Cultural Competence Standards
in Managed Care Mental Health Services:
Four Underserved/Underrepresented
Racial/Ethnic Groups
APPENDIX A - Glossary
Access: Accessibility of mental health services in a manner that facilitates their use by people who need them; providing the opportunity for people to obtain mental health services from behavioral health providers; providing an active program of community information and outreach to motivate participation in mental health services.
Alternative/Traditional Healer (folk healer): An individual, respected by the community, who has cultural knowledge and training to relieve people of their physical and emotional afflictions within their cultural beliefs, and who sometimes uses physical approaches, spirituality, herbs, and other techniques as a form of healing; an individual recognized by a cultural group or tradition with the authority and power to perform rituals, ceremonies, or utilize medicinal substances for physical and spiritual healing.
Bi-cultural: The ability to understand and function effectively in two or more cultural environments. An individual who is bi-cultural is not necessarily culturally competent.
Bilingual: The ability to speak effectively in two or more languages. Individuals who are involved in serving limited English-proficient persons shall be certified to do so.
Comparability of Benefits: Benefits, which are relatively equal to each other, afforded to various cultural/ethnic or socioeconomic groups; relatively the same services provided across all populations served, including any adaptations necessary to reach equal access and utilization.
Competence: The application of knowledge and the interpersonal, decision-making, and psychomotor skills expected for the practice role (National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc. 1996).
Competent: Properly or well qualified and capable.
Critical Service Junctures: Critical service junctures include crisis, evaluation/assessment, treatment planning, treatment plan review/renewal, crisis planning, placement in residential or restrictive settings (including inpatient) and discharge determinations.
Cultural Competency: An acceptance and respect for difference, a continuing self-assessment regarding culture, a regard for and attention to the dynamics of difference, engagement in ongoing development of cultural knowledge, and resources and flexibility within service models to work towards better meeting the needs of minority populations.
Cultural Consultation: Consultation from an individual knowledgeable about a particular culture. Having to do specifically with culture but not necessarily with mental health clinical issues.
Culture: The integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, communication, actions, customs, beliefs, values and institutions of a racial, ethnic, religious, or social group. Culture defines the preferred ways for meeting needs.
Folk Healer: See Alternative/Traditional Healer.
Grievance: A problem or complaint presented formally, orally and/or in writing in a prepaid Health Plan for information, action, or resolution.
Health Plan/Plan: Managed Care Plan or network; equally applies to public agencies delivering managed services; a care system, public or private, based on capitated rates in which costs shall be managed through effective care.
Interpreter: An individual trained and certified in facilitating oral, written, or manual communication between two or more people of different languages; interpreters shall have in-depth knowledge not only of the language, but also of cultural values, beliefs, and verbal and non-verbal expressions.
Management Information System: A system (almost universally automated or computer based) which collects the necessary information in proper form and at appropriate intervals for managing a program or other activities. The system shall afford indicators which measure program progress toward objectives, identify discrete costs, and facilitate identifying problems that need attention.
Mental Health Cultural Specialist: A mental health professional who is certified culturally competent and has demonstrated skill and in-depth knowledge of a specific racial/ethnic group, including skills and knowledge of mental health needs, to serve as a resource person for this particular culturally distinct population.
Provider: An organization or individual, such as a hospital or physician, that provides and is reimbursed for behavioral health care service.
Quality Assurance: Systematic efforts to review and improve the caliber of services provided; activities and programs intended to assure the improvement of care in a defined medical setting or program. Such efforts shall include educational or other approaches intended to remedy identified deficiencies in services and methods, as well as the components necessary to identify such deficiencies (such as peer or utilization review components); the intended objective shall be to assess the program's own effectiveness.
Sponsored: Describing a person covered by a particular health plan.
Standards: The generally accepted principles for the best/most appropriate way to provide clinical care for patients with mental illness; the criteria or set of rules that describe the expected levels of clinical and system behavior as well as courses of action based on research and experience.
Traditional: Time-honored practices, which vary among groups.
Translator: An individual trained to render written or spoken information from one language to another.
Unsponsored: Describing a person not covered by a particular health plan.
Value Added: Greater clinical or cost-effectiveness in a service when it is provided in a specialized or modified manner. For example, a person with skills to perform in more than one capacity (e.g. professionally serves both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking consumers).
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SMA00-3457
1/2001
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