Identify and briefly explain the three key components of multicultural competence necessary for work with GLBT clients.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The three key components of multicultural competency are knowledge, awareness, and skill. Knowledge of GLB clients’ unique issues is foundational to effective services to GLBT clients. Other areas of knowledge that GLBT-affirmative counselors have to have includes resources for the clients, terms and concepts associated with the GLBT community, identity problems, coming-out process, lifestyle issues, family-of-origin issues, parenting, couples relationship issues, religious conflicts, sexual identity, and workplace issues. Awareness relates to the counselor’s understanding of self and others. The GLB affirmative counselor has to be aware of her or his reactions to lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues to avoid overt stereotype of clients and prejudices and bias against them. Awareness of others is also important and includes empathic understanding and sensitivity to the common experiences of the GLBT community. Such awareness helps the counselor to challenge negative stereotypes and use dynamic sizing to promote positive treatment outcomes. Dynamic sizing refers to the counselor’s understanding of when to generalize and when to individualize. Skill refers to the ability to utilize appropriate assessment, intervention, and theory with GLBT clients. Areas that require use of specific skills include how to encourage clients to establish a support network, helping clients to understand how systemic oppression has affected them, eliminating shame associated with same-sex attraction, and facilitating clients’ expression of emotions such as anger about being the victim of hate crime. Role-play is identified as one of the most important ways to build skills for working with GLBT clients because it enhances the development of interpersonal skills that the counselor needs in working with multicultural clients.