Multicultural Counseling Competencies Summary

Arredondo (1999) addresses the Multicultural Counseling Competencies in reference to both educating and providing a framework for counseling students. Before the documents were written, the authors argue that those who regarded themselves as multicultural counselors had no standards by which to judge their cultural competence (Arredondo 1999). Thus, the Multicultural Counseling Competencies create an outline of the skills that are necessary to be a culturally competent counselor. These include: counselor awareness of own assumptions, values, and biases, understanding the worldview of the culturally different client, and developing appropriate intervention strategies and techniques (Arredondo 1999). By understanding the expectations of each of these dimensions, a counselor or counseling student will be able to parallel their practice against the ideal competencies in the professional counseling field.
Given certain values or beliefs can be in immediate contrast with a client, the counselor needs to be able to become self-aware to avoid damaging the counselor-client relationship within the first session. Similar to this, a counselor should understand the worldview of his or her culturally different client. With the multicultural society we live in today, it is necessary for an effective counselor to be knowledgeable and skilled with other culturally different individuals (Arredondo 1999). This can range from providing proper resources to a family whose first language is not English, to understanding that some cultures do not support the disclosure of personal feelings and information. Each client is different, and it is up to the counselor to given each session the unique dedication it