Welcome back to The Designer Practice Podcast, and I'm your host, Kayla Das.
In today's episode, Huda Adnan, registered social worker will discuss how to develop a community through culturally responsive care.
Hi, Huda, welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here today.
Hi, Kayla. Thank you so much for having me today.
Huda. Before we dive into today's episode, please introduce yourself, where you're from, and tell us a little bit about your practice journey.
Absolutely. So I am the principal psychotherapist and mental health consultant lead at Noor el Huda. So I'm from Ontario, I'm from Durham region, so a little bit more east from Toronto. And a little bit about my practice journey is, I actually, funny enough, was not super, super interested in private practice. When I first graduated, I always wanted to be a therapist, but I come from community mental health. So that was always my passion. I always loved being in community, loved being around, especially young people. That's my favorite demographic to be with.
But interestingly enough, I think I just got a lot of requests around the consulting work that I do. So that encouraged me to just do my own thing and build up my own practice. So it's been a few years now. But I really love all the different aspects that I do in terms of seeing clients doing clinical supervision and also consulting and teaching.
Amazing. So what is culturally responsive care?
So culturally responsive care is really being able to provide support to clients in the way that they need according to their culture. So everyone's culture, even just the word culture, is so nuanced, right? There's so many different intersections that we think about, but it's really acknowledging that all of us, all people. We come from different cultures, so it's keeping that in mind. So it might be, for example, that we eat a way that it may be a little bit different. The way that we maneuver around life is just a little bit different, our values, our beliefs. So it's really taking into consideration that every single person is unique and comes from a different background.
And so that just doesn't mean about their appearance. And that doesn't just mean like language, but it goes even beyond that. So it's really acknowledging and being able to support all of our clients in the ways that they need and really giving them the autonomy in the space to be able to name that as well. I think it's more of a collaborative care process and it's very client-centered, I would say, as well.
Absolutely. So why do you think it's important for a therapist to engage in culturally responsive care?
So where I am actually in Ontario, it's really just a melting pot of different cultures. That's one of my favorite things about Ontario. But the reason why I feel like it's so important for therapists to engage in culturally responsive care is because the way that we see our clients is oftentimes actually the way that we see ourselves.
And the thing is that the world is really just changing so much that there so many differences in the people that we are now around. And in order to support them in the ways that they actually need, we need to be able to pivot and engage in care, in therapeutic care, especially very differently. And so that's where culturally responsive care really comes up.
Because the thing is even for myself, I remember when I used to work in community mental health. There was oftentimes where I was the only just diverse person on that team. And so oftentimes the folks around me, they, and this was very unconscious. They just weren't familiar with how to support different clients. And so I would be their go-to person in terms of consulting about certain things or just like sometimes they would ask me for advice and feedback on certain communities.
So I think it's so important for all of us to be able to have this knowledge as we move through our clients because our clients just look so different now and we need to be able to pivot and really just acknowledge those differences and support them in the ways that they need to be supported, not in the ways that we may think is what's best for them.
I know you mentioned that it's imperative that we support the clients, where they're at with respect to culturally responsive care. Can you give us some examples on how that might show up in the therapy room?
Yeah, absolutely. So say for example the intake. So some folks do intake some folks don't. I strongly believe in an intake assessment because for me, I think it's really important to understand the context that a client is coming in with.
But some of the things that I would ask my clients is, tell me a little bit more about your family. Did you grow up in Canada? What are some of the coping strategies that you may have used that may look a little bit different than what you're seeing here? So I try to understand what has worked for them, and it's really interesting some of the things that clients share and the way that they were raised and the way that they grew up and the way that they have coped. And just going in with an open mind, because it doesn't necessarily mean that, we may see something as quote unquote that may be unhealthy according to what is Canadian, but that's something that may have worked for them, for example. So that's an example of a way that I try to incorporate it is in my intake assessment with my clients, is really understanding the context and oftentimes the family aspect is a huge-- like the meat and potatoes of the culture when it comes to our clients and it really contributes to the way that they see and experience the world. So I hope that example helps.
How can community be built through culturally responsive care?
Yeah, so a really big part of culturally responsive care is I definitely don't believe that it's productive or even just healthy for us as therapists, to just be on our own, especially as we're engaging in private practice work, and if you're working in different roles. I don't think that it's healthy to just be on your own and isolated because the work that we do is so emotionally heavy that it's so important for us to be in community. So whether that means like even one other safe colleague, it doesn't even need to be, for example, in your department.
I remember. When I used to work for the government, my closest friends were like in accounting that I would always debrief with. But in terms of how community can be built through culturally responsive care is really us using that collective idea. I come from a culture that is very collective and I often find that when I think of like my therapist friends and my therapist peers that I have, we actually have a peer group once a month where me and like a bunch of other therapists meet just like for an hour and we check in and if there's any like issues and stuff, we touch base with each other. But I did notice that there is a lot of gentle accountability that is there because of that. And I find that it really enhances our work through culturally responsive care. And so it is so important for us to be in community. So whether that means, you finding one friend at work that may be in a different department.
It may maybe even be, say for example, if you have your own private practice reaching out to other folks who may have their own private practice as well, whose values and beliefs that may be in alignment with you, but it's just really very intentionally building relationship with others because when we build relationship with others, we start to learn and understand different points of view and different perspectives, and I feel like that enhances our culturally responsive care. Kind of like a muscle when you're working out you always need to work that muscle in terms of making it stronger, that's the same thing with culturally responsive care, the more we're around different folks and building different relationships, the stronger that we will be because we learn from other people through conversation, through socialization. So that's how I believe that we can build community.
I love that. So what do you suggest for therapists who still may be hesitant or uncomfortable in engaging in this type of work?
So I think for folks who are still feeling hesitant or uncomfortable, I know when I do a lot of professional development training around culturally responsive care, for some folks, this is just really the first time that they're hearing that term. And they may be very seasoned practitioners who have been working for a long time and this may be new language for them.
So one, I just wanna acknowledge that it may be uncomfortable. But that doesn't mean that's actually a bad thing. That discomfort is more of a warning signal for you that perhaps this is an area that we can enhance for you in order to be able to respond a little bit better to certain situations. So I definitely don't want to view it as a deficit. We all have our stuff. We're working through all of us. There's no perfect therapist that exists in this world.
But I would actually ask yourself where is this discomfort coming from? Because a lot of the time for example, I know a therapist that I worked with, she came from a very conservative family. So the topic of gender was very uncomfortable for her. But through a lot of work, through different trainings I know engaging with like different folks in our organization, she slowly started to become more compassionate and more empathetic to communities that she didn't personally agree with. But I think it's so important for us to understand that even though we may not personally agree with someone's lifestyle or we may not see ourselves in a certain culture, it's still so important for us to try to understand and be open-minded to those parts.
And a lot of those times that hesitation and that discomfort does come up, it usually has more so to do with us and just the way that we move through the world, but I would really ask yourself, where is that coming from? And gently challenge yourself around that because it's so important for us to always be learning and growing.
So many people already have those skillsets. It's more so about just pivoting and being a little bit more open-minded.
Such great insights. Do you have any additional advice, insights, or tips for listeners about developing a community through culturally responsive care?
Yeah, I think it's actually really important for us to be really intentional and really ask yourself about what is your purpose, and what is your intent when it comes to developing a community through culturally responsive care? We wanna be mindful that we don't want to be transactional, and we don't want to be just collecting data in a way that is not supportive or that doesn't have good intention because we know, for example, with a lot of indigenous communities that they have experienced that. So I want us to be really mindful in terms of us navigating culturally responsive care.
We also wanna think about how we can also offer support. So say for example, if we're interested in a certain community and we reach out to that organization because we're curious about training or curious about supporting, like offering service supports, I would really ask ourselves where this is coming from and what is our intent with this work, and how can we also support them.
I think a huge aspect of the collective part is that we support them, they support us, and it's important for it to be mutual because we don't want to just take and take from other people. I don't think that's appropriate.
So that's something that I would share. I would also say it doesn't even need to be only specific to our work. For example, I'm located close to the Toronto area. There's always different, like festivals that are going on. There's always different events or different holidays that we may actually not be comfortable with, that we don't usually engage in.
Yeah, I would say let yourself observe, be intentional about perhaps like attending an event or like a festival that you may previously not have, because you never know what you will be exposed to. I know for a lot of therapists and practitioners that I've worked with, I was oftentimes the first racialized person they've ever met. Sometimes in their life because they grew up in like very small towns or they moved to Toronto to study. It's always an interesting experience and I'm someone who is quite open to having conversations just because I think it's really important that folks are aware, but just being really mindful of that as well, because oftentimes, again, you may just have unconsciously just grew up in a really small town where you weren't exposed to different folks.
So being mindful of that, not in a bad or a deficit way, but perhaps where are the ways that I can learn more about other people around me in a way that is healthy and that's still respectful.
Such good points. Huda, are you currently accepting therapy clients into your practice, and if so, how can listeners either reach out or send a referral to you?
Yes, so I actually am right now. We also have this new program called our Accessible Therapy program, where one of my staff will be offering low cost therapy to folks in different provinces and territories across Canada. So we're really excited for that.
You can reach out to us at noorelhuda.com or directly send us an email at hello@noorelhuda.com and we can support you accordingly.
So to connect with Huda, head to noorelhuda.com, or simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.
Huda, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how to develop a community through culturally responsive care.
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
And thank you everyone for tuning into today's episode, and I hope you join me again soon on The Designer Practice Podcast.
Until next time, bye for now.
