Hosted by the Youth Mental Health System of Care (YMHSOC) in partnership with Rockford University
✨ Beyond Competence: Cultural Humility as a Guiding Framework is an interactive workshop led by Dr. Alka Arora, Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
This 4-hour training will explore why cultural humility matters in mental health practice and how it can strengthen both personal and systemic approaches to care.
Participants will:
- 🌱 Learn the foundations of cultural humility and how it differs from cultural competence
- 🤝 Engage in small group case study discussions and navigate real-world cultural tensions
- ✍️ Reflect through journaling, paired conversations, and group sharing
- 💡 Integrate learning into practice with tools for equity, inclusion, and systemic change
Facilitator:
Dr. Alka Arora is a professor in the Women, Gender, Spirituality, and Social Justice program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS); she works remotely from Chicago, Il. She holds a doctorate in women’s studies from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Southern California. As a bicultural, first-generation Indian American scholar, she brings a nuanced understanding of cultural identity to her research, teaching, and community practice.
Dr. Arora has published numerous articles at the intersection of feminist theory, spirituality, and liberatory education. Over the past two decades, she has developed original curriculum on themes such as women and leadership, integral education, multicultural research methods, and ecological justice. She has also presented her research at more than forty national and international conferences, including the National Women’s Studies Association, the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education.
In addition to her academic work, Dr. Arora collaborates with diverse communities through consulting, workshop facilitation, and leadership coaching. Her current focus across these efforts is on deep listening and dialogue as practices that can bridge political and cultural divides. She also serves as a certified facilitator with Gender Equity and Reconciliation International, a nonprofit that applies a culturally attuned lens to issues of gender justice and healing. You can learn more about her work at www.alkaarora.com.
