of our holiday activities–how and when we give gifts to people. Therefore, culture is not just ethnicity—it is so much more.

Levels of competency are misleading and redundant. Many of the cultural competency trainings available subdivide people into three or more groups. There is always a group of individuals who are fully competent — people who understand the foundational core of being open to different cultures. There is always a group of people who are ignorant to other cultures. And, there is always a culturally obstinate group—a group of individuals who refuse to accept any other culture.

These groupings are fantastic, but it is misleading or redundant to place people in groups. I personally know people who excel at being culturally competent in several areas except when it comes to their beliefs. That is, people who are open to understanding other people groups and cultural practices, but are offended that there is interracial relationships. It’s good to know general categories, but these should be taught as being a guide and not a collective bin or designation for people.

The best method is through interaction and partnership. There are numerous studies that demonstrate the best way to learn understanding and acceptance of people different than ourselves is to spend time with them.

In Kansas City, there is a group called the Crescent Peace Society. On a regular basis, they host “Meet a Muslim” meetings periodic around the KC area. I have attended one of these—it was incredible to see the interest of the community in finding out more about Islam and the mindset of Muslims. And, my perception was that the non-Muslim community who attended found out that they have more in common with Muslims than they originally thought.

Our culture shapes everything we do, say, and think. There was a training recently that talked about hidden rules among classes. Many of these aspects are part of our deep culture — things that go beyond just superficial. How we understand time or think about food can be a cultural thing.

We sometimes look at the manifestation of different cultural traits. For instance, there is a culture that is thought of as being generally late to every event. Is that culture? Maybe. It is likely more the manifestation of this particular culture’s view of time. Maybe this culture sees an event’s time as being a suggestion. Maybe this other culture values taking care of the person more than meeting others at a certain time. Who knows? Either way, it is important to understand that culture shapes most everything we do.

Learn cultural humility. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a social psychological phenomena when individuals with little skills or knowledge believe they have an enhanced level of skills. It is only until the point when they start to learn more, they realize they do not know as much as they think they do.

Anyone who knows me personally know that I would never, ever suffer from this effect. I definitely am always aware of my level of understanding on every topic. 🙂 This, however underscores the need for culturally competent or experienced people to remember they are always needing to learn. While I may understand a certain culture really well, I will likely never be able to fully understand every aspect of it.

As we move forward as a society–as Americans continue to embody the “one from many” (e pluribus unum) mentality–it is important for us to continue to be able to understanding AND accepting other cultures. Hopefully, these five suggestions will help in your quest.

See the full article here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cultural-competency-training-five-things-consider-darin-challacombe?published=t

Two Approaches to Risk-Factors in the CVE Sphere

A few hours ago, London experienced one of the most recent terrorist attacks. Attacks like this are becoming more common place, sadly, around the world and even in Western countries.

Since the terrorism research field beginnings, researchers have run across a number of problems in trying to predict individuals who may commit an act of violence or terrorism. Gill (2015) identified eight core problems to this understanding:

The number of supposed indicators;
Base rates of these indicators;
Lack of understanding protective factors;
Weighting of these factors;
Behavior clustering;
Aggregated understanding of “terrorists”;
Sequencing these behaviors; and,
The “time” factor.

While there will likely never be a silver bullet to identifying potential terrorists or others who commit violent acts before they strike, there are several models in the field that attempt to provide some insight.

Researchers Meloy and Gill (2016) provided an 18 characteristic approach to identifying potential terrorists. In their article, they reviewed over 111 lone-actor terrorists and applied this protocol—labeled the Terrorism Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18)—to these actors. Of the 18 characteristics, there were five that scored at 80% prevalence or higher: Framed by an Ideology; Changes in thinking or emotion; Failure of the sexual-intimate pair bonding; pathway warning behavior; and, leakage. These 111 lone-actors represented the spectrum of what we call terrorism—Islamic extremism, extreme right-wing, and single-issue.
Another set of researchers, Cole et al. (2014) provided a list of 16 risk indicators which span from cultural/religious isolation to overseas combat. The focus of this assessment protocol was geared mainly toward police and intelligence organizations that would be reviewing over a suspect’s Facebook or social media account.

Like the other end of the CVE sphere, there is not really a single approach. However, there are multiple thoughts to how to mitigate this problem. This is a good thing, especially as we move forward in research and engagement of this topic.

In my own research, I am attempting to apply the former risk factors against a sample of sovereign citizens who have committed violence. I am sure I will be providing details of this in the near future. But, I am curious to know if anyone else has had any success with these or other risk factors on violent extremism.

References

Cole, J., Alison, E., Cole, B., Alison, L., & Weyers, J. (2014). Identifying vulnerable persons to violent extremism.

Gill, P. (2015). Toward a scientific approach to identifying and understanding indicators of radicalization and terrorist intent: Eight key problems. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 2(3-4), 187-191. doi:10.1037/tam0000047

Meloy, J. R., & Gill, P. (2016). The lone-actor terrorist and the TRAP-18. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 3(1), 37-52. doi:10.1037/tam0000061

Read the original here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-approaches-risk-factors-cve-sphere-darin-challacombe

Smart Phones and Trust

University of Virginia Psychologist Konstadin Kushlev wrote recently about smart phones and trust. His notion was relying upon your smart phone makes you less likely to ask people information (e.g., directions, news, etc.). After all, it is easier to just look at your phone for advice as opposed to asking a friend, colleague, or neighbor.

I think of this as the classic duality between traveling with locals vs. traveling with a guidebook. The guidebook is more ubiquitous and available; locals, on the other hand, may be hard to find (especially if traveling in a country where you don’t speak the language).

It is my belief, however, that person-to-person interaction is the best policy for businesses. An individual who takes time and effort to handwrite a letter or make a call (vs. an email) shows the customer that they are important enough to go the extra step. One of the podcasts I listen to is the Art of Charm. Guest Clay Hebert spoke about introductions and how he will introduce one person to another via the internet: He will negotiate with both parties separately their introduction script, then he will video-record himself introducing them. This extra step makes the introduction more meaningful.

As businesses look for more creative ways to secure and maintain customers, maybe it would be best for them to focus energy on more person-to-person interactions.

Metaanalysis on Disengagement Reasons

Windisch, Simi, Sott Ligon, and McNeel (2017) provide a unique metaanalysis on disengagement studies. Expanding beyond the typical terrorism disengagement, Windisch et al. (2017) discuss the gamut including disengagement from religious cults, street gangs, and nonviolent social movements. While there are multiple, independently personal factors to bring about these disengagements, most happen because of disillusion, positive social relations (of people not in the group), and disapproval of the group’s behavior.

Windisch, S., Simi, P., Sott Ligon, G., & McNeel, H. (2017). Disengagement from ideologically-based and violent organizations: A systematic review of the literature. Journal for Deradicalization, 72.

Another Standoff Looming?

Two days ago, President Obama designated 300,000 acres surrounding Gold Butte, Nevada, as a national monument. This is the area where Cliven Bundy first had a standoff with local, state, and federal law enforcement officials in 2004. Eventually, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other agencies retreated (for lack of a better word) than to escalate the situation.

This standoff appeared to create momentum for other individuals. Jerad and Amanda Miller, who were present at the Bundy standoff for a period of time, ambushed and killed two police officers in Las Vegas a few months later. Earlier this year (2016), Bundy’s son Ammon Bundy led his own standoff with officials in Oregon.

As power transitions from a Democratic to Republic executive, what impact will that have on these domestic anti-government groups and their behavior?

I assess with high confidence anti-government activity will diminish significantly after President-Elect Trump takes office. I base this assessment on previous trends seen in the sovereign citizen movement.

According to my own sovereign citizen research, incidents against law enforcement and public officials were rare during the times of conservative (Republican) presidents. In 2008 when President Obama took office, however, there was a marked increase in anti-government activity.
Republican administrations are also less likely to increase tensions with policies. Republican administrations tend to level or decrease taxes and strive to reduce the size of the federal government. This typically means there is a detente between government agents and anti-government groups.

While the impact of the administration change has yet to be seen, it is quite plausible we will likely see a decrease in activity once President-Elect Trump takes office.