Culturally-competent Service

1
Culturally-competent Service

• Caring for Our People Training Project
• Spirit Lake Dakota Tribe

2
Cultural Competence

• What is it?
• Why it matters
• Becoming culturally competent
• Culture and Disability
• View from tribal members with disabilities and
  their families

3
CULTURE DISABILITY

• Disabilities are nothing new to Native
  Americans. In fact, Native Americans often
  insured that people with physical disabilities
  were provided for. People with mental
  disabilities were often regarded as wakan
  (sacred) by many of the tribes.
• Erich Longie, President, Spirit Lake Consulting,
  Inc.
• Spirit Lake Dakota Sioux

4
Culture Disability

• A person with a disability may be looked at as a
  liability in some non-Indian cultures. Indian
  families tend to focus on whatever a person can
  contribute to the family, rather than
  limitations.
• People with disabilities are not put in
  situations where they are set up for failure.
  They are absorbed in the community the way they
  are.

5
Importance of Culture

• If you are an Indian person, you are an Indian
  person, regardless of the extent of your
  disability.
• One of the best ways to connect with an Indian
  person is talk about their heritage.

6
Significance of Culture

• As a child when I moved to a deaf school off
  tribal lands I couldnt participate in my
  cultural rituals such as pow-wows and ceremonies.
  My life was like a torn piece of paper. When I
  could reconnect these ceremonies and my ability
  to be first a Native American and then a deaf
  person my life came together again.
• - Mark Azure, Intertribal Deaf Council

7
Full inclusion among tribes in the Great Plains

• Example 1 Every pow-wow arena has an area for
  people with physical disabilities, including
  those in wheelchairs, with walkers and elderly.
  Pow-wows are not generally held in the most
  modern facilities and yet the organizers always
  make sure there is plenty of room for people with
  physical limitations and they have the best seat
  in the house.