2013 will bring with it a host of challenges and new opportunities. Today’s economic crises have shown us that the USA is a world citizen – one of many countries with complex and overlapping needs. From those struggles, however, may emerge a singularity of purpose – how to build and sustain organizations that are both diverse and inclusive of differences.

The 2013 Central Florida Diversity Learning Series will seek to answer the question, “How Can We Become More Culturally Conscious & Competent?” The past year’s political and social events have punctuated our need to be culturally competent… if we are going to be successful in our workplaces and marketplaces. Our organizations, as reflections of new and emerging issues, must adjust, keep pace with and anticipate the rapidly-changing needs of our workforce, our clients, guests, students and customers. We must also innovate with the products and services we provide to remain relevant to the changing needs around us.

Our Series, through our six highly-interactive morning education sessions, will address four questions:

1.	What is Cultural Competence? What are the individual or organizational benefits of being Culturally Competent?
2.	How can we assess our Cultural Competence and increase the knowledge and skills needed to increase our effectiveness?
3.	Who needs Cultural Competence skills and tools? Who is best suited to demonstrate cultural competence in each action and decision made?
4.	Why is Cultural Competence important to our future, our growth and our success?

The learning methodologies for the 2nd annual CFDLS are intended to address the diverse learning styles and needs of our audience. The sessions will be experiential – adult learning theory tells us that most adults learn best by “doing”. All facilitators will be guided to use a variety of methods in each session which will include – but may not be limited to: storytelling, audio presentations (i.e., music, voice), visual / video presentations (i.e., PPT, DVD) and internet media, if available (i.e., YouTube). In addition, after the first session, we will use the concepts learned to reinforce the cultural competence component of the remaining sessions – regardless of the area of focus.

Each session will also include print resources and references so that participants may continue their education on the topic beyond the morning session. We will also provide post-session resources on our website. We have also been asked to tie together the resources and tools of each session. As organizer, Bill will provide those links to the presenters of sessions 2 – 6. And, in our final session, in addition to the topic of Language Cultural Competence, we will do a year’s summary and review and activity which ties the tools, resources and topics together.

Sourcing of presenters will be intentionally diverse – to appeal to the variety of needs and backgrounds of our participants.