Multicultural ethics in rehabilitation services

BACKGROUND: Rehabilitation professionals are required to be competent in serving multiculturally diverse individuals in a manner that promotes empowerment and full engagement. Multicultural competency is critical for accurate clinical assessment and diagnosis and for effectively serving a diverse population of clients. OBJECTIVE: The major objective of this paper is to promote multicultural competency and sensitivity by increasing knowledge and awareness of ethical considerations for multicultural populations in rehabilitation settings. CONCLUSION: Diagnostic tools and ethical decision-making models that integrate multicultural considerations are discussed, and recommendations for building multicultural competency are provided.

Advocating for Muslim American Students in School Settings

Muslim American students deal with many challenges, including bullying and discrimination in schools due to their religious identity, resulting in adverse psychosocial outcomes. From a social justice advocacy stance, school counselors can play a vital role in empowering this student population. It is also school counselors' ethical responsibility to develop multicultural competency and promote diversity by gaining knowledge and skills regarding cultural elements. Therefore, this chapter endeavors to give voice to Muslim American students and serve as a resource for school counselors and educators to work with Muslim youth in PK-12 schools effectively. More specifically, this chapter provides an overview of the Muslim population, identifies critical tenets of Islam, explores significant challenges Muslim students experience in schools along with detrimental effects of discrimination on their psychosocial health and suggests practical recommendations for school personnel including school counselors to facilitate positive social interactions and healthy development of Muslim youth.

An Integrative Approach to Play Therapy Supervision Using Sandtray Therapy

Supervisors are gatekeepers to the counseling profession and the same applies to safeguarding play therapy. Clinical supervision in play therapy helps play therapists master their skills when working with children, adolescents, or adults. Integrative sandtray supervision facilitates emerging play therapist developmental levels. The Integrative Developmental Model of supervision and sandtray concepts offer a different way of conducting play therapy supervision. Supervisees learn to master each stage of development. Sandtray supervision allows play therapist supervisors a new medium for emerging play therapists to process cases, discuss ethical issues, and explore professional and personal challenges. Each sandtray can mark the four developmental stages and three content areas. Supervisors monitor the development of emerging play therapists to ensure fidelity, ethical practice, and multicultural competency. Cultural sensitivity should also be applied within the supervisory relationship and reflected in the miniatures. This chapter seeks to broaden the scope of practice for play therapy supervisors.

Qallunaat Crossing: The Southern-Northern Divide and Promising Practices for Canada's Inuit Young People

Life for Inuit communities in Canada’s northern territory of Nunavut has been impacted by rapid change over the past fifty years in particular, a pattern that has similarly impacted First Peoples’ communities across the southern portion of the country for centuries. Unfortunately, inadequate resources often leave young people from Nunavut challenged to safely navigate these abrupt changes within their communities and culture. The chronic lack of resources for young people is compounded by the lack of educational opportunities for Inuit adults to enter professional roles in support of the region’s next generation. As a result, non-Inuit (or Qallunaat) professionals from southern Canada are frequently recruited. This paper examines some of the challenges faced by Inuit communities and Qallunaat professionals as they traverse the North/South divide within a cross-cultural educational context. This process is characterized by struggles and joy in finding the balance between meeting young people’s basic social and emotional needs, and professionals who are often illprepared to teach and learn within a cultural context with which they have little familiarity. In response, the authors describe some of the unique attributes of Inuit life and some of the many challenges faced by young people. They also suggest that a “ transdisciplinary” approach be established (Holmes and Gastaldo, 2004) towards educating Qallunaat professionals as an important step in achieving effective practice within northern communities- one which integrates knowledge from Inuit Elders with cross-cultural counseling techniques, multicultural competency development and practice-based wisdom. Specific application of these skills will be explored in this paper to illustrate ways of engaging “multiculturalism” within this context while accounting for the right of Canada’s Inuit young people to have their basic social, emotional and cultural needs recognized during a transformative historical epoch.