Description

This card deck is meant for counselors to refer to when helping a client with a struggle personally tied to their culture. However, it can also be viewed as a study resource, students are also able to use it to learn about multicultural counseling. One main challenge we identified when creating this study deck was identifying the line between commonalities and stereotypes. It's important for counselors to remain aware of the difference between the two, and to stay away from stereotypes and prejudices. While it is important for counselors to know about a client's cultural background, to avoid prejudice, a counselor must also evaluate their own to create a nondiscriminatory identity and understanding (Moodley & Lee, 2021).

When multicultural counseling (MCC) was proposed, counselors originally conceptualized three competencies they believed every multicultural counselor should practice: beliefs and attitudes, skills, and knowledge. Beliefs and attitudes refers to the counselors mindset and awareness of stereotypes, skills refers to specific abilities to work with different cultures, and knowledge is the knowledge of different cultures. However, MCC has now expanded to include other competencies, such as terminology, which are equally important (Ridley & Kleiner, 2003). As such, our card deck does not target specific competencies but aims to touch every base a counselor should.