Packed with practical pointers and examples, this indispensable, straight-talking guide helps professionals conduct productive interviews while building strong working relationships with culturally and linguistically diverse clients. Chapters cover verbal and nonverbal ways to build rapport and convey respect; how to overcome language barriers, including effective use of interpreters; culturally competent interviews with children and adolescents; and key issues in working with immigrants and refugees. Strategies for avoiding common cross-cultural misunderstandings and producing fair, accurate reports are presented. Every chapter concludes with thought-provoking discussion questions and resources for further reading.
Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD, is on the faculty of the University Without Walls at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has dedicated two decades to making the social service, mental health, criminal justice, and medical systems more responsive to culturally diverse people. Dr. Fontes has published widely on cultural issues in child maltreatment and violence against women, cross-cultural research, and ethics. She has worked as a family, individual, and group psychotherapist, and has conducted research in Santiago, Chile, and with Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and European Americans in the United States. She also worked for three years with Somali refugees. In 2007 Dr. Fontes was awarded a Fulbright Foundation Fellowship, which she completed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, she is a frequent conference speaker and workshop facilitator.
Table of Contents
1. A Guide to Interviewing across Cultures
2. Preparing for the Interview
3. Biases and Boundary Issues
4. Setting the Right Tone: Building Rapport and Conveying Respect
5. Beyond Words: Nonverbal Communication in Interviews
6. Language Competence: Building Bridges with People Who Have a Different Native Language
7. The Interpreted Interview
8. Understanding and Addressing Reluctance to Divulge Information
9. Interviewing Culturally Diverse Children and Adolescents
10. Interview Reports and Documents
11. Authority and Trust Issues for Specific Professions
12. Common Dilemmas and Misunderstandings in Cross-Cultural Interviews
Afterword: Your Self as a Resource
Interviews
Clinicians, trainees, and residents in any of the mental health disciplines, including clinical psychology, social work, counseling, family therapy, psychiatry, and psychiatric nursing, as well as practitioners in child welfare, crisis intervention, and other human services fields. Will serve as a supplemental text in advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level courses such as Clinical Interviewing, Social Work with Racial and Ethnic Minorities, and Multicultural Counseling.
