Developing Intercultural Competence and Practice

UCL is a diverse organisation. However, this demographic diversity does not imply inclusion. Colleagues across the Faculty have been grappling with issues of intercultural communication and engagement and seeking to improve their communication skills, particularly with their international students. To address this, Anouchka Sterling (Faculty Religion and Belief Equity Lead) created and developed a series of workshops exploring these issues of intercultural communication and inclusion, with Stephen James, a cross-cultural communications consultant.

The workshops considered two primary needs: psychosocial safety, and intercultural competence and practice. By raising awareness of the importance of psychosocial safety, and discussing specific intercultural communication competencies that can lead to psychosocial safety, the workshop helped participants to develop tools for appropriate intercultural practices.

Participants ended the session by making pledges to apply their new skills and tools in their working life within the Faculty of Brain Sciences, including implementing active listening and responding to micro-aggressions.

Feedback from participants include:

“I thought the workshop was fantastic. I learned about concepts that I was not familiar with, the discussions and advice were really useful, and making pledges made it feel concrete.”

“It is fantastic that you are organising this and help us create a more inclusive environment within FBS. And I am definitely hoping there will be more events on this topic in the future.”

The Faculty has plans to run these workshops again in the next academic year, and to explore offering this training to our students; to give everyone the opportunity to improve the inclusivity of our working culture.

Ultimately, intercultural competence is a journey, not a destination, and is the key to creating psychosocial safety along the way. In a world where these skills are becoming ever more necessary and valuable, it is essential that we shape our institutional culture accordingly.