ABSTRACT
An assessment-intervention model was designed to illustrate how assessment research and practice can move in the direction of cultural competence. This model was initially proposed in a basic multicultural assessment text (Dana, 1993) and subsequently was expanded to incorporate culture-specific intervention strategies for African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Native, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans that contained culturally relevant components (Dana, 1998e). Whenever the format, structure, substance, service providers, and service delivery styles of interventions for multicultural clients met client expectations and conformed to their health-illness beliefs, these interventions were more likely to be accepted and responded to positively with beneficial outcomes. The history of mental health services provided by culture-specific mental health agencies had suggested many ingredients of cultural competence that were found to be credible to clients and necessary for quality care (Isaacs & Benjamin, 1991). Similarly, characteristics of agencies, programs, and personnel were identified in research literature and operationalized in an Agency Cultural Competence Checklist (Dana, 1998a; Dana, Behn, & Gonwa, 1992; Dana & Matheson, 1992). Finally, the impact of matching language and ethnicity of clients and providers was associated with increased retention rates and more beneficial outcomes of interventions for multicultural clients (Takeuchi, Sue, & Yeh, 1995). These several avenues of research and practice evidence were influential in the development of this model, as described in earlier papers (Dana, 1997, 1998c). The description offered in this chapter includes additional research evidence and cites other handbook chapters for additional documentation, illustrations, and examples.
