Cultural awareness, sensitivity, competence, safety
Cultural Safety
What is cultural safety and humility?
Cultural safety is an outcome based on respectful engagement that recognizes and strives to address power imbalances inherent in the health care system. It results in an environment free of racism and discrimination, where people feel safe when receiving health care.
Cultural humility is a process of self-reflection to understand personal and systemic biases and to develop and maintain respectful processes and relationships based on mutual trust. Cultural humility involves humbly acknowledging oneself as a learner when it comes to understanding another’s experience.
Cultural Safety Resources
- NCCIH Cultural Safety Collection
The Cultural Safety Collection is a selective repository of resources related to addressing barriers in accessing health and social services for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples due to their experiences with racism, discrimination and marginalization. It includes resources focused on creating a culturally competent workforce, promoting cultural safety in service settings, practicing cultural humility, responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and addressing anti-Indigenous racism.
- Creating a Climate for Change: Cultural Safety and Humility in Health Services Delivery for First Nations and Aboriginal Peoples in British Columbia
Resource booklet from First Nations Health Authority for healthcare practitioners on cultural safety and Indigenous peoples in BC. Good place to start. - Cultural safety and humility when visiting community: considerations for health care professionalsFirst Nations Health Authority
- Social Determinants of Health Inequities in Indigenous Canadians Through a Life Course Approach to Colonialism and the Residential School SystemPaul, K. J. (2019). To provide culturally sensitive care for those who have experienced intergenerational trauma, health care providers should be aware of and understand two key SDOH inequity influencing the Indigenous life course, including the residential school system and loss of socioeconomic status, over time due to colonialism.
- Cultural Competency as New Racism: An Ontology of ForgettingA recommendation is made for jettisoning cultural competency and emphasizing instead a self-reflexive grappling with racism and colonialism.
- Indigenous history in health education (2023)Integrating Indigenous history in medical education prepares future providers to better understand and critique their practice, their patient collaborators and the causes and consequences of disease.
- Integrating equity and social justice for indigenous peoples in undergraduate health professions education in Canada: a framework from a critical review of literature (2021)We present an organizational transformation framework grounded in equitable partnerships from a comprehensive critical review of the literature on the integration of equity and social justice in undergraduate health professions education with a focus on Indigenous health.
- Addressing anti-Indigenous racism in Canadian health systems: multi-tiered approaches are requiredIn presenting our commentary, we highlight additional strategies and recommendations for embedding anti-racism into Canada’s health sector, including a call to adopt anti-racism as a sixth pillar of the Canada Health Act.
White benevolence: racism and colonial violence in the helping professions by ISBN: 9781773635224Publication Date: 2022"When working with Indigenous Peoples, the helping professions - education, social work, health care and justice - reinforce the colonial lie that Indigenous Peoples need saving... The answer isn't cultural awareness training. What's needed is radical anti-racism, solidarity, and a relinquishing of the power of white supremacy."
- Cultural competency and safety in nursing education: a case studyBy Vicki Zeran (2016). This article focuses on cultural competency training for Indigenous nurses and non-Indigenous nurses working with Indigenous populations in the North.
- Cultural safety and humility: case study report : as part of the evaluation of the Tripartite Framework Agreement On First Nation Health GovernanceThis case study on cultural safety and humility was prepared to support the evaluation of the British Columbia Tripartite Framework Agreement on First Nation Health Governance (Tripartite Framework Agreement).
- Designing accountability measures for health professionals: results from a community-based micro-credential: case study on Indigenous cultural safetyBy Angela Mashford-Pringle, Sharon Tan, Sterling Stutz, Gabriel Tjong (2023).
- San’yas Anti-racism Indigenous Cultural Safety EducationThe first San’yas training was designed by Indigenous educators in British Columbia in 2008 after growing awareness of the mistreatment of Indigenous people in healthcare. Today, San’yas offers online training and consultation services to people and groups across Canada.