Hogg Foundation for Mental Health

Foundation Launches CAI Grant Program

Cultural Adaptation Initiative Program to Serve Populations of Color

September 1, 2006

The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health has awarded more than $2.9 million over three years to Texas mental health providers in its initiative, "Cultural Adaptation: Providing Evidence-Based Practices to People of Color."

The foundation will provide the following grant funding over the three-year initiative:

Lena Pope Home, Inc. Fort Worth – $536,695
Tropical Texas Center for Mental Health and Mental Retardation Edinburg – $526,855
Family Service of El Paso El Paso – $384,441
DePelchin Children's Center Houston – $919,515
Community Family Centers (Centros Familiares de la Comunidad) Houston – $607,107

The five organizations funded through the initiative will adapt their delivery of evidence-based practices (EBPs), such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, to be compatible with the culture of the populations of color served.

With the growing call for mental health providers to utilize EBPs many have asked, "Evidence-based for whom?" Little of the research on EBPs, psychological treatments that have significant empirical support, has been conducted with populations of color.

Although there are preliminary data to suggest that EBPs are effective for populations of color, less is known about how to modify these treatments to make them consistent with the cultures of diverse populations. This is the focus of the foundation's Cultural Adaptation Initiative.

"Texas is now a majority-minority state, and our diversity continues to grow," said King E. Davis, Ph.D., executive eirector of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. "We know that people of color everywhere are less likely to receive the mental health services they need, and the treatment they do receive is often ineffective. Culturally adapted EBPs hold the potential to improve the delivery of mental health care for Texans of color."

Grantees in the foundation's Integrated Health Care (IHC) Initiative are currently working with consultants to reconfigure their organizations and gain the skills they need to implement collaborative care. A significant piece of that work will happen at the foundation's upcoming training meeting September 28 - 29 in Austin.

Dr. Jürgen Unützer, chief of psychiatry at the University of Washington Medical School, and his University of Washington colleagues will lead the September training. Sessions will include breakouts by grantee team and by collaborative care team roles: care managers, primary care physicians, consulting psychiatrists, and administrators/practice managers.

Specialized sessions will focus on training for care managers in basic psychotherapeutic techniques, as well as training for primary care providers, care managers, and psychiatrists in evidence-based approaches to managing ADHD, anxiety, and depression in the primary care setting.

Training materials will be posted on the IHC web pages at www.hogg.utexas.edu.

The in-person training will build on the work grantees have been doing with training consultants since the IHC kick-off meeting on June 28, 2006. Dr. Unützer and his colleagues have held a series of training calls with the individual grantee sites to answer their questions and help them plan for implementation.

Following the September training, grantee teams will participate in monthly consultation calls with Dr. Unützer and his colleagues to help solidify their operations.

Collaborative care is an integrated health care model that has over 20 years of research demonstrating its efficacy and effectiveness. Developed as a mental health adaptation of Wagner's chronic care model of disease management, this integrated health care model focuses on building partnerships between physical health and mental health providers to manage the treatment of psychiatric disorders in the primary care setting.

More information about collaborative care and the IHC grant program is available online at www.hogg.utexas.edu.