Training for Cross‐Cultural Interactions with Children

In this paper, a training program for new volunteers at the Regence Boys and Girls Club organization is proposed. This training program will reduce uncertainty of volunteers and create a more culturally competent individual who is better prepared to work in an intercultural environment. It will emphasize three main objectives that should be accomplished including: motivation, knowledge, and skills changes. According to Ting Toomey (2007), if an individual develops these three objectives, a successful training program will exist. Within these three objectives, specific skills are highlighted in the training programs which have been noted within previous research. Understanding nonverbal communication, identifying and utilizing backchannel cues, and gaining overall background knowledge on specific cultures are the main skills that will be taught in the new training program. This supplemental training session should benefit the organization by helping minimize conflict between people of different cultures, as well as by educating about cultural communication styles and techniques. Cross Cultural Communication Training 3 Training for Intercultural Interactions with Children Introduction As a volunteer for the Regence Boys and Girls Club, I had the opportunity to work with children from various cultures, different from my own, and participate in numerous activities that allowed me to get to know the children on an intimate level. The Boys and Girls Club provides a positive environment where children are able to find love and support from the adult staff and volunteers who work there. Their mission is to enable all young people, especially those who need them most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. They do this by providing a safe environment to learn and grow within ongoing relationships with caring, adult professionals, life enhancing programs and character development experiences, and finally by providing hope and opportunity. Without the Boys and Girls Club, some children have no real place to call “home”. The Regence Boys and Girls Club, located in the New Columbia district in North Portland, hosts up to 300 kids each afternoon from about 2:00 7:00 pm. There are only about 10 full time staff members who work at this location, so volunteers also play a huge role in interacting with the kids on a daily basis. Volunteers are always welcome and encouraged to come and work with the kids in the club doing various activities such as homework help, managing activities, coaching sports teams, etc. Because volunteers are fully engaged with the kids, who come from low income families and are mostly black and Hispanic, I feel that a proper training program should be implemented into the “hiring” process in order for volunteers to gain knowledge and skill about how to interact with children from other cultures. It is very important that volunteers, such as me, who come from a different culture than most of the kids, learn how to communicate skillfully Cross Cultural Communication Training 4 with them in order to manage emotional frustrations and interactive struggles (Ting Toomey, 50). This paper proposes a training program to implement in order to establish a fuller sense of comfort for volunteers than I experienced during my time at the Regence Boys and Girls Club. Implementing these suggestions may help the Boys and Girls Club volunteers become and feel more competent when communicating with children or adults from other cultures. They should be able to relate and interact in more appropriate and effective ways because of the knowledge they receive during the training program. Background The main problem that the Regence Boys and Girls Club holds is that the training or orientation program, as it was for me, was not sufficient enough to prepare a volunteer to work with children from different cultural backgrounds and cultures. Interacting and communicating with these vulnerable children are important skills that need to be developed in order to be a good role model and influence in the child’s life. Because many of these kids come from broken families or unstable living environments, they often require more attention and support from the adult figures they meet at the Boys and Girls Club. Like me, volunteers who offer their time to spend at the club may not have previous experience working with people from other cultures. They may not have had previous cross cultural relationships that would benefit their communication competence in this situation. I am one of the many people who has had little experience with intercultural communication, which is why I feel strongly that the Boys and Girls Club could supplement their orientation with a training program that includes gaining the appropriate communication skills needed to interact with these children. Cross Cultural Communication Training 5 As I have mentioned above, I feel that the training program would benefit from a more cross cultural substance and valuable information for its volunteers in order for them to communicate effectively. The training program I received was approximately 15 minutes in length and the majority of the orientation was a tour of the building. When we toured through each room, the volunteers coordinator did give us a brief background on what goes on in each room and how it benefits the children; however the main focus of the orientation was to tell us how the club works as opposed to how to deal with the children. Though, we were able to ask questions at the end about anything we might need to know, there was not enough time to engage in conversation that would help me to better understand the types of children that attend the Boys and Girls club and what communication styles they use. The orientation provided before my volunteer work experience actually began did not fully prepare me to deal with the issues and conflicts that come up on a daily basis between both kids and staff members of different cultures. This new implementation to the orientation program would first benefit the volunteers. They will receive knowledge – that will be discussed later in the proposal – that will not only benefit them while volunteering at the Regence Boys and Girls Club, but will also allow them to develop a broader set of communication skills to use elsewhere. Because of the lack of knowledge presented by the volunteers about how to handle cross cultural relationships, a huge gap in the communication between the intercultural dyad needs to be filled. The communication gap provides confusion and frustration to both members of the pair that could easily be avoided due to education on how to avoid those types of situations by using the proper communication methods (Ting Toomey, 50). Cross Cultural Communication Training 6 Although the focus of this added training program is to affect volunteers in a positive way and help them transition into managing cross cultural interactions more smoothly, the children and staff are affected by it as well. The children are in need of positive figures in their life that they can rely on for advice and help in all aspects of their life. From my first couple of visits to the club, I have already noticed that these children depend on volunteers for support and love they do not receive at home. Some of the children mentioned that the Boys and Girls Club was their favorite place to go because all of the staff are so “cool” and “nice to us”. Because of these interactions I had, I feel that it is especially important to take the time to learn how our communication affects the children and what we can do to make for a better interaction. Children from different cultures offer a different way of communicating both verbally and nonverbally. If volunteers spend time learning these communication patterns and directing their communication methods toward these patterns the kids provide, then the kids will be greatly benefited because there will be less confusion and frustration within the interaction. There will be more of a mutual understanding about what is being communicated by each person. One of the main goals of the Boys and Girls Club is to enable children a place of safety with good role models and influences that help provide support and love to those who need it. I want to make sure that this mission is accomplished to its full potential by providing these children with the most educated and knowledgeable staff and volunteers. Because of incomplete training currently provided for volunteers, the Boys and Girls Club may be falling short of their goals. As Elfenbien mentions in her article entitled, “Learning in emotion judgments: Training and the cross cultural understanding of facial expressions”, focusing on all Cross Cultural Communication Training 7 types of communication especially nonverbal communication is key to understanding another person’s culture and communication approach. All types of communication need to be learned in order to improve the overall communication process and to achieve the goal that the Boys and Girls Club presents of providing these excellent staff and volunteer members. After adding this new program to the already existing orientation that takes place, a stronger, more developed volunteer will be produced who can work effectively in cross cultural relationships. Proposed Approach and Work Plan Importance of Intercultural Conflict Training As identified in the Introduction and Background sections of this proposal, I will offer here an additional training program for the Regence Boys and Girls Club to enhance the performance of the volunteers and to help them feel more comfortable and competent when working with students and staff of different cultures. Over 18% of Americans speak a different language in their household, which proves true in this diverse Boys and Girls Club and is why a training program is so important (Osterling, 2004). According to Ting Toomey