Who can even believe that 2013 is nearly over, we are shoveling snow here in Toronto and life has come to a full circle….speaking of circles,  I would like to share a tool that I recently came in contact with while attending seminar on cultural competences. It’s called the Diversity Wheel. Many  of you might be familiar with it and for those who are not, it might be an useful tool/activity/exercise to incorporate in our interactions with our clients. I have come to realize that all of us are multicultural counsellors working within the melting pot context of diversity.

So the purpose of the Diversity Wheel can be twofold, first it Can be used to educate and inform about the  different levels and types of  diversity; and  secondly to begin the self-assessment process in developing cultural competence with diverse groups. Sometimes called as the Four Level Model, The “Dimensionsof Diversity”wheel shows the complexity of the diversity filters through which all of us process stimuli and information. That in turn leads to the assumptions that we make (usually about the behaviors of other people), which ultimately drive our own behaviors, which in turn have an impact on others.

I would encourage that if interested you can try this out with a group of peers for self learning and then try to incorporate in that whatever areas that you can practice in.

More information can be found in the following articles:

http://aia.berkeley.edu/media/pdf/source_summer96.pdf

http://www2.danceusa.org/uploads/annual_conference/content/Lets_talk_about_diversity.pdf