Movilizandonos por Nuestro Futuro: Strategic Development of a Mental Health Workforce for Latinos

4/5/2010

Movilizandonos por Nuestro Futuro: Strategic Development of a Mental Health Workforce for Latinos

Executive Summary (Fragment)

In an effort to address the Latino behavioral health workforce crisis, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH), and its grantee, the National Resource Center for Hispanic Mental Health, convened the nation’s first-ever roundtable discussion on developing a mental health workforce for Latinos, titled Movilizandonos por Nuestro Futuro: Strategic Development of a Mental Health Workforce for Latinos. A group of nearly 50 leaders in Latino behavioral health participated, including representatives from US DHHS leadership, national health and mental health associations, national guild organizations, national Latino advocacy organizations, Latino mental health leadership, state and national foundations, public and elected officials, universities and professional schools, researchers, students, providers, and health and mental health promoters. The event aimed to develop consensus statements and recommendations specifically focused on ensuring meaningful access to behavioral health care services through the development of a diverse workforce for Latinos.

The Expert group arrived at consensus statements, numerous recommendations, and action items to serve as a blueprint and guide for improving the Latino behavioral health condition.
The five consensus statements are:

1. The Latino population in the U.S. is facing a public health crisis due to poor or unmet behavioral health needs.
2. The lack of a bilingual and bicultural behavioral health workforce plays a significant role in disparities across all three key areas of behavioral health care service delivery.
3. Meaningful access to behavioral healthcare for Latinos in the U.S. is a social justice issue.
4. Latinos deserve a diverse, multidisciplinary, bilingual and bicultural behavioral health workforce.
5. The time for action is NOW!

As follow up to the recommendations, a formal steering committee was organized and resulted in the development of the Alliance for Latino Behavioral Health Workforce Development. The Alliance will lead and implement the final consensus recommendations, and be charged with creating a process for developing and monitoring an action-oriented educational awareness and advocacy plan while engaging multiple stakeholders from across the nation. Yet, with so many obstacles to overcome and so little support, a report and an Alliance is understandably not enough to achieve all goals. To successfully achieve the goals of this initiative and create long-standing change there will need to be careful examination of the recommendations, investments in education, support from the public-private partnerships, and a full commitment to parity.

For more information visit: http://www.nlatinoaddiction.org/Documents/MOVILIZANDONOS_POR_NUESTRO_FUTURO_CONSENSUS_REPORT2010.pdf