Continuing Education Course in Cultural Competence
The Patient Behind the Religion: Providing Culturally Competent Care to Patients from Fundamentalist Communities
Participants will learn how to provide culturally respectful and appropriate care to a community of people who have been deliberately deprived of medical information as well as encouraged to shun evidence-based medicine. In many religious communities, support is given to families with medical issues, and in offering this support, decisions are often taken out of the individuals' hands and made by community leaders.
Participants will get a detailed overview of the medical illiteracy that exists in fundamentalist communities and the role community leaders play in medical decisions. With no introduction to biology, germ theory, or reproductive health, patients from fundamentalist communities often don’t have the knowledge to give informed consent when making healthcare decisions. Participants will learn how to bridge this information gap.
- Participants understand how living in a fundamentalist community may affect a person's ability to provide informed consent.
- Participants understand how to provide informed care to individuals with no information on how their body works.
- Participants identify and address their implicit biases when treating patients from fundamentalist communities.
- Participants have additional skills, empathy, and compassion when caring for individuals from fundamentalist communities
Course Format Options:
- 2-hour workshop
- 4-hour workshop
- 6-hour workshop
Raised in a fundamentalist community, Chani Getter (they/them) is a licensed clinical social worker and award-winning educator and advocate. As the Scholar-in-Residence for Footsteps, a social service organization that supports people leaving ultra-orthodox Jewish communities, Chani teaches, trains, and mentors staff at partner organizations to improve quality of service for individuals living or raised in fundamentalist communities. Chani has worked extensively with ex-ultra-orthodox Jews, ex-Mormons, ex-Muslims, and ex-fundamental Christians (especially those home-schooled).
Chani also leads educational workshops and cultural competence trainings for a wide variety of institutions including hospitals, colleges and universities, social service agencies, nonprofits, and law firms. Chani helps groups directly address difficult, yet critical, topics of our day. By doing so, participants learn invaluable skills that lead to stronger relationships, improved communication, and enhanced collaboration across lines of difference. Chani creates a welcoming, engaging, and accessible learning environment for participants from all walks of life.
course instructor
- workshop attendee
"In a little over an hour of teaching and conversation, I had new tools and new ways of being in the world. That's pretty amazing and that's what Rev. Chani brought to the workshop."
- m.h.
"What started as a group of strangers sitting uncomfortably in a circle ended with profound sharing and connection. That's what happens when Rev. Chani facilities a training or workshop."
- client
“Chani has been the single strongest force in my life to help me improve things in my life. What Chani has done for me is empower me to be myself and trust myself and be aware of myself. To having a sense of identity. To being an autonomous self. Chani is just wonderful.”
- F
"Whatever it is you bring, Rev. Chani will create a place of non-judgement, a place where you will feel safe, seen and heard."
- therapy client
Chani Getter is the reason I live an authentic life today. Chani has been a steady, compassionate force in my life. Chani has helped me through darkness and has never once judged me for it. Chani’s work is professional, brilliant, and so very warm. Chani is a healer. It has always been difficult for me to find a therapist I can trust. Chani is that therapist-Chani's deep understanding of me and of the human psyche is astounding.
- congregant
"Rev. Chani is such a wonderful human. I just love how encouraging and incredibly honest they are.
What a blessing this was."
- client
“I’ve been to therapy and gone to coaches and workshops but I never had an experience where someone got to the core so consistently. You can talk for 10 minutes straight and Chani will respond with the one question that cuts to the chase. “
- workshop attendee
“Chani’s workshop was illuminating and powerful. Chani transformed a room full of strangers into a safe space where we could sit with our feelings and let go of the burdens we carry.”
- coaching client
I have been able to successfully manage and/or eliminate toxic relationships in my life as a direct result of Chani’s support. In our sessions, I did not hesitate to be my genuine self and express my honest truths. Chani coached and counseled me with accurate and genuine insight, humanity, respect, and warmth. I am so grateful.
- workshop attendee
Such ministry Rev. Chani extended! They didn't "other" anyone but met each person with authenticity and accurate information. In so doing, Rev. Chani demonstrated a profound lesson to me in setting boundaries and offering compassion - for oneself and one's community.
- workshop attendee
"I felt like Rev. Chani invited me into their sacred space with sharing Jewish rituals with me. I loved each of them. However, I experienced a profound rush of emotions and was moved to tears with no words to express the awe I felt during the Tefflin ritual. My father use to say “tears are the language the mind cannot lay hold of yet." That is how I felt, no words and sacred space. What a generous gift."
- conference attendee
In a day when we were listening to one lecture after another, you were the only one that invited us to pause, to notice our bodies, to drop in, before you began to speak. All of a sudden it wasn’t just another lecture. I could actually hear what you were saying and it changed the entire day for me. Thank you.
- CONGREGANT
"Oh my G-d that was amazing. What a person Rev. Chani is. The reminder that everyone has a longing and that everyone has a story has changed the way I will relate to human beings forever."
- client
“Thanks to Chani’s guidance, I have a new sense of who I am. I trust my feelings and ideas to a much better extent than I did before. I still have a way to go. I am more confident about who I am and what I feel. I have been able to set boundaries to have healthy relationships. What Chani gave me has really helped me change my life.”
- client
“I know that when I set up a session with Chani, I can expect to achieve clarity, gain strength and courage to follow my dreams."
- workshop attendee
“Chani’s message speaks to the heart. It is one of inclusion, compassion, joy, and self-inquiry and explores core issues that affect the meaning and well-being of our lives.”
