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SAMHSA Minority Fellowship Program (MFP)
Responses To Open-Ended Questions On Evaluation Form:
1. Please list the specific actions you will take when you return to your job or training program to implement the new ideas and strategies you obtained during this conference.
Networking
- Follow up with the MFPs contacted here.
- Will call the MFP Director and offer my services as a mentor.
- Think-tank participation to continue MFP development, training, and certification.
- Will conduct research with a peer I met at the conference.
- Connect with the people I met here about research and clinical work.
- Increase my collaboration, networking, and connection with organizations.
- Contact some of the professionals I met to strategize about increasing cultural competency in my agency and pursue grant-writing for community-based programs.
- Work on increasing communication between my discipline and other disciplines.
- Obtain a mentor.
- Support potential fellows.
- The Conference was a great experience working in conjunction with other MH professionals.
- It was good to meet and network with the new and alumni fellows and to see old friends (and foes) again (smile). It was wonderful to meet such enthusiastic new and current fellows and their motivation to make a meaningful contribution to our field was encouraging.
- In the breakout session that I attended, I felt having an opportunity for each fellow to share their
experiences, interests, and plans was very insightful and helped in the bonding process.
- Thank you for helping me increase my professional networking and helping foster
interdisciplinary association.
- Continue to include all SAMHSA fellows.
Academic Setting
- Meet with the adviser and chair of the department.
- Resume my studies on a more inspired note.
- Ensure the integration of cultural competency in my dissertation.
- Become more focused on research and funding opportunities.
- Finish my internship and dissertation and keep pushing the envelope with academic and professional sites and colleagues.
- Keep pushing for more diversity—student, staff, faculty and content in my department.
- Discuss with colleagues the importance of integrating diversity and cultural competence in the core curriculum.
- Will include a course objective that requires students to access information online.
- Integrate appropriate information into my teaching.
- Work with university faculty across disciplines on cultural competence issues.
- Work toward cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Use of SAMHSA Information
- Distribute the President's New Freedom report to colleagues.
- Start a process to get MFP-ANA students at my university to work with faculty members to implement the President's Report and cultural competence programs in the School of Nursing curriculum.
- Utilize Web sites.
- Access the SAMHSA Web site for Dr. Davis' presentation. Share the information with the department director for the counseling group where I work.
- Use the SAMHSA matrix to conceptualize how I am using my MFP funds.
- Contact SAMHSA to determine if there is any way I can make a difference.
- Apply for a SAMHSA grant.
- Use more culturally shaped materials.
- Discuss the issues surrounding cultural competence and give talks on these issues.
- Share resources, including handouts, with colleagues and patients.
- Present information to my fellow students and faculty members.
- Localize resources for outreach into the growing Hispanic population in Durham, North Carolina.
- Clarify how to do a clinical, cultural assessment and how to integrate it into school and work.
- Planning of conferences that are more culturally sensitive.
General
- Proactively plan my career.
- Be more conscious about career decisions related to competency and learn to write grants.
- Will speak up as an advocate.
- None-I didn't receive new ideas and strategies, but received lots of encouragement and validation.
- Find ways to encourage myself to pursue educational opportunities.
- As a first year MFP fellow, I am now encouraged to pursue a postdoctoral award and a K-award.
- Energized and inspired to return to my institution and to continue pushing for cultural competency in our training programs and clinical practices.
2. What topics and/or sessions were most useful to you?
Topics
- General information regarding SAMHSA.
- Co-occurring, cultural competency and reducing health disparities.
- De-stigmatization.
- The President's New Freedom Report.
- Collaboration opportunities.
Sessions
- Keynotes and plenaries (overview of SAMHSA structure).
- Breakout Groups: all 5 were cited.
- Roundtable discussions at luncheons.
- Technological access to information.
- Inspirational presentations from the alumni.
- Information session with the ANA/SAMHSA Director.
- King Davis was the greatest. He would have been a great opening speaker.
- Westley Clark
- All of them.
3. What topics and/or sessions were least useful to you?
- Web-Based Sessions
- Geomapping presenter was a no-show.
- Technology session was too long; you should have fewer breakout sessions related to just one topic area.
- Breakout groups II and III.
- Breakout group on trauma and Violence-too broad and too focused on terrorism or school violence and not enough on street violence or the more specific issue of trauma assessment.
- Too much time Friday AM in speeches about what SAMHSA is doing; it is important to know what is available that could help us and our patients, but not to take most of the time for this.
- Keynote plenaries-preached to the choir and did not present new information.
- Roundtable discussions.
- Reception.
- Programs for children and families needed visual aids or handouts.
- Last program time on Friday (the program lasted too long).
- All sessions were useful.
4. Are there topics and/or speakers you would like to suggest for future conferences?
Topics
- Address how MFP fellows can actively participate in SAMHSA activities.
- Professional development for MFP fellows.
- Examples of successful programs.
- An operational definition of cultural competence and theoretical approaches to cultural competence.
- More time for cultural competence and prevention.
- A plenary session on co-occurring disorders by an expert.
- More discussions of substance abuse as a diagnosis independent of mental illness.
- Mechanisms to enhance grant-getting skills.
- More academic activities are needed (things that I can take out of it for my personal and professional development.)
- Grant-writing, manuscript-writing, publishing, and the politics of academia.
- Showcase best practices— replicating with minority populations.
- Health disparities.
- Address other forms of violence, including rape, intimate partner violence, sexual harassment, childhood sexual abuse, and racism.
- Aging population—ethnic minority elderly.
- Spirituality as it relates to protective factors and prevention.
- The meaning of recovery in mental health and substance abuse.
- How to provide services and evaluation to communities that distrust. (They feel over "studied.").
- Preparing mentors—what to do after the dissertation—in a formal manner by discipline.
- Training in evaluation outcomes.
- Add a forum to discuss the major issues related to policy and research.
- How to get access to seats on national boards.
- How to best match MFP goals and research with funding.
- How to write grants and make valuable connections.
- Balancing important values (e.g., family, obligations to community, rituals) with graduate school and professional obligations.
- Program funding and funding mechanisms.
Comments on Conference Structure
- Incorporate discussion groups and educational seminars.
- More focus on topics and less on agency-related agendas.
- Fellowship and networking was excellent, and an opportunity for continuing one's professional education.
- Web information should be more oriented toward participants' needs.
- Research-based information. (What can SAMHSA provide for "young" research professionals?)
- Apply for certifications-cultural competence and prevention.
- Have one breakout session per day.
- Introduce the current fellows in a large group forum.
Suggestions for Kinds of Speakers
- Involve alumni.
- Add more consumer advocates.
- Include speakers of different ethnic groups and present more culturally sensitive presentations.
Identified Speakers
- A half day with King Davis.
- Mary Harper, Jacki McKinney, Herman Ellis
- Frances Brisbane, Lawrence Gary
- Larry Davis
- Ean Bell, James Comer.
- David Satcher.
- Amado Padilla, Patricia Arredondo, Janet Helms, Stanley Sue, Derald Wing Sue.
- Elizabeth Allen, Herbert Joseph, and Kermit Crawford.
- Surgeon General, Secretary of HHS, and reps from CDC, NIMH, and NIH.
5. Do you have additional comments to improve the quality of the conference?
Logistics
- Overall, I felt the meeting was excellent in content, exposure, networking, and fellowship. My major issues of concern had to do with the following issues which I felt could have been improved: 1) The general meeting room was too small for the group that was assembled and chairs for some people were not available. 2) There was some skimping on the food in that if you arrived 30 minutes into the receptions, there was no food of any kind. To eat you had to be there when it opened. 3) In addition, I felt water and soft drinks should have been available upfront on the Friday night reception and not have to be sent for after folks had already left when the food ended. 4) During the breakout session on Friday, when the breaks occurred, it was not clear where we were to go to get coffee, soft drinks, etc. By the time we figured it out, we had to resume our session.
- Add days (more down time for speakers) and more time for networking.
- End days at 4 p.m.
- Place King Davis on morning of the first day.
- Provide presenter handouts and copies of the slides in the conference book.
- Produce a program book addendum, including profiles that not in program book.
- Add the group affiliation, the current fellow/alumni status, and adviser to the name tags.
- Standardize information provided by participants across disciples.
- Provide more seating at the reception, and arrange the seats in circle for breakout groups.
- Include continental breakfast, snacks during breaks and more veggies at the reception.
- Consider lactose intolerance when planning meal functions.
- Host conference in spring, summer, or fall so that weather does not affect attendance.
- Appreciated the logistics help.
- Food was excellent.
General
- Have SAMHSA nominate fellows to positions at the "decision making table" in States.
- Pre-conference workshops on specific research and/or statistical issues.
- Linkages to research funding.
- Research methodology that is culturally competent.
- Professional development issues: grant-writing, publishing, and job searches.
- Interdisciplinary education—more on cultural mental health services from the other 3 to 4 disciplines represented.
- Provide more specific information to foster skills development.
- Address issues that are specific to each minority culture.
- Have the opportunity to attend more than one breakout topic area.
- Provide more structure to the breakout sessions and explain the specific focus or topics.
- Have a more educational or practical component for current fellows.
- Provide more substance in the program content.
- Create more community-building activities.
- Recognize nursing as a part of the program.
- More scholarly presentations and more organization.
- Offer CEUs and/or CMEs.
- Involve students in planning and allow student presenters.
- Would have liked a "training conference" instead of a networking conference.
- Need a MFP "Blue Print for Change," which is similar to the President's New Freedom Commission.
- The Conference was a great experience and I am so grateful to you for allowing me to be a part of the first ever SAMSHA Conference!.
- Continue to have this conference annually or every 2 years and respond to the needs, desires, and suggestions that came out of the breakout groups.
- Thank you for supporting this Conference. It was an unforgettable experience because of the network opportunities with fellows from other programs, the visible commitment to improved mental health services through scientific research, and the investment in ethnic minority professionals. I am honored to be a part of SAMHSA, which is determined to eliminate health disparities by supporting scientists and mental health care providers who understand the value of cultural competency. Thank you again for allowing me to participate in this landmark event, and I look forward to future conferences.
- Thank you for the information that you shared with us related to the benefits of mentoring across disciplines. The SAMHSA conference was a career enhancing experience for me. I am excited about the possibilities of attending the conference next year.
- The Conference was so valuable, that SAMHSA should definitely do it again next year. And, I believe that many MFP Alumni would do it at their own expense.
- We need these meetings to occur more frequently.
- Best conference I have ever attended.
- This conference has truly been a blessing to me.
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