Summary

California has an overall behavioral health professional (BHP) shortage. This shortage substantially varies by region, with the Central San Joaquin Valley (CSJV) having a severe BHP shortage. The availability of BHP falls even shorter for Latino/Hmong communities due to a lack of cultural/linguistic understanding. Integrated models incorporate BH and primary care with historical/lifetime trauma, and the intersectional variations from developmental and multisystem perspectives, but are limited for children, youth, and transitional age youth among target populations.This workshop will discuss the specialized training provided to students preparing them for practice with the Latino/Hmong communities to recognize and celebrate their cultures. The workshop describes project components that enhance students’ opportunities to produce well-qualified BHPs to deliver culturally responsive services to Latino/Hmong populations in the CSJV. The project had three goals, while this workshop will focus on presenting the second goal: Expanding BH curriculum with responsive, culturally sensitive, and diverse approaches.The approach includes reducing financial barriers, creating new opportunities for engagement among faculty, students, and community, enhancing the existing curriculum with best-practice models, teaching culturally-sensitive BH content that includes the intersection of culture, integrated BH, and relevant cultural terminology and concepts; and integrating didactic experiential training activities and innovative recruitment efforts to improve student understanding of cultural needs of the community. Hosting a job fair exposes students to the opportunities and needs of Latino/Hmong populations in the community. This project reduces the BHP shortage in Latino/Hmong communities in CSJV, which benefits from culturally responsive BHPs who provide services to rapidly growing minority populations in the region. This program is innovative and timely for our region, not only because of the large number of Latino/Hmong households, but also because of the region’s high prevalence of health and behavioral health disparities. 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Keywords: Latino, Hmong, Behavioral Health, Cultural Sensitivity, Responsiveness, Diversity