As healthcare professionals, we often recommend services or products to help patients recover. It is important that we endorse and recommend services that come from people and companies that dedicate themselves to diversity, equity and inclusion. Here are some of those culturally sensitive services you can recommend.
Dysphagia and Feeding
Dysphagia Diet: This website offers a variety of dysphagia products but most notably has dysphagia meal training videos in both english and spanish.
Food Heaven Made Easy: Join BFF’s and registered dietitian nutritionists Wendy Lopez and Jessica Jones as they talk to different health & nutrition experts about how we can live healthier, more balanced lives. I’ve worked in hospitals, private practice, community nutrition, and outpatient clinic settings and on average, about 60 to 75 percent of my clients have been women of color. So many of my patients are very appreciative to see a dietitian that looks like them and makes an attempt to understand their culture, food preferences and barriers to behavior changes. For example, many of my patients have an extremely limited income, and healthy foods like salmon and avocados may be too expensive for them to eat on a weekly basis. Likewise, it’s common practice to recommend an outdoor walk as physical activity, but many providers don’t realize that some people don’t feel safe walking around their neighborhoods after work.
Communication Tools
Aragonese Center of AAC: ARASAAC offers graphic and material resources adapted with a Creative Commons license(BY – NC – SA) to facilitate communication and cognitive accessibility to all people who, due to different factors(autism, intellectual disability, lack of language, elderly people, etc.), present serious difficulties in these areas, which hinder their inclusion in any area of daily life.
Avaz is a picture and text-based AAC app that empowers children and adults with complex communication needs to express themselves and learn.
Expressing thoughts, whenever and wherever, increases their confidence in their abilities.
From communicating that they are happy to participating and learning in the classroom, Avaz helps with all!
We believe that a device or language should not be an obstacle that restricts an individual from expressing themselves. Hence, Avaz is available across iOS and Android platforms in multiple languages.
They want to create a better world for deaf and hearing of hearing people.
Tactus Therapy Aphasia Friendly COVID-19 Handout:
Everyone needs to understand what’s happening in this pandemic and what they can do to protect themselves and others. Many people with communication impairments like aphasia, dementia, or Autism need visual supports and clear, simple language to understand.
Eat Speak Think COVID-19 Communication Resources:
Those of us who work in healthcare have always known that “the only constant is change”, but the COVID-19 pandemic has taken things to a new level. Everyone is likely dealing with some level of stress or anxiety. Hopefully, you’ll find something helpful in the list of COVID-19 resources.
Transgender Resources
LGBTQ+ Resource Center Intersectional Resources:
This page houses a collection of resources that can be used as educational tools for people who may want to learn more about a range of LGBTQ+ identities, how LGBTQ+ identities can interact with other social identities (such as race, socio-economic status, and ability status), and who are interested in obtaining resources and support surrounding LGBTQ+ identities.
These lists are not all-encompassing of the social identities affecting people’s lives and experiences, and each resource list does is not all-inclusive.
We are welcome to feedback about these resources, especially if someone finds that a resource that is listed is now out of date. Our hope is that these will be living documents that will grow and change with time, but be manageable for folks to explore.
Northern Arizona University “Know Your Rights”:
This page provides information on laws regarding LGBTQ+ individuals in Arizona, as well as some nationwide laws that affect LGBTQ+ people. For more information about LGBTQ+ laws and policies, see the HRC’s interactive equality map. They also have intersectional resources on topics like hunger, homelessness, addiction, substance abuse, mental health, disability and race/ethnicity.
Transgender Map:
This free website shows how to make a gender transition.
It tells about gender identity and gender expression, as well as the social, legal, and medical ways to make a transgender transition.
It has lists of people who can help. You can learn how to pay for transition.
There is also help for young people and their families.
People who are not transgender are also welcome here!
Hopefully these resources will help you help your patients in a more culturally sensitive way. Thanks for reading! Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter below.
