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E
ven if everyone in your facility means well, making a facili-
ty diverse, inclusive and welcoming to employees and
patients from all backgrounds and cultures is a huge chal-
lenge. There are many tools and organizations that can
help you on your journey. Here are just a few.
BaFa' BaFa'
Raising awareness of how culture informs behavior and preparing
staffers to work with people of other backgrounds is the idea of
BaFa' BaFa', a self-administered, half-day training exercise for
organizations.
Originally created in the 1970s for the U.S. Navy, the exercise
starts by dividing your group in half and creating two distinct cul-
tures. One is a collectivist, people-oriented touchy-feely culture. The
other is more individualistic and task-oriented. Each group's mem-
bers learn the rules of their respective cultures and begin living by
them. Then there's an exchange of the group members. Members of
the dominant culture typically misperceive, misunderstand and
stereotype their visitors, while the visitors feel lost and over-
whelmed. The exercise then teaches all participants how to under-
stand and accept non-members by teaching non-defensive ways of
asking about cultural practices and understanding the problems
Next Steps
If you're committed to
becoming more diverse
and inclusive, here are a
few places to get help.
