Cultural competence in action for CAMHS: Development of a cultural competence assessment tool and training programme

Headnote

ABSTRACT

This article details the development of a tool to measure the cultural competence of individuals working within the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).The CAMHS Cultural Competence in Action Tool - known as the CAMHS 'CCATool' - was one of the components of a national project which aimed at promoting cultural competence within CAMHS.The other component was a two day training programme. Both components were based on the Papadopoulos,Tilki and Taylor model of cultural competence development.The article also outlines the educational principles and learning strategies used in the training.

Received 26 July 2007 Accepted 13 May 2008

KEY WORDS

CAMHS; cultural competence; Delphi method; measuring tool; Papadopoulos, Tilki and Taylor cultural competence model; nursing

INTRODUCTION

This article describes a national project aimed at developing and delivering a teambased, practice-focused model of continuous professional development to promote cultural competence for individuals working within child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in England, UK. Participating regions included East Midlands,Yorkshire and Humber, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, South West, North East, North London, Middlesex, South London and Eastern.

Whilst the project consisted of a cultural competence assessment tool and an educational intervention, this article will primarily focus on the former and will only briefly refer to the latter, which will be the focus of a subsequent article. For brevity the project will be referred to as the 'CAMHS project'.

In recent years a number of events have led to questions being asked about the ability of the UK medical, mental health and care services to meet the needs of service users from Black and minority Ethnic (BME) communities.The death, in 1998, in a medium secure psychiatric unit of a 38-year-old black patient, David 'Rocky' Bennett, and the publication by the National Institute for Mental Health in England, of the Inside Outside (Sashidharan 2003) report contributed to the development of Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care (DRE) (DH 2005).This is a five year action plan for 'achieving equality and tackling discrimination in mental health services in England for all people of Black and minority ethnic (BME) status, including those of Irish or Mediterranean origin and east European migrants' (DH 2005: 3).

While DRE is an age-inclusive plan, and therefore covers the arena of Children and Adolescent...