Cultural awareness: what does it mean to be culturally aware in social care?

Dudley Sawyerr, Care Consultant at People Care Services and Co-Chair of Skills for Care’s Race Equality Reference Group discusses what it means to be culturally aware in social care.

The month of October signifies Black History Month in the national UK calendar, an important time and opportunity to raise cultural awareness. This can be put simply as increasing the understanding of the differences between yourself and people from other countries or other backgrounds, especially differences in attitudes and values.

When you think about being ‘culturally aware’, what comes to mind? Do you think it’s just about being sensitive to different customs, languages and beliefs?

We often miss the fact that actually having knowledge about multiple cultures also enables us another level of understanding. Being able to do this means that we can better communicate, be more effective in working with them and ultimately deliver better healthcare.

Supporting Black History Month

Beyond creating cultural identity, Black History Month has also created a cultural awareness of black culture.

As Co-Chair for Skills for Care’s Race Equality Reference Group this is a moment where I want to celebrate black culture and share cultural awareness in the health and social care sector.

This month we can:

• highlight role models and organisations in our industry who are helping to make a difference
• share stories and good practice from care providers, staff, and those who draw on care and support
• help individuals and organisations become more culturally aware and see whether this is being supported at regulator and governmental level.

Black people and health and care

When we start thinking about black history and healthcare there’s many great British icons.

We have pioneers like Mary Seacole, ‘The War Heroine’, a British-Jamaican Nurse in the 1800s who is often compared with Florence Nightingale; Annie Brewster a nurse ophthalmic in the 19th century, and present day heroes like Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, an NHS pioneer and a former nurse who helped create the first nurse-led sickle cell screening centre and became the first sickle cell and thalassaemia specialist nurse in the NHS in 1979.

With a heavy influx of nurses who came into the country from Africa and the Caribbean to help the NHS in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, there still to this present day, is a rich culture of black people working in both health and social care.

Whilst we celebrate black history and role models, the pandemic also showed us another picture. Data released by the Office for National Statistics about the deaths of people from different backgrounds in Britain, showed 31% of the deaths between 24 January 2020 and 1 December 2021 in people of black African descent aged 30 to 100 in England involved COVID-19.

For black Caribbeans the percentage was 25% and white British 14%. This showed us the disparity of deaths from COVID-19 between black and white British people. What it also tells us is that there was a difference between black African and Caribbean British people.

This could be down to various factors but it’s important to understand there are cultural differences between different black people/groups. This means that when providing services to groups or communities of people it’s essential that there’s some sense of awareness about cultural differences and similarities between various cultural identities.

Benefits of cultural awareness

Cultural awareness helps staff communicate better with people who draw on care and support, making it easier for them to understand their needs. It also leads to improved relationships, better outcomes, and a more receptive workforce.

Taking this approach can help organisations avoid discrimination and behaviour which could offend certain groups of people.

Understanding the importance of cultural awareness will help to build better relationships with black people across social care.

Also, the more culturally aware an organisation and employer is, the more likely they are to attract a more diverse team. Numerous studies have shown that diversity not only improves the bottom line for businesses but also benefits the health, happiness, and progress of the workplace and the individuals we care for.

Ideally being a culturally aware employer means staff become more culturally sensitive, so this helps with communication and any difficulty due to cultural differences. Good practice includes the use of appropriate language, recognising and respecting diversity, providing information in a way that is accessible, and knowing how to deal appropriately with sensitive issues.

With issues around recruitment and retention and a new influx of overseas health care assistants, being culturally aware is a must rather than a want. We want to induct new staff into our environments, and we don’t want to attach racist stereotypes or assumptions to people from different cultures end up discriminating against them.

The aim of culture awareness would be to have the capacity to:

• value diversity
• conduct self-assessment
• manage the dynamics of difference
• acquire cultural knowledge
• adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of communities they serve.

Let’s not get it wrong but learn from our mistakes.

What you can do now

The theme for this year’s Black History Month is ‘Time for change, Action not words’.

So, what actions could we take?

Remember it will be down to how organisations can be more culturally aware and what impact this will have on staff. Here are some suggestions.

• Set up a black history day for staff and the people you support (you could also invite families and even those from the local communities including faith leaders).
• Sign-up for a Black History Month event either online or in person.
• Challenge you and your company on knowledge of Black History Month. This gives you a chance to upskill your own knowledge and other staff.
• Have brave conversations with staff as a group, this can be around diversity and awareness. This could be recurring at least monthly starting with Black History Month.

Taking some of these steps will also help you to comply with relevant Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulations and key questions around culture and care.

Have a look at this Black History Month calendar - share and remember being culturally aware goes beyond Black History Month and should happen all year round.

Dudley will be a doing a Health and Social Care Black History Month virtual appreciation on Tuesday October 18 7.30 - 8.30pm.

You can follow him on LinkedIn or contact him at dudley@peoplecareservices.com for further information.

View our Black History Month spotlight.

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