Abstract
Latinos are the fasting growing minority in the United States, and among the least likely to access mental health services. Two reasons cited for the significant mental health disparities in the Latino community are: a lack of culturally responsive services and a lack of culturally competent mental health professionals. This manuscript describes the development of a community counseling training clinic constructed through a partnership between a community center and a counselor education and supervision program. Process and clinical outcomes data demonstrate that the program was successful in retaining clients and students had a positive experience at the training site.
Highlights
Despite being the largest ethnic minority in the United States (U.S.) and having mental disorders at rates similar to the majority culture, Latino adults are half as likely to access mental health treatment compared to non-Hispanic Whites (American Psychiatric Association, 2014; McGuire & Miranda, 2008; Office of Minority Health, 2015; Vega, Rodriguez, & Gruskin, 2009)
Latino adults present with a greater number of psychological symptoms and receive a lower quality of care compared to non-Latinos (Aguilar-Gaxiola et al, 2012; American Psychiatric Association, 2014; McGuire & Miranda, 2008; Miranda, McGuire, Williams, & Wang, 2008; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2015)
There is a shortage of mental health treatment programs and culturally competent, trained mental health providers for addressing the increasing needs of Latinos with mental health concerns (Ayón, et al, 2010; Cabassa et al, 2006; McGuire & Miranda, 2008; Miranda et al, 2008; Molina & Simon, 2014; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2015)
Summary
Despite being the largest ethnic minority in the United States (U.S.) and having mental disorders at rates similar to the majority culture, Latino adults are half as likely to access mental health treatment compared to non-Hispanic Whites (American Psychiatric Association, 2014; McGuire & Miranda, 2008; Office of Minority Health, 2015; Vega, Rodriguez, & Gruskin, 2009). Research shows that mental health interventions adapted to focus on a specific cultural group are four times more effective than those focused on the general population, and interventions provided in a client’s native language are twice as effective as those provided in English (Griner & Smith, 2006) These findings indicate that evidence-based, culturallyadapted, mental health programs could significantly reduce mental health disparities, and that training students to be culturally responsive will be crucial to their success as mental health professionals working with Latino communities (Sue et al, 2009). Individuals working at research institutions seldom have the opportunity to translate their research into practice with Latino communities due to a lack of local and cultural knowledge of the Latino community as well as mistrust emanating from the Latino community
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