 during this module we are going to see the assessment of culturally diverse clients as we see that because of the cultural differences the clients could be different on the basis of their age, the religion, sexuality, ethnicity, gender, disability or any other basis but one of the important professional task of a psychologist is that he can never discriminate his clients on the basis of all these things so where comes all of these things or where discrimination comes so it will be culturally bias assessment so we have to see that a mutual or fear or culturally open assessment is done by a psychologist for this purpose psychologists need to develop the cultural competence for the assessment of the clients and the treatment of the clients so till the time the cultural competence does not come till then the discrimination in all these things cannot be avoided so now looking into what is cultural competence cultural competence is capacity to increase the understanding of cultural differences because every culture is different from other cultures, their practices are different, different behaviors are being performed, different customs are being done so till the time the understanding is not there, the cultural competence will not develop a traditional research which I have already given an example of is Margaret Mead's research where she started living in a specific tribe to develop the cultural competence she spent a lot of time there for her life and after she developed the cultural competence she worked on child rearing practices so you know sometimes it happens that the cultural competence could be developed in different ways or you live there, interact with them, spend time with them and after that the cultural competence develops then ability to acknowledge cultural assumptions and biases and believe me these cultural biases are different and we see this everywhere we see superstitions everywhere, we see different assumptions everywhere so understanding that is very important for an individual before he does therapeutic intervention willingness to make changes in thought and behavior of address cultural bias if you have become so offended by that cultural bias as a psychologist that you cannot even do dialogue on it you cannot develop any consensus on it with your client you feel that this principle is a very wrong practice because there are many such cultural practices which the psychologist himself does not agree with so first develop consensus on it yes there is a difference and this is acceptable to them after that the process of assessment and therapy is called to develop cultural competence then cultural competence is not a static thing it is an ongoing procedure of the examination and change not a goal to be attained once it is not that we have developed a course of 3 hours of cultural competence cultural competence is exactly the same as we are practicing any virtue it is inculcated over the period of time similarly cultural competence is developed within us with learning, with practice while spending the time and things like that a cultural competence program demonstrates the empathy and understanding of cultural differences that treatment, design, implementation and evaluation so once we talk about the cultural competence we need to understand the cultural competence in all the domain of our assessment like within this there can be implementation plan there can be diagnosis in it there can be evaluation in it now how will cultural competence differ from diagnosis I will give you a very brief example of this for instance we see a drug dependence case it is a diagnosed problem in DSM but if we see it in a Muslim society's culture then its connotations, its implications and the goals and dynamics of treatment will differ as compared to any other country where taking drugs is allowed by law so we need to see that cultural competence determines that what and how different practices are being done a culturally competent program is characterized by knowledge of or sensitivity of first language of client till the time you do not keep an acquaintance with a client's first language then the cultural competence cannot be developed like a psychologist is speaking in English and the person who understands it can understand it so how will you comprehend it then understanding and respecting the cultural nuisance of the client population if you are not respecting the practices of it and you are disowning it you are disrespecting it you are making fun of it that in your culture these practices are like this it seems to be very illogical so how will you train them how will you assess them how will you count them that would become a very trivial task so first of all develop these consensus that there are cultural differences and you will accept them and work individually that is very important for the production of the client population in program, policy making and decision making now since there are cultural differences you are working on a project by overcoming them till the time you do not have a client's consensus you cannot take any decision for that then employing treatment methods that reflect the cultural specific values and treatment needs of the client even when we plan an intervention and treatment method then it is very important that the clients keep their cultural background in mind and plan the intervention that is acceptable for them and visible for them so these are the things which are the basis of professional competence and one need to be very professionally competent when working with culturally diverse population