Cultural and Linguistic Competence (CLC)/Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)
Overview:
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- To successfully engage diverse families, it is critical for organizations to raise awareness and implement practices that promote cultural and linguistic competence, as well as equity, diversity, and inclusion (CLC/EDI).
- Successfully implementing principles and practices of CLC/EDI starts at the top, with leaders who champion these topics. In addition to a strong organizational focus and commitment to CLC/EDI, organizations will want to put an urgent focus on recruiting, engaging, retaining, and supporting leaders of color – including executive leaders and diversifying their boards of directors.
- Culturally and linguistically competent providers working with families practice cultural humility; become educated through ongoing supervision, training, and coaching about CLC/EDI; and create opportunities for families to provide feedback on the cultural responsiveness of services. A culturally competent organization’s board, executive leadership, staff, and volunteers reflect the cultural backgrounds and speak the languages of those being served.
- All program evaluation/data collection efforts can be developed through the lens of CLC/EDI. Outcome data thus assesses potential disparities among those served. Diverse families are invited to the table to provide feedback on the cultural appropriateness of data collection instruments and approaches, and to develop an action plan based on the evaluation findings.
Key Concepts & Definitions
Continuous quality improvement (CQI) is a structured organizational process that is dependent upon the participation of staff at all levels of the organization, as well as families, youth, and other stakeholders. It entails planning and implementing ongoing proactive improvements in processes of care by identifying, describing, and analyzing strengths and problems, and then testing, implementing, learning from, and revising solutions. The strategies in this module address just two components of this comprehensive process: CQI as it pertains to permanency and family-driven care. There are many CQI areas of focus not addressed in this module. These may include specific focus areas chosen by individual organizations, such as addressing cultural and linguistic competence, as well as state licensing and regulatory requirements, such as tracking and reviewing incidents and safety measures.
A data dashboard is an information management tool that visually tracks, analyzes, and displays important performance indicators, metrics, and relevant insights from key datasets to monitor the health of an organization or program. Key residential data points specific to the focus of this family engagement toolkit include areas relevant to achieving permanency and successfully engaging, partnering with, supporting, and offering culturally responsive skill building for families. Data dashboards can also display information related to recidivism; seclusion and restraint; issues of diversity, equity and inclusion; results of follow-up studies; scores on instruments (such as the CANS/CAFAS/ROLES); intake/discharge data; and the financial health of the program.
Long-term outcomes refer to how youth and families are doing at home, in the community, and at school and/or work in the months and years following the residential intervention. Outcome measures most often capture how the youth is functioning, but it is also important to collect data regarding how parents are doing.