Building
a Multicultural Research Agenda
Dialogues: The Mental Health Empowerment Project in Albany, the Center for the Study of Issues in Public Mental Health, and the Hispanic Research Center at Fordham College, in conjunction with members of the New York State Office of Mental Health Multicultural Advisory Committee, have been actively working together to generate a research agenda relevant to Native American, African American, Hispanic and Asian recipient issues. The collaboration, which is focused on expanding the role of recovery in communities of color, trained facilitators and conducted a series of dialogues around New York State with researchers, professionals, and Native American and recipients of color. The dialogues, which were held in Manhattan, Queens, Nassau, Albany and Buffalo were focused on examining what is disempowering about being diagnosed and being a recipient of color or Native American; what needs to happen to open up the mental health system so as to empower people; and what issues and concerns need to be the focus of research over the next few years.
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As part of this continuing effort, a wrap-up conference was held March 28 and 29, 1996, in Albany to analyze the content of the dialogues, to identify important themes, to formulate broad questions appropriate for further research, and to generate an agenda of research that facilitates empowerment and expands the role of recovery in communities of color. Seven areas associated with disempowerment were identified:
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A full report of the conference proceedings was prepared and a subcommittee of the Executive Committee formed to act upon recommendations made by participants of the conference.
Activities for this project have been facilitated by Edward Knight, Ph.D. and Ike Powell of the Mental Health Empowerment Project. Collaborating with them have been Luis Mejia, Ph.D. of the Hispanic Research Center, Ethel Davis Chambers, R.N., M.S. of the New York State Office of Mental Health and Mary Jane Alexander, Ph.D., Kim Hopper, Ph.D.,Gary Haugland, M.A. and Judith Samuels, Ph.D. of The Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.
Cultural Competence Standards: Under a grant from SAMHSA, Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) to Ethel Davis Chambers, R.N., M.S., the Center participated in a project to develop culturally competent performance measures for managed behavioral healthcare programs. Existing materials on cultural competency generated by groups around the country and current literature were reviewed, and a distillation of indicators and measures developed. Major goals had been to generate measures for which data can be collected in a reasonable and timely way and to propose a methodology for collecting these data. Throughout the process, there was continuous input from recipients, researchers, providers, educators and representatives of color. The project was completed on September 30, 1998.
For a complete project description, go to Research Accomplishments
