- Clinicians should identify and address barriers (economic, geographic, insurance, cultural beliefs, stigma, etc.) that may prevent culturally diverse children and their families from obtaining mental health services.
- Clinicians should conduct the evaluation in the language in which the child and family are proficient.
- Clinicians should understand the impact of dual-language competence on the child’s adaptation and functioning.
- Clinicians should be cognizant that cultural biases might interfere with their clinical judgment and work toward addressing these biases.
- Clinicians should apply knowledge of cultural differences in developmental progression, idiomatic expressions of distress, and symptomatic presentation for different disorders to the clinical formulation and diagnosis.
- Clinicians should assess for a history of immigration-related loss or trauma and community trauma (violence, abuse) in the child and family and address these concerns in treatment.
- Clinicians should evaluate and address in treatment the acculturation level and presence of acculturation stress and intergenerational acculturation family conflict in diverse children and families.
- Clinicians should make special efforts to include family members and key members of traditional extended families, such as grandparents or other elders, in assessment, treatment planning, and treatment.
- Clinicians should evaluate and incorporate cultural strengths (including values, beliefs, and attitudes) in their treatment interventions to enhance the child’s and family’s participation in treatment and its effectiveness.
- Clinicians should treat culturally diverse children and their families in familiar settings within their communities whenever possible.
- Clinicians should support parents to develop appropriate behavioural management skills consonant with their cultural values and beliefs.
- Clinicians should preferentially use evidence-based psychological and pharmacologic interventions specific for the ethnic/racial population of the child and family they are serving.
- Clinicians should identify ethnopharmacologic factors (pharmacogenomic, dietary, use of herbal cures) that may influence the child’s response to medications or experience of side effects.
Source: Pumariega, A. J., Rothe, E., Mian, A., Carlisle, L., Toppelberg, C., Harris, T., . . . Adolescent Psychiatry Committee on Quality, I. (2013). Practice parameter for cultural competence in child and adolescent psychiatric practice. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 52(10), 1101-1115. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2013.06.019