A preliminary study of intensive transgender-specific cultural competency training: Implications for social workers and psychologists who work with rural transgender clients

Abstract

Rural transgender individuals face heightened disparities relative to other transgender individuals. However, social workers and psychologists receive minimal training in transgender client care. The current study used one-way repeated measures ANOVAs to investigate the effectiveness of transgender-specific cultural competency training for social workers and psychologists working with rural clients to improve knowledge, awareness, and self-efficacy (i.e., competency) concerning transgender clients’ needs. Results indicated significant differences in the change of competency among participants assigned to a transgender-specific group compared to those assigned to a general multicultural group. Thematic analysis of participants’ responses to course evaluations also supported the course effectiveness.

Keywords:

• Cultural competency
• health disparities
• mental health treatment
• program evaluation
• rural
• subject classification codes
• therapist training
• transgender

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Dr. Kat Carrick for her guidance and support in strategizing how to carry out this project, Dr. Danielle Balaghi for her support in procuring grant funding, and the transgender panelists for bravely and vulnerably sharing their mental health experiences with the transgender-specific training course participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19817497

Additional information

Funding

This research [Grant #2021010032.SAP] was supported by a Student Award Program grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation.