Foundations of Cultural Competency: Understanding Culture, Colonial Harm, and the Call to Rehumanize

picture of presenter, date and title of webinar, Foundations of Cultural Competency: Understanding Culture, Colonial Harm, and the Call to Rehumanize

Topic(s):

Africentric social work practice

Anti-Oppressive Practice

Decolonized social work research

Webinar event date:

aoû 27, 2025 1:00 pm EDT

Webinar series:

Decolonizing Clinical Social Work: Integrating Ubuntu Centred Cultural Humility to Enhance Cultural Competency

Webinar link

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Webinar Presenters:

Shayla S. Dube, MSW, RSW, RCSW- S

Shayla S. Dube, MSW, RSW, is a multidimensional clinical social worker and York University alumna with over 15 years of post-MSW experience that spans psychotherapy, clinical supervision, education, and community mental health. She is a sessional instructor, decolonial scholar, keynote speaker, and mental health consultant whose work is rooted in Ubuntu, cultural pluralism, trauma-informed care, and anti-oppressive, equity-responsive practice. Guided by the principles of relational accountability and intercultural safety, Shayla bridges therapeutic, academic, and community spaces to co-create culturally affirming, socially just, and healing-centered environments. Her work honors diverse ways of knowing while advancing collective healing and decolonial transformation.

Description

This webinar is the first in the series, "Decolonizing Clinical Social Work: Integrating Ubuntu Centred Cultural Humility to Enhance Cultural Competency."

To decolonize social work, we must first understand the colonial systems that shaped it. This opening session explores how colonization disrupted cultural identity, erased Indigenous ways of knowing, and medicalized suffering through Eurocentric frameworks. Participants will examine how mainstream models like Maslow’s Hierarchy and the ACES study reflect individualist, Western assumptions that often invisibilize collective, historical, and racialized trauma. In contrast, we will introduce HIPP Theory (Historical, Intergenerational, Persistent & Personal trauma) as a decolonial and embodied approach rooted in cultural and ancestral context. Through this lens, participants will begin to explore the foundations of cultural competency, reflect on their own social location, and engage with Ubuntu as a path to rehumanizing care and restoring relational accountability.

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe the relationship between colonization, cultural harm, and the foundations of Western clinical frameworks.

2. Differentiate between the ACES framework and HIPP Theory, identifying how each conceptualizes trauma and healing.

3. Critically reflect on how dominant models like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs may exclude collective, relational, and cultural worldviews.

4. Begin to explore their own positioning within the cultural competency continuum and consider how Ubuntu can guide culturally humble and relational practice.