2SJT topic
Diversity & Inclusion
You notice difference in culture, faith, language, disability, sexuality, gender or class without assuming from it.
Practise Diversity & Inclusion12 scenarios
What makes these scenarios hard
Cultural sensitivity has to be weighed against clinical responsibility. Deferring entirely to a cultural explanation can leave a risk unaddressed; ignoring it can make the intervention useless or harmful.
What a strong answer usually does
- Ask the client rather than generalising from a group. The person is the authority on their own context.
- Adapt the delivery before abandoning the intervention.
- Examine your own assumptions explicitly. HCPC 1.6 requires it.
- Use a trained interpreter, and brief them before the session. The BPS’s 2017 guidelines say “the use of children as interpreters is rarely appropriate”, and NHS England’s guidance for primary care says relying on family or friends “would not be considered good practice”.
- The Social GRACES mnemonic (Burnham, 1992; Roper-Hall, 1998), covering gender, race, religion, age, ability, class, culture and more, is one prompt for noticing difference and power, your own included.
What the standards say
- HCPC 1.5: treat people fairly; be aware of the impact of your practice
- HCPC 1.6: ensure your values, biases and beliefs do not affect care
- HCPC 1.10: use appropriate methods of communication
- BPS Code of Ethics and Conduct: Respect for the dignity of persons and peoples
- BPS, Working with interpreters: guidelines for psychologists (2017), 2.2
- NHS England, Guidance for commissioners: interpreting and translation services in primary care (2018)
Sources: HCPC, Standards of conduct, performance and ethics (2024), checked ; BPS, Code of Ethics and Conduct (2021), checked ; BPS, Working with interpreters (2017), checked ; NHS England, Interpreting and translation services in primary care (2018), checked .