Culturally Competent California Mental Health Services: Model and Example

Mental health services in the United States were designed for European American consumers, but with burgeoning multicultural populations these services have proven inadequate and underutilized. This paper examines research on cultural competencies of agencies and clinicians relevant to a mental health practice model, the Multicultural Assessment-Intervention Process model (MAIP). This model was modified for systematic application in a California agency, the Tri-City Mental Health Center, to provide a flexible blueprint for major alterations in agency practice and programs that affect the entire system of care. MAIP begins with intake process including client-clinician/ethnicity-Ianguage|match, client acculturation/racial identity status, and clinician cultural competence, and proceeds to clinician in-service-training, cultural components embedded in services, and outcome measures