Overview for executives: Indigenous Cultural Competence and Humility

See below to click on the first lesson to start your course.

Course Description

Delivery: First three modules online at your own speed, estimate 2-4 hours. The first three modules must be completed prior to the live webinar/seminar. Last two modules in live webinar/session, estimate 3 hours.

Course Overview

• Online
  • Indigenous Canada: terminology, strengths and challenges facing Indigenous peoples, how to answer the question “where are you from?” and how to do an effective land acknowledgement
  • Cultural Competence: build awareness of your own culture, how culture infuses communication and conflict, and how to build safety at work for people from all cultures
  • Hidden History of Canada: Canada’s hidden history of relationship with Indigenous peoples, potential long-term impacts of colonization and racism, and overview of intergenerational trauma and healing
• Live Webinar/Seminar
  • Challenging Racism: how to name and challenge racism against Indigenous peoples, how to reduce unconscious bias
  • Reconciliation is Action: opportunities to contribute to reconciliation professionally and personally
• Optional 7Week Challenge
  • Cultural competence and humility takes practice, just like exercise. This is the next step after taking the online ICC course, and it is meant to be completed in a group. It could be your group at work or with friends or book club, a team approach to ongoing learning. Each week has books and articles, podcasts, and videos – pick at least two each week. Most resources are free, but not all. Available in Course Materials for download.

Key Terms

Cultural safety:  the self-reported experience that an Indigenous individual feels when he or she is treated with respect – more than just the absence of discrimination based on race or culture

Cultural awareness / cultural sensitivity: being aware of the impact on culture on how I and others see and experience the world

Cultural competence: putting into practice the skills, knowledge and aptitude to deepen self-awareness about one’s own culture and increase the sense of cultural safety of those one serves; a competence like other requirements to do the job well

Cultural humility:  aware of power, privilege and oppression regarding cultures; choosing to be aware about how culture impacts on my life and how my culture impacts on others, and making intentional choices about how my culture doesn’t overpower another person; putting into practice the skills to build safety for people from other cultures; and choosing to show respect to other cultures as valuable and essential

This course requests that the learner go beyond cultural awareness, as building safety for others is an action, it’s more than simply awareness. This course requests the learner think about and practice the skills to ensure Indigenous individuals and clients feel culturally safe (cultural competence), while recognizing that cultural competence is truly a lifelong journey. There is a focus on cultural competence as the requirements to provide safe service and excellent service and interaction, primarily because a competency is something we continually practice, and we can be held accountable for our competencies. This course is based in the belief that cultural safety is built in relationship and practiced in real life, difficult to achieve in an adult education course. This is a step in your journey of cultural competence, but it is not the only step.