Cultural competency programs

Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services. (2003). Developing cultural competence in disaster mental health programs Guiding principles and recommendations. 

The substantial literature on course transformation focuses on the course as the unit of intervention. Notably, there is less attention to how faculty ought to work together to construct student learning outcomes that will support the development of culturally competent students. Courses are not islands they function collectively to foster the student s education. Program faculty should work as a team to revise student learning outcomes and to determine the role of specific courses in fostering student achievement of these outcomes. 

Collaborate with Everyone Involved with Child. Based on the foundations established by the Child and Adolescent Service System Program (cassp) principles (Day Roberts, 1991), team and individual meetings are used to establish consensus on goals and treatment. Collaborative services are therefore child centered, family focused, community based, culturally competent, and least restrictive/least intrusive. 

School mental health programs that fail to fully address cultural competence often have processes and replicate dynamics that lead to marginalization or exclusion of student consumers and families. While some of these exclusionary processes may seem obvious, sometimes they operate on more subtle levels. Defining and describing some of these processes may elucidate some of the school-based mental health practices that are exclusionary. They fall short of the goal of cultural competency. It should be noted that these processes of exclusion might operate simultaneously and to different degrees. 

The program was championed by Lars Akeson, the HR Director of the Division, and its global implementation was co-ordinated by Malin Boultwood, Manager of Competence and Culture. Boultwood is still responsible for managing the scheme, which means that she matches mentors and mentees, organizes the training, and carries out evaluations. The scheme is funded partially by the participants departments and partially from the central HR budget. 

At the national level within Europe, the situation becomes yet more complicated for both regulatory and less tangible, cultural reasons. Each member state has a National Competent Authority (NCA) regulating pharmaceutical product price, label and distribution. Each NCA can mandate product withdrawal within its boundaries, and notify others about its concerns. But such a decision is never binding in any other part of the EEA, and there is certainly no obligation for one member state to implement a risk management program that has been mandated at the national level elsewhere. 

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