In furthering statewide endeavors towards increasing access and quality of care and outcomes for unserved and underserved, ethnically and linguistically diverse populations, the Center for Multicultural Development has been implementing the Adopting Culturally Competent Practices (ACCP) project with funding from The California Endowment. The ACCP project is specifically designed to identify promising and best practices responsive to cultural communities throughout California. The ACCP project has yielded important information of specific and timely relevance to counties throughout California.
The first phase of the ACCP project contributed to efforts seeking to address the need for culturally competent practices in order to reduce disparities by researching, analyzing and synthesizing available literature on evidence-based practices relevant to ethnic populations. These practices are identified, categorized and organized in the following matrix:
Matrix I: Summary of Psychosocial Interventions for Ethnic Populations of Children/Adolescents and Adults..
Upon the completion of Matrix I, a second process was initiated to present specific dimensions of psychosocial interventions critical for identifying appropriate practices that meet the needs of ethnic populations, and also to indicate evidentiary levels of research for the identified practices. Directly referencing information gathered in the initial phase, this important supplementary information is summarized and categorized in this additional matrix:
Matrix II: Dimensions of Culturally-Relevant, Evidence-Based Interventions for Ethnic Populations..
County representatives and stakeholders used the information presented in Matrix I and Matrix II to go through a decision-making process involving several steps to identify one specific practice to implement and study as a practice with scientific evidence of positive outcomes for cultural populations. The practice they identified for implementation is Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT).
As part of the final phase of the ACCP project, several sites have chosen to implement and train in MDFT. There currently are six pilot sites in California that have initiated training in MDFT and are working towards certification. There are four diverse county sites from Riverside county, one in the desert- serving rural populations, one in the metropolitan area of Riverside serving an ethnically diverse urban population, and two others in suburban areas, one of which is providing services to Spanish-speaking clients. Two other sites are community-based organization providers, one in Contra Costa County primarily serving Richmond, Pinole and surrounding communities, and the other in Riverside affiliated with Loma Linda University. There is also one site in Reno, Nevada, serving a drug court population.
Preliminary data from the pilot sites indicates that out of 71 clients served so far, 46% are Hispanic/Latino, 34% Caucasian, 11% African-American, 3% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 4% Other. Outcome and utilization data are not yet available and will be added later in an update of the ACCP Project.
Following the completion of the pilot phase, MDFT implementation will need to be sustained and expanded to be able to gather long-term and more extensive data on outcomes for ethnically and racially diverse populations.
In summary, several key matrices arose out of the Adopting Culturally Competent Practices (ACCP) Project. These matrices can be used as essential references and resource information by county mental health and the multicultural populations they serve. One practice from the matrices, namely MDFT, was selected as an example of a culturally-responsive practice and implemented at several sites. The findings from MDFT implementation process have been positive. In the future, the matrices from the ACCP project can be updated as new information arises, evaluating practices of their use and effectiveness with racial, ethnic, cultural and linguistically diverse populations. Building on the critical work of the ACCP Project, additional practices could be identified for the implementation and evaluation, particularly practices that arise from cultural communities themselves, and the community-based organizations serving them. These practices along with their representatives of the community values and their stages of development, applicability and evidence, could be carefully categorized through published matrices such as the ones in this project. All of these matrices could then be widely disseminated. Additionally, the process used to implement and evaluate MDFT can be used for thoughtfully investigating the success of implementing future practices in diverse community settings. Positive results can be sustained, replicated and expanded widely.
Additional results from the Adopting Culturally Competent Practices (ACCP) will be provided along with other related projects in the future updates to this site.