A Pragmatic Approach to Cultural Competency in Vocational Rehabilitation: The Case of Hmong Americans

Rehabilitation counselors face a complex challenge in achieving the standard of cultural competence among vocational rehabilitation (VR) consumers from all backgrounds. The purpose of this paper is to explicate an achievable approach to culturally competent VR counseling with VR consumers from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) backgrounds. The multifaceted and contextual nature of cultural and linguistic diversity can pose challenges to both the agency and the counselor. The challenge of accurately assessing culturally relevant outcomes has obscured the value of culturally competent counseling practices. The authors propose a pragmatic approach to cultural competency based on a combination of existing cultural competency models-the Cultural Equivalence Model and Bernal's approach to the Cultural Variance Model. A detailed working example of how to use this approach with a low incidence CLD group, Hmong Americans, is provided.