Course Description:
This course is based on a comprehensive report on mental health and ethnicity published by the surgeon general. This course provides the reader with up to date information on the status of, needs for, availability of and outcomes of mental health services for American Indians and Alaska Natives. This course is designed for both clinicians and administrators who work in both private and public, and urban and rural areas.

Psychologists, social workers, mental health counselors and marriage and family therapists can benefit from this course. This course may also be helpful for other practitioners, such as midwives and dieticians and nutritionists who work with a diverse client base.  This course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to improve the skills in the area of cross cultural competency and multiculturalism.

About the Authors: The Surgeon General’s Office of the United States

Learning Objectives:  This course will provide a professional with information about mental health care for American Indians and Alaska Natives. Specifically, a professional will:

• Learn and be able to demonstrate information about the current status, including geographic distribution, family structure, education and income for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the U.S..
• Learn and be able to display knowledge regarding the need for mental health services, including key issues in understanding research, mental disorders in adults, children and the elderly within the American Indian and Alaskan Native population.
• Learn and be able to demonstrate information about the specific mental health problems of this population, including somatization, culture-bound syndromes and information regarding high-need populations.

Citation: Surgeon General of United States (2001). Mental Health Care for American Indian and Alaskan Natives, Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity. A Report of the Surgeon General.   Updates added by DiDona, T.M. (2018). From sources in NAMI – with additional references added

Reviewed by TM DiDona, PhD 2018 and found to be current.  Updated references include:

• Avila, J., Chelvakumar, G., & Ford, N. (2017). Gender and Sexual Minorities Cultural Competency Training for Pediatric Residents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 60(2), S87.
• Betancourt, J. R., Green, A. R., Carrillo, J. E., & Owusu Ananeh-Firempong, I. I. (2016). Defining cultural competence: a practical framework for addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care. Public health reports.
• Bleidorn, W., Arslan, R. C., Denissen, J. J., Rentfrow, P. J., Gebauer, J. E., Potter, J., & Gosling, S. D. (2016). Age and gender differences in self-esteem—A cross-cultural window. Journal of personality and social psychology, 111(3), 396.
• Donaldson, W. V., & Vacha-Haase, T. (2016). Exploring staff clinical knowledge and practice with LGBT residents in long-term care: A grounded theory of cultural competency and training needs. Clinical Gerontologist, 39(5), 389-409.
• Rosenkrantz, D. E., Black, W. W., Abreu, R. L., Aleshire, M. E., & Fallin-Bennett, K. (2017). Health and health care of rural sexual and gender minorities: A systematic review. Stigma and Health, 2(3), 229.

Tan, J. Y., Xu, L. J., Lopez, F. Y., Jia, J. L., Pho, M. T., Kim, K. E., & Chin, M. H. (2016). Shared decision making among clinicians and Asian American and Pacific Islander sexual and gender minorities: An intersectional approach to address a critical care gap. LGBT health, 3(5), 327-334.