The mission of the Mental Health Center of Dane County, Inc. is to provide individuals and families with high quality, community based, recovery oriented, mental health, substance abuse, and advocacy services that respect cultural differences and foster hope, strength, and self determination. We will give priority to individuals and families with high needs and low resources.

We are committed to creating and sustaining an environment in which staff, clients and others are treated with respect and dignity. Staff shall not participate in nor tolerate situations in which persons are maligned or mistreated, especially relating to race, ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, age, beliefs, or disabilities. These principles apply to all interactions associated with the Mental Health Center. All staff will actively promote an environment consistent with these principles and guidelines.

Vision & Values for Culturally Competent Services

The Mental Health Center of Dane County (MHC) believes that cultural competence is fundamental to providing quality services that promote individual and family strengths, dignity and self reliance. Cultural competence broadens and enriches the delivery of mental health and AODA services by providing a more holistic, relevant view of the world and the helping process. Cultural competence does not stand apart from, but is intrinsic to good clinical practice. Its threads are woven into the tapestry of effective assessment, treatment planning, intervention, advocacy and support. In addition, cultural competence is intrinsic to effective staff relationships and business practices.

Cultural competence promotes relationships based upon understanding and knowledge of how one's own cultural beliefs and values influence the organization of information, perceptions, feelings, experiences and coping strategies. It involves being able to identify, learn from and incorporate these into the helping process. When cultural competence is an integral part of personal competence, there is the maximum opportunity to increase the amount and quality of information and the speed with which that information can be shared and processed and to form healthy alliances.

Cultural competence demands an ongoing commitment to openness and learning, taking time and taking risks, sitting with uncertainty and discomfort, and not having quick solutions or easy answers. It involves building trust, mentoring and developing and nurturing a frame of reference that considers alliances across culture as enriching rather than threatening shared goals. In order to support its supervisors and staff, the MHC will be guided by five values:

VALUES

Value #1:
Inclusiveness
Embracing difference as a dynamic human force is what will make the MHC a viable resource to our community. The MHC will actively seek out, incorporate and benefit from staff who bring a broad array of multicultural perspectives. These perspectives will be evidenced in how the MHC makes policy, personnel, clinical and administrative decisions, and creates a welcoming environment. The MHC will work to ensure that all staff members have an equal opportunity to contribute, be valued and succeed. Affirmative action and EOC protections will be used as tools to help promote inclusiveness.

Value #2:
Cultural Allies
It is not enough to only increase the diversity of the MHC's staff. The MHC's work environment must promote reciprocal sharing and learning across cultural groups. Cross cultural skills are best acquired through practice and through mentoring between colleagues who bring different cultural perspectives. Building allies across cultural groups is the MHC's vehicle for promoting partnerships, equality and community.

Value #3:
Self-Awareness
All persons have cultural attributes that connect them to and separate them from others. By exploring and acknowledging these attributes in one's own culture, as well as in others' cultures, it is possible to create greater opportunity to build relationships and alliances across cultural groups. All staff should work to acknowledge and accept dynamics of difference by understanding that when a person of one culture interacts with a person of another culture, both may misjudge the other's actions or feelings based on learned expectations. When the dynamics of difference are acknowledged and attended to, it will enhance the probability of having a cross cultural relationship.

Value #4:
Diversity
While every person is unique and cannot be fully defined by cultural attributes, some characteristics of cultural heritage are basic to any individual or group. Understanding the diverse cultural complexities that influence identity, assumptions, behaviors, expectations, and beliefs can greatly benefit all aspects of human interaction. Interactions beneficially impacted by the understanding of cultural diversity include clinical relationships with clients, relationships between staff members and relationships with persons and entities in the larger community.

Value #5:
Involvement
The MHC's organizational and informal relationships with multiple cultural groups in the community, as well as the personal connections of its staff, are prerequisites to better understanding and advocating for those facing complex challenges. This includes participation in community social, political, and spiritual functions, celebrations and friendships in addition to our service and business relationships.

PRINCIPLES

There are three basic principles of culturally competent services - self awareness, knowledge and skill. Our commitment to working on these principles will lead to increased effectiveness. To the extent that these elements are present in clinical interactions, it will increase the opportunity to join with an individual or family to provide effective, relevant services. These same principles are also necessary for a culturally competent work environment, and when present in all interactions, will increase the opportunity to enrich relationships in the work place and community. The MHC does not expect its staff to be fully accomplished in every area for every cultural situation. It does expect that every staff person will actively work toward achieving self awareness and, over time, develop and incorporate new cultural knowledge and skills into their interactions with others in the clinical, business and community environments.

Principle #1:
Cultural Self Awareness
All staff will work to develop self awareness of:

1. Our personal cultural background and beliefs, experiences, attitudes, values and biases - how these influence our definition of what's correct, acceptable, helpful or normal and how these affect our interactions with each other;

2. How our own cultural attributes make us similar to and different from other persons;

3. How cultural power and privilege affects our interactions with each other;

4. The limits of our own competencies and expertise;

5. How we personally benefit from, and are harmed by, acts of individual and institutional cultural stereotyping, discrimination and oppression.

Principle #2:
Cultural Knowledge
All staff will work to acquire knowledge and understanding of clients, other staff, and business affiliates, in the context of:

1. Family group and community structures, hierarchies, values and beliefs;

2. Cultural manifestations in clinical, business and personal interactions;

3. Cultural characteristics of clinical, personal and business communication;

4. The impacts of culture on personality development, life choices, coping strategies, interactions with others in various roles, sense of well-being, negotiating processes, help-seeking behaviors and satisfaction with services;

5. The effect of exclusion, poverty, immigration, racism, homophobia and internalized stereotypes on members of diverse groups;

6. The potential bias in clinical assessment and evaluation instruments, and procedures used to interpret findings, based on cultural characteristics of clients and;

7. The potential of encountering cultural bias in staff, business affiliates, and others in the community, and the impacts of such bias.

Principle #3:
Cultural Skills
All staff will work to increase their cultural skills in order to provide quality services by:

1. Being aware of the dynamics of difference in all interactions (face to face, phone, written communication etc.) with others;

2. Using language that is inclusive, and interacting in the preferred language of the client or as requested by the client;

3. Actively working to eliminate personal and institutional biases, prejudices and discriminatory practices;

In addition, clinical staff will work to increase their clinical cultural skills by:

4. Actively considering and incorporating not only differential diagnostic and other clinical information, but also the cultural beliefs and values of the client and his/her community in providing assistance;

5. Adequately conveying to the client his/her treatment rights, the goals and limits of treatment, and the counselor's orientation as it relates to cultural issues presented by the client;

6. Seeking out consultation with and incorporating help from traditional healers, cultural guides, religious/spiritual practitioners and helping networks;

7. Helping clients to identify cultural values and norms, and how culture may impact their lives;

8. Demonstrating and documenting culturally sensitive or culturally specific assessments, treatment plans, interventions and supports.

(These principles are derived in part from the writings of: Derald Wing Su, et al., "Multicultural Counseling Competencies and Standards: A Call to the Profession;" CASSP Monograph, "Towards A Culturally Competent System of Care;" American Psychological Association, "Guidelines for Providers of Psychological Services to Ethnic, Linguistic, and Culturally Diverse Populations;" and the MHC's 1993-94 Cultural Competence Committee)

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Services of the Mental Health Center of Dane County, Inc. are based on culturally competent service delivery, community-based treatment, strengths-based skill development, and hope and recovery. Individuals'/families' perspectives are key to positive treatment experiences and outcomes. Consumers of service are active partners in treatment, not passive users of it. Because staff/client and consumer/agency partnerships are crucial to success for both individuals and the agency as a whole, consumer participation in both clinical and administrative planning and decision-making will not only be sought but will be a requirement.

VALUES

(1) Consumers must have opportunities to play a part in the planning and implementation of mental health and drug/alcohol programs.

(2) Recovery is the goal of treatment. Recovery means consumers having satisfying lives functioning at the highest level they can achieve as citizens of the community.

(3) Each person must be treated with genuine dignity and respect. "Dignity and respect" includes being consulted and then having one's response considered seriously.

(4) Enhancement of competencies and strengths should be major goals of treatment/service plans.

(5) Differences are valued. The differences between providers and consumers of services are matters of perspectives and experiences, not of innate intelligence, abilities, or talents.

(6) Each person should have as much control over her/his life as is possible&emdash;including control over the type and intensity of service received.

PRINCIPLES

(1) Consumer opportunities to learn and grow by taking some reasonable risks, by experimenting, by trying a variety of paths will be afforded whenever possible.

(2) Effective services are based on honest communication. This requires careful listening and careful use of language which opens rather than closes dialogue, and statements which invite joining rather than distance.

(3) It is important to be clear about which treatment goals are important to consumers, which are important to clinicians, and to work to develop goals that are truly mutual.

(4) Different roles and responsibilities between providers and consumers exist. Such differences need to be acknowledged and used in positive ways.

(5) Assessments, plans, and administrative/clinical services flow from personal/cultural frameworks. One important way to assure that services fit with the perspective of the consumer is to include him/her in the design and implementation processes.

(6) Fully effective consumer participation includes staff seeking and using input about how programs are run and how policies are decided, not just asking about individual treatment plans. Feedback must actually be used in real and meaningful ways.

(7) When people are involved in designing, carrying out, and evaluating their own services, service delivery is easier and outcomes are more successful.

(8) All MHCDC staff, whether in clinical or administrative areas, are part of the process that can make treatment and services more accessible, respectful and empowering.

©MHCDC - Copy/distribute with permission.

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