Becoming Culturally Competent

The Becoming Culturally Competent programme is delivered as a face-to-face workshop taking 2.5 hours, aimed at staff who are in front facing roles and engaging with students on a daily basis, including academic staff and those from Professional Services. 

The delivery model has been rolled out as a train the trainer approach where volunteers from each faculty and directorate have been trained up as facilitators to deliver the programme internally to their team. We currently have over 50 trainers who have been through the training pathway. 

The content is delivered through engaging activities that first encourages the development of cultural self-awareness before then looking into tools that help colleagues to practice cultural competency in the context of Manchester Met. A key message from the programme is that it isn’t about diluting your own culture but being more open to others and how we can adapt our behaviour to create a greater sense of belonging for all. 

If you want to find out more about the staff approach to Becoming Culturally Competent, please reach out to the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team on [email protected]. 

For students wanting to complete the Becoming Culturally Competent programme, they can access the content in a self-study format and receive credited Rise points towards their final degree transcript. 

The content of the pack mirrors that of the staff programme to ensure that all members of our community are getting the same consistent messaging. The only difference is the self-study format which encourages self-reflection and independent study. 

There is also unique content within the pack where we asked our students to share their own lived experiences relating to cultural competency to really bring the pack to life!

You can access the pack here - Rise x Future Me at Manchester Met

Hear what students had to say after completing the pack:

This pack is uncomfortable, and it should be, it challenges you from your positionality to your privilege and then guides you through key ideas, models and experiences that will help you take the steps forward to being more culturally competent.

Ana Maia.

I have just completed this course, was very insightful. I think it’s very easy to forget the privilege some of us will have as future white educators. I would really recommend if you wanted to make sure everything we can to make our classrooms more inclusive

Health & Education Student.