Cultural competence is an active, ongoing commitment to create inclusive, ethical, and culturally responsive environments that honour the dignity of all people. It requires individuals and organisations to examine cultural positioning, power, and privilege within systems. Cultural competence fosters equity and social justice by embedding principles of critical self-reflection, relational accountability, and continuous learning into institutional policies, practices, and leadership.

It requires knowing and reflecting on one’s own cultural values, beliefs, and world view and their implications for making respectful, reflective, and reasoned choices, including the capacity to imagine and collaborate in cross cultural contexts.

Cultural competence is ultimately about valuing diversity for the richness and creativity it brings to society. 

With a growing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, almost half of all Australians having both parents or one of them born overseas, and a range of other factors affecting the cultural makeup of our society, we are living in an increasingly diverse global community.

Acquiring the capacity, knowledge and experience necessary to create effective and ethical relationships in diverse cultural environments is crucial.