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Child
and Adolescent Mental Health Project
 Purpose
of the Project
The Child
and Adolescent Mental Health Project is a collaborative effort
of the National Center for Cultural
Competence (NCCC)
and the National
Technical Assistance Center for Children’s
Mental Health (NTAC). NTAC is funded through a Cooperative
Agreement with the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS),
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA),
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services to support the
Comprehensive
Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families
Program. This program, referred to as the
Child Mental Health Initiative, is managed by the Child, Adolescent
and Family Branch, CMHS. It promotes the development of systems
of care to provide services and supports to children and youth
with or at risk for developing serious emotional disturbances
and their families. More information about this program can
be found at the Systems of Care website – http://www.systemsofcare.samhsa.gov.
The NTAC
and NCCC collaborate
to conduct a range of activities to advance
and
sustain cultural and linguistic competence in the broad range
of programs, organizations, systems, and constituents concerned
with child and adolescent mental health These activities are
consist with SAMHSA’s goal to transform the mental health
care system as declared by the President’s
New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in 2003 and described
in Transforming
Mental Health Care in America: The Federal Action Agenda: First
Steps in 2005. Activities are designed to enhance capacity within
communities, organizations and systems to: (1) address the
relationship
between culture, language, and effective mental health services
and supports; (2) provide services and supports that are adapted
to the cultural and linguistic contexts of communities, and
(3) contribute to the efforts to eliminate racial, ethnic,
and geographic disparities.
The NCCC
provides training, technical assistance, and consultation
on cultural and linguistic competence:
- to
localities, states, tribes, territories, system of care
communities, family organizations and the field of child
and adolescent mental health;
- to support
and sustain leadership at the national, state, and community
levels; and
- as one
component of a multifaceted strategy to eliminate racial,
ethnic and geographical disparities.
Goal
of the Project
The goal of this project is to enhance the capacity to advance
and sustain cultural and linguistic competence within mental
health care systems serving children and youth with or at risk
for serious emotional disturbance and their families; thereby
contributing to the goal to eliminate racial, ethnic, and geographic
disparities.
What
We Do
Conceptual
frameworks, models, guiding values and principles espoused by the NCCC serve as the foundation for this project.
The project employs four major approaches to accomplish its
goal.
- Technical
Assistance. Technical assistance and training activities
are provided to child and adolescent mental health programs.
This includes special attention to states that received
the Child Adolescent Co-occurring Disorders State Infrastructure
Grants from the Center for Mental Health Services and
the Center
for Substance Abuse Treatment.
- Collaboration. An array of collaborative activities are conducted under
the auspices
of the Child,
Adolescent and Family Branch’s
Council on Collaboration and Coordination, and
other allied organizations to incorporate cultural
and linguistic competence into technical assistance,
research, evaluation, and training activities. A collaborative effort
is being forged with the Child, Youth and Family Division
of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors
to create strategies that advance cultural and linguistic
competence.
- Contribute
to the body of knowledge. Significant
emphasis is placed on developing guides, policy briefs,
practice
briefs, curricula, and other resources to contribute to the body of
knowledge on cultural and linguistic competence.
Specific areas of focus include: (1) organizational change,
(2) processes
for self assessment (organizational and individual
levels), (3) leadership, (4) workforce development, (5) policy development,
and (6) approaches to translate theory into practice.
- Dissemination. Several
strategies are used to disseminate knowledge and resources
to key stakeholders and constituencies
concerned with child and adolescent mental health. The NCCC’s Web
site is a primary vehicle for information dissemination.
It offers many features such as Promising
Practices, Resource
Database, Consultant
Pool, Spanish
Language Portal,
and Curricula Enhancement Modules. Community
of Learners is a strategy
that is facilitated by the NCCC which provides structured
group processes to support peer learning on specific aspects related
to advancing and sustaining cultural and linguistic
competence.
Project
Partners
One of
the primary tasks of the Project is to work with an array
of the technical assistance partners under
the auspices of the Council
on Collaboration and Coordination (CCC)
to accomplish goals and objectives.
"The Child,
Adolescent and Family Branch at the Center for Mental Health
Services (CMHS), has enlisted
the Council
on Collaboration
and Coordination (CCC) to provide ongoing support to CMHS
funded community system of care program sites. The mission
of the CCC is to help CMHS program sites envision and implement
comprehensive systems of care for children and their families,
through a team process of collaboration, which puts the
communities at the center of a coordinated approach to technical
assistance
and support. The CCC will work with the Child, Adolescent
and Family Branch to transform the mental health system
for children
and their families as described in the President’s
New Freedom Commission report, Achieving the
Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America (2003)."
From http://www.systemsofcare.samhsa.gov/rightmenus/docsRM/workplanintro.doc
These
partners are:
Selected NCCC Products and Resources
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