Working with Diverse Populations in Maternal and Child Health

Cultural Competency Training led by Shaifa Monroe

Working with Diverse Populations in Maternal and Child Health

This training is designed to meet the unique needs of health professionals, who work in maternal and child health, in education, direct services, breastfeeding support, and who seek to build a culturally competent practice.

The Need for Culturally Competent Health Professionals and Doulas Continues to Grow

Pregnant and postpartum mothers deserve the best! Being pregnant, giving birth, and parenting has parameters, based on cultural health beliefs, language, place of origin, and self-identification. Pregnant people seek understanding, respect, the desire to be understood, and to understand their health care experience.

Culturally competent health care professionals offer health care and instruction that is respectful to the culture of their client, using health literacy to ensure the client can understand best practices to improve their birth outcomes. Regardless of culture, every family wants a healthy birth experience.

What happens when culturally competent care is lacking:

• Ethnic disparities in health outcomes
• Barriers to access of services due to direct or indirect discrimination
• Increased diagnostic errors resulting from miscommunication
• Increased infant and maternal mortality and morbidity

The Benefits of Cultural Competency

• Improved birth outcomes
• Leading through lifelong learning with courage, compassion, and cultural competency
• Enhanced self-awareness of attitudes toward people of different racial, ethnicity, and sexual orientations
• Improved care by increasing knowledge about the cultural beliefs and practices, attitudes toward health care, healthcare-seeking trends, and the affliction of various diseases on infant and maternal health
• Improved skills in health literacy and cross-cultural knowledge

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Training Model

The training is designed for health care providers, health care professionals, doulas, birth workers, and community health workers to achieve cultural competency in working with diverse populations in maternal and child health.

The training curriculum is built on materials, theory, and practices from Columbia University Medical Center Curriculum Committee on Cultural Competency, Virginia Mentoring Partnership Program, the International Center for Traditional Childbearing, international and infant mortality prevention, public health, and business.

The training subjects are an assessment of self and practice, cultural competency, ethics and law, infant and maternal mortality prevention, and implementation.

The training model for the delivery of information is through lecture, PowerPoint, self-assessment, discussion, and interactive exercise.

Four Training Models

1. A six-hour in-person training from 10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. The in-person training earns 0.6 MEAC CEUs.
2. A six-hour live webinar covers the five competencies: Self-Awareness, Cross-Cultural Knowledge, Health Literacy, Delivery of Care, and Advocacy. This is a two-hour per day training, for three consecutive days. The days and times can be individualized.
3. A 90-minute live webinar that covers one competency of your choice.
4. Personalized consulting to create a culturally competent organization, clinic, birth center, or private practice.

The live webinars do not offer CEUs.
All trainings offer a certificate of attendance that is emailed to the participant within 30 days after the training ends.

The Training Outcome

Participants who complete the training will have a better understanding of cultural competency, the role of the five competencies for improved birth outcomes, Arthur Kleinman’s interview technique, creating a culturally competent practice, and meeting the needs of changing demographics locally and internationally.