All across Europe, healthcare professionals in their daily work are today more likely to interact with people or communities expressing different values, behaviours, norms, rituals and concepts of the world. When not addressed properly, such intercultural situations can result in a less-than-ideal professional performance, building a barrier to healthcare provision that may encompass misunderstandings, failure of diagnosis, the refusal of treatment, under-treatment or even maltreatment and discrimination.
To improve the quality of the services it is important that not only the frontline health professionals, but also the managers of health services, VET providers, and decision-makers are able to uncover the set of cultural norms and values which filter the way we interpret and respond to others. From a symmetrical perspective, also social workers working with migrants and migrants themselves could benefit from a greater understanding of diversity from a public health point of view.
The Healthy Diversity project has developed resources to promote an intercultural and holistic approach to medicine through an interesting methodology, which lifting the often negative emotional haze surrounding intercultural misunderstanding, helps to become more aware of the illusion of a cultural neutrality and invites us to open up a margin for negotiation where prejudice has a lesser role to play.
We invite you to the roundtable on intercultural medicine and diversity that will be hosted by CESIE (August 30th, 3pm) to present the Healthy Diversity resources developed for healthcare professionals.
Healthy Diversity
Roundtable on intercultural medicine and diversity
30 August 2018 | h 15-17
CESIE, via Roma, 94 – Palermo
The Healthy Diversity resources offer the chance to step out of your comfort zone and challenge ourselves in relation to our cultural identity and the approach to diversity in our daily work.
Stop being politically correct with yourself, discover your sensitive zones and develop strategies for more conscious and effective intercultural interactions!
Participation is free but seats are limited.
To confirm your participation, please contact Alessandra Cannizzo
The resources in a nutshell
- Manual of Critical incidents contains 60 real stories of problematic intercultural interactions in the healthcare sector. The stories were collected through workshops and interviews, and were then analysed through the inspiring Critical Incidents methodology developed by the French social psychologist Margalit Cohen-Emerique.
- The Medical Anthropology Reader: a literature review of 12 texts combining medicine, psychology, sociology, anthropology as well as cultural and migration studies.
- Good Practice Collection: 20 Good Practices from various types of healthcare institutions across Europe and an Assessment Tool for the implementation and self-assessment of initiatives aimed at the improvement of diversity management and intercultural competences in the healthcare sector.
- Face-to-face training programme and an online course for healthcare professionals, trainers and managers of healthcare institutions.
About Healthy Diversity
Healthy Diversity is a three-year project co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme – KA2: Strategic partnerships in the field of VET.
The partnership is composed of 7 organisations:
- Warwickshire Race Equality Partnership (UK, coordinator);
- Artemisszio Foundation (Hungary);
- Elan Interculturel (France);
- mhtconsult ApS (Denmark);
- Universitaet Wien (Austria);
- South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust (UK);
- CESIE (Italy).
For more information
Visit the website healthydiversity.eu.
Follow the project activities on Facebook.
Contact Alessandra Cannizzo – alessandra.cannizzo@cesie.org.