A Youth Leader's Guide to Building Cultural Competence 

communities and for many people. Understanding cultural beliefs about a range of sexual issues is critical 

to providing effective HIV/AIDS prevention education.  

This resource is designed with the belief that until we explore our own values and beliefs and understand 

them as rooted in our own cultures, we will draw inaccurate and judgmental conclusions about others 

based on our own limited perspectives.  

As someone who works with young people, you should engage in a self reflective learning process that 

will increase your abilities to effectively interact with a variety of young people. You might be working 

with teens who belong to a different racial or ethnic group, have a different sexual orientation, belong to a 

different religion or come from another socioeconomic class, but the challenging and rewarding process 

of learning about yourself and others is the same.  

THE FOUR STEPS 

This resource proposes a four step model of building cultural competence for working effectively and 

respectfully with youth from a variety of backgrounds. The four steps are:  

1)  learning about culture and important cultural components;  

2)  learning about your own culture through a process of self assessment that includes examining your 

culture's assumptions and values and your perspectives on them;  

3)  learning about the individual young people in your program; and  

4)  learning as much as possible about important aspects of their cultural backgrounds with a focus on 

sexuality related issues.  

This resource is a guide to working on all four steps.  

Chapter One provides descriptions of various cultural components such as family relationships, religion 

and health beliefs. After each description, questions will prompt you to think more about each component. 

Chapter Two suggests a process of self assessment designed to help you start examining your own 

cultural background, values and assumptions. Chapter Three provides tips for learning about the 

individual young people you work with and for continuing the process of learning about their cultural 

backgrounds. Chapter Four outlines some of the reasons that HIV/AIDS prevention messages might 

meet with resistance by some members of African American and Latino/Latina communities. Chapter 

Five offers tips for working with African American and Latino/Latina youth, as well as for working with 

gay, lesbian and bisexual youth of all races and ethnicities. Chapter Six suggests tips for providing 

effective multicultural education.  

What is Cultural Competence? 

The term  cultural competence  has been used by a variety of people in recent years. It moves beyond the 

concepts of  cultural awareness  (knowledge about a particular group primarily gained through reading or 

studies) and  cultural sensitivity  (knowledge as well as some level of experience with a group other than 

one's own). Instead, cultural competence focuses on the fact that some level of skill development must 

occur. Being culturally competent is  more than being 

sensitive to ethnic differences, more than not being a bigot and 

Gaining cultural competence is a 

more than the warm, fuzzy feeling of feeling of loving and 

long term, developmental process.

caring for your neighbor. 

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