Dr. Dana E. Crawford, a pediatric and clinical psychologist, hosted “Preventing and Repairing Cultural Misunderstandings” on Friday, September 27 at Mount Saint Mary College.
The Desmond Center for Community Engagement and Wellness, a Mount Saint Mary College initiative, hosted the presentation “Preventing and Repairing Cultural Misunderstandings” on Friday, September 27.
The event was part of the Desmond Center’s ongoing Health Equity Talks series.
Dr. Dana E. Crawford, a pediatric and clinical psychologist, gave an insightful session on the LET-UP approach, a practical framework designed to address cultural misunderstandings and unconscious biases. The session featured real-life exercises and tools to enhance communication and build inclusive relationships and provided participants with strategies to promote equity and inclusivity in both their professional and personal lives.
For example, Crawford discussed how code switching – swapping between two or more ways of speaking depending on the situation – can tax our mental resources and make us less effective problem solvers before we even approach a problem.
“We do code switching because our hope is that we will have better access to resources,” Crawford explained. “I say this as a Black woman, but everybody in here has had to code switch.”
The biggest case, she said, is code switching in a professional environment.
“It’s not just in the race-oriented way,” she said. “It’s the ways in which we often don’t bring our full selves into the spaces we work. We don’t bring out full selves at times to our family relationships. Some of us aren’t even bringing our full selves in our partnerships. And that has a price.”
Crawford, who was recently the keynote speaker at the Desmond Center’s “Healthy Communities: A Shared Responsibility Towards Wellness” conference, has spent much of her career examining ways to eliminate biases and increase cultural understanding. For example, she developed the Crawford Bias Reduction Theory and Training (CBRT), a systematic approach to reducing bias, prejudice, and racism. In recent years, she has worked with the National Black Caucus to create legislation for Black maternal health equity and conducted hundreds of trainings and presentations in private, non-profit, public, and government sectors.
The Desmond Center provides wellness and educational services for underserved individuals and families. The center offers accessible and equitable educational, health, and wellness services for community members and families in the local area.