A Youth Leader's Guide to Building Cultural Competence 

Introduction 

As a youth group leader, teacher or other youth serving professional, you know the challenges that young 

people face in today's world. Many of those challenges center around choices and consequences related to 

sexual activity. Working with teens on sexuality issues, including prevention of HIV/AIDS, can be 

demanding and intensely rewarding on both personal and professional levels.  

This resource is designed to help you meet one of the most difficult challenges of sexuality education in 

general, and of HIV/AIDS education in particular: working with teens and families who come from 

backgrounds that are different from your own and from each other's. Those differences can be related to 

any number of factors, including race or ethnicity, socioeconomic class, religion, gender and sexual 

orientation.  

As rates of sexual activity, teen births and sexually transmitted disease (including HIV) infection among 

teenagers increase, researchers and program leaders continue to search for effective strategies and 

materials that will reach young people with affirming messages about sexuality and with clear messages 

about the risks of sexual activity, particularly of unprotected sexual intercourse.  

In addition, the increasing racial and cultural diversity of the United States and the growing recognition of 

gay, lesbian and bisexual youth make it apparent that educational strategies based on the experience and 

perspective of the majority European American heterosexual culture often fail to engage youth of color 

and youth who are gay, lesbian or bisexual.  

Largely as a result of concern about African American and Latino/Latina youth, much interest has 

centered on  culturally appropriate,   culturally relevant  or  culturally specific  approaches to 

prevention education. Debate continues about what constitutes such programs. Course content, instructor 

background/skills, teaching strategies and location have all been discussed as critical factors, however, no 

clear conclusions have emerged from the limited research base.

1

 There is a strong indication that youth of 

color benefit from staff who are caring and sensitive as well as from adults who are racially and culturally 

similar to themselves and that youth development programs should strive to hire staff who possess all 

these qualities.

2

In the last few years, there has been an explosion of interest in addressing the needs of lesbian, gay and 

bisexual teenagers. There are more than 200 support groups and agencies nationwide dedicated to this 

population and several national groups, including the Child Welfare League and the National Education 

Association have endorsed guidelines for working with these young people. Too often, however, their 

very existence is denied by program planners and leaders. As a result, young gay, lesbian and bisexual 

people are not acknowledged, much less nurtured. In many cases, adults think   or even know   that some 

members of their groups are gay, lesbian or bisexual but lack information about and comfort with issues 

related to homosexuality. In other cases, leaders who themselves are gay, lesbian or bisexual, may feel 

profoundly torn between providing support to these young people and protecting their own jobs and 

reputations. Anti gay prejudice (homophobia) and the persistence of the myth that homosexuals  recruit  

young people create environments in which it is not safe for gay adults to reach out to young gay people. 

The result, in any case, is a continuation of the isolation and shame that many gay, lesbian and bisexual 

teens feel.  

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has highlighted the critical need for understanding cultural differences because 

HIV/AIDS prevention education demands frank discussion of sexuality   a sensitive subject in many