Enhancing Cultural Competence in Out-of-School Time Programs: What Is It, and Why Is It Important?
Child Trends, 2007— This “research to practice” resource provides suggestions to youth-serving programs for developing cultural competence among staff and within program activities, in order to benefit youth from a wide range of backgrounds.
Anthropology in the Clinic: The Problem of Cultural Competency and How to Fix it
Arthur Kleinman and Peter Benson, PLoS Medicine, Oct. 2006— The authors describe pitfalls of using culturally based assumptions in clinical relationships and present an approach for providers that places the client’s explanation and viewpoint alongside their own expert knowledge to understand the condition as the client feels, perceives, and responds to it. Their six steps for culturally informed care are applicable in any care setting.
Community Health Worker National Workforce Study
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration, Bureau of Health Professions, 2007— This report is a comprehensive information resource about community health workers, resulting from a HRSA-funded national study of the CHW workforce that was conducted between 2004 and 2007.
Community Health Workers: Closing Gaps in Families’ Health Resources
Family Strengthening Policy Center, National Human Services Assembly, 2006— This overview of CHWs from the perspective of low-income families’ needs highlights the important role of CHWs in reaching vulnerable and underserved families. It reviews the challenges and opportunities for ensuring their place as a sustainable and effective component of health and human service delivery and includes helpful tables and resource lists.
Community Health Workers: Part of the Solution
Rosenthal et. al. Health Affairs, Vol. 29, No. 7, 1338-1342, 2010— The authors’ recommendations and principles for developing the workforce of CHWs are backed by brief and informative discussion of CHWs’ roles, responsibilities, and contributions. Case studies from two states illustrate how CHWs can be supported and sustained by changes in systems and policies.
Community Health Workers Toolkit
http://www.raconline.org/communityhealth/chw/
Rural Assistance Center, Health and Human Services Information for Rural America — This website provides tools to help you evaluate opportunities for developing a CHW program and develop a program for your area, including resources and best practices developed by successful programs. Each of eight modules concentrates on different aspects of CHW programs.
Community Health Workers: What do we know about them?
World Health Organization, 2007— This review of existing evidence on the feasibility and effectiveness of CHW programs worldwide assesses the many facets of CHW programs and provides recommendations for fully tapping the potential of this important health resource.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, 2001— This report describes successful methods and practices of HRSA-funded health service organizations recognized for their delivery of culturally competent services for diverse populations. Successful practices are clearly summarized and numerous examples illustrate methods and practices these organizations have implemented to enhance their ability to serve culturally and linguistically diverse populations in different settings.
National Community Development Institute— This one-page graphic illustrates the many dimensions of culture that affect people’s thinking, their communication, and how they experience the world.
Cultural Competency Organizational Self Assessment (OSA) Question Bank
AIDS Education & Training Centers, Organizational subset of the AETC Cultural Competence and Multicultural Care Workgroup— This Question Bank includes organizational self-assessment questions based on the CLAS Standards that can be easily adapted for assessing cultural and linguistic competence in adolescent health and youth-serving organizations.
DiversityRx: Improving Health Care in a Diverse World
This website provides multiple resources, tools, and learning opportunities to help individuals and organizations provide culturally and linguistically responsive health services for diverse populations.
Effective Communication Tools for Healthcare Professionals
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration— This free, self-paced on-line course provides training to improve patient-provider communication and is offered with or without continuing education credits.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., 2004– This guide describes different promotora program models, offers guidelines for implementing and evaluating promotora programs, and provides examples of promotora programs in operation across the nation.
Health Care Languages Services Implementation Guide
Office of Minority Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services— This interactive web-based guide is intended to help health care organizations implement effective LAS to meet the needs of their patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) patients and increase their access to health care.
Joseph R. Betancourt, The Commonwealth Fund, 2006— This foundation report reviews key principles of quality; reviews evidence of the existence and root causes of racial and ethnic health disparities and recommendations to address them; and discusses strategies by which the quality and cultural competence movements could be linked.
National Center for Cultural Competence
A comprehensive array of excellent self-assessment tools, online courses, data vignettes, and promising practices for increasing cultural competence in health care and mental health care is available from this website.
National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS)
Office of Minority Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services— The 14 CLAS Standards, organized by themes, are intended to inform, guide, and facilitate required and recommended practices for providing culturally and linguistically appropriate health services. From this web page, you can also link to an executive summary and a full report on the standards.
Plain Talk: The Story of a Community-Based Strategy to Reduce Teen Pregnancy
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1998– The real stories and lessons learned from the launching of this initiative in 5 distinctly different communities demonstrate that engaging and training community residents to deliver outreach and education to adults and teens can bring about real and positive change.
A Teen-Friendly Reproductive Health Visit
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014— This graphic from CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health highlights key elements of two teen-friendly reproductive health clinic visits, one for a female and one for a male.
Working with Diverse Communities: Strategies Guided by Best Practice
JSI Research & Training Institute (JSI), 2012— To help Part A grantees to effectively address disparities and inequities in adolescent health, this document provides a list of recommended strategies specific to working with diverse communities around teen pregnancy prevention.
New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH)/Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) – The Young Men’s Clinic (YMC), one of the best known clinics for males in the country, offers low-cost, high-quality, “male-friendly” health services for all men 13-35 years of age, with a focus on sexual and reproductive health. Serving a diverse population primarily from Washington Heights, Harlem, and the Bronx, the YMC offers a wide array of services, including routine medical care, STI and HIV testing, counseling, health information, free condoms, and referrals for employment, educational, vocational, health, and social services.
