Transparency
Far Northern Regional Center hosted a Cultural Awareness & Sensitivity Training at Rolling Hills Casino in Corning on March 2nd and Hotel Katerina in Chico on March 6th, bringing together regional center staff, community-based organizations, and state partners for a three-hour workshop focused on respectful and effective service delivery.
The training, funded through Language Access and Cultural Competency (LACC) grant funds, featured guest speaker Dr. Nandi Cosby, who led participants through an interactive session on cultural awareness, sensitivity, humility, and safety.
Maria Nazari, RDQA for Inclusion & Diversity at Far Northern Regional Center, said the event was designed to create meaningful dialogue and practical strategies for working with diverse communities.
“So it went really well. Everybody came in, signed in, registered for the event, had breakfast, and was able to mingle,” Nazari said. “We had several local CBOs (Community Based Organizations) participate.”
Nazari said about 75 people attended in person out of 89 registered, with organizers intentionally limiting the event to 100 spots to foster engagement.
“We felt like a little bit more intimate session would be more appropriate, which it was — a lot more engagement, back and forth conversations with the speaker and the participants,” she said. “It was wonderful.”
The training was open to vendors, community-based organizations, regional center staff, and invited partners, including the Department of Developmental Services’ Service Access and Equity Division, which funded the program. Staff from San Gabriel Regional Center also attended.
Dr. Cosby’s workshop centered on serving families with respect and ensuring clear communication across cultures. Participants worked in small groups and reconvened to share insights on serving different demographics within the community.
“She went over the cultural awareness, sensitivity, humility, safety definitions, and we all discussed in group format,” Nazari said.
A key component of the training was the ALIGN framework: “Ask respectfully, listen for meaning and emotion, interpret carefully, give clear options in plain language, and then next steps with confirmation,” Nazari said.
Through role-play scenarios — including one with a Spanish-speaking family and another with a Hmong-speaking family — attendees explored ways to ensure families truly understand information shared during interviews and intake processes.
“Sometimes when you’re doing an interview or doing an intake like these scenarios, then trying to obtain feedback from families, you’ll get a one-word response of ‘okay’ and ‘yes,’ but you’re not really sure if the receptive person is receiving all the information, or understanding what’s going on,” Nazari said.
The session emphasized respectful approaches to confirming understanding without appearing rude or derogatory.
“So, we dove into what are different ways to go about the engagement and making sure they’re really understanding the information provided without simply asking, do you understand? which will allude to a yes or okay in return,” she said. “It was wonderful to hear different alternatives from the participates on how to encourage more engagement from the receptive family. For example, “Can you please tell me what stood out to you most from the information I explained.” This can help tell you what the family connects with most and help open more dialog for you.”
Nazari said feedback from post-event surveys was overwhelmingly positive.
“The only comment was that they wished that the workshop went on a little bit longer,” she said.
The training was supported through LACC funds, which Nazari said are critical to addressing barriers faced by non-English-speaking families.
“The language access and cultural competency funds is there to promote the removal of barriers and issues that non-English-speaking families, our community is facing to receive our services, along with building a trust in our community of these demographics that are in need of our services,” she said.
Nazari added that the funds allow the regional center to provide education and outreach, including interpretation and translation services and focus groups such as Spanish-language Parent Cafés, with expansion into Hmong and tribal communities.
“These LACC funds are important to build the trust and relationship with our community that beautifully holds so many different cultures and ethnicities,” she said. “We hope that with this trust we can create a bridge to our services and help the families that we serve in their native language.”
Far Northern Regional Center plans to continue offering similar trainings annually.
“We do hope to continue yearly trainings within the regional center and the community to encourage cultural awareness and the importance of embracing each other’s ethnicities with respect,” Nazari said.
“I think it is a topic that continues to be of importance,” she added. “There is always going to be room for growth and learning and the importance of accepting each other’s differences and seeing the beauty in it and meeting people where they are, wherever they are, and providing those resources to them in their native language or whatever they feel comfortable in.”