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Cultural Competence or Cultural Stereotyping?

Leave a Comment / Counseling, Cultural Competence, culture, Multicultural /

When I first started as a Child Protective Investigator in Arizona in the early 1990s, cultural competency training was still in its infancy. I went into those sessions eager to learn. I wanted to be responsive, respectful, and effective in my work. But what I encountered was something very different from what I had hoped […]

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When Hardship Isn’t Trauma: The Difference Between ACEs and Growth Experiences

Leave a Comment / Trauma /

In counseling, we often lean on the ACEs framework, Adverse Childhood Experiences, as a way to understand the lasting impact of abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction. It’s a useful lens, but it has a blind spot. Not every hard or painful experience a child goes through is trauma. Some adversities, though they sting in the

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