A Practical Skills Model for Effectively Engaging Clients in Multicultural Settings

to create a means for moving beyond the development of knowledge and awareness into the development of skills that will assist practitioners to prac-tice in a culturally competent manner. The model builds on basic counseling skills, combining them with specific approaches to providing culturally com-petent services. When successfully applied, these basic skills, empathic com-munication, relationship building, diunital reasoning, and customs and practices, are welded into a unified approach using the skill of model manage-ment, an integration of metacognition and error management learning tech-niques. Rather than prescribing an approach to culturally competent practice, the Practical Skills Model provides practitioners with a starting point for developing their ability to practice in a culturally competent manner. Since Wrenn (1962) described the culturally encapsulated counselor, a person who does not recognize that our values are irrevocably bound to our cultural heritage, the evidence regarding the effect of culture on the provision of behavioral health services has continued to mount. This evi-dence indicates that members of minority cultures, defined here as any self-