Cultural Competency and Grief

  • 11/13/2018

This session was originally presented at NHPCO’s 2013 Virtual Conference 'Loss, Grief and Bereavement: Helping Patients, Families and Communities.' With the trend to increase hospice access to underserved communities, comes the importance of the hospice clinician’s understanding of the unique grief needs of individuals from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Since we look at life through our own cultural lens and this lens has the potential to distort what we observe, we must first develop awareness of our own multi-cultural heritage and values related to grief. Next is awareness of how these values play a part in the relationship with the mourner. This session will then proceed to outline key characteristics of a culturally-competent clinician, including knowledge of death and mourning practices, verbal and non-verbal communication cultural differences, and finally, culturally- sensitive bereavement interventions.