A transformative model for culturally-informed social work and health professions education

This article introduces a curricular design that brought together faculty and members of local immigrant and oppressed groups to build, teach, and evaluate a culturally-informed social work course. Course design was grounded in multiple theories including transcultural competence theory, critical multicultural social work theory and transcultural perspective. Trauma-informed principles guided content and teaching methodologies. A culturally-informed survey was developed to measure learning outcomes and feedback was gathered from student focus groups. Survey themes indicated students benefited from learning with and from cultural stakeholders and valued the integration of cultural- and trauma-informed perspectives.