TA Partnership Newsletter — May 2009
Highlights from the Field
Feature Articles:
- The $100 Billion Man
- Mississippi Families as Allies for Children's Mental Health, Inc. (MS FAA)
- Communicating Across Cultural Lines
The $100 Billion Man
Last year, the National Fatherhood Initiative published a report, The $100 Billion Man (PDF), which details in economic terms the costs of father absence from the lives of their children. While the report focused primarily on the measured costs of federal expenditures on anti-poverty programs and child support enforcement, it reflected only a portion of the true costs to children, families, and communities when fathers are wholly or even partly absent from their children's lives.
The TA Partnership's Cultural Competency Action Team (CCAT) has recently begun to tackle head-on the challenge of Educating, Equipping, and Engaging fathers in planning for and supporting their children with significant mental health needs. Two communities recently shared some of their current "Three Es" strategies — Circle of HOPE (St. Joseph County, Missouri) and MeckCARES (Mecklenburg County, North Carolina).
The Circle of HOPE provides a family support group and a family leadership team. Between 20 and 50 family members participate in the monthly support group. Food and child care are regularly provided so that, in most cases, both parents can attend. Lead family contact Joe Turner personally invests time in engaging the fathers who show up at support group meetings, and "so far they keep coming back." Not long after the meetings began, the fathers in the group started talking with one another, and shortly following that, "one of the dads took over the responsibilities of running the support group." Recently the dads decided that they needed a separate men's group.
One of Circle of HOPE's keys in engaging fathers is the presence of some male leadership within the initiative. Mr. Turner exemplifies that, and now two dads serve on the Circle of HOPE's family leadership team.
Joe says he always acknowledges the dad when he calls a family's home. "I don't automatically ask, ‘is your wife there?'" Project director Andrea Aderton has taken strong interest in how the initiative can engage fathers at the system-shaping level, so efforts have began to recruit, cultivate, and support dads in those roles.
In the MeckCARES community, only 9% of the enrolled children and youth were living with both of their parents at the time of intake. Of those, 59% were living with their mothers only. The community's youth coordinator, Wallace Baker, noticed that "most of the client records had the mothers prominently identified, but either assumed there was no dad in the home, or else the dad's role tended to be overlooked."
As in Circle of HOPE, MeckCARES does not "ask to speak to the mother" when a male answers their calls to families. Additionally, Mr. Baker facilitates a men's group called Men's Voices. Wallace feels that men tend not to be as open with others as women are, so he focuses on building relationships. "We have had men hang around our group for 6–7 months and never share a word about their families. I saw that instead of just talking, we have to do things," Wallace says.
One of MeckCARES' keys is to "create access for fathers to activities that are already out there in the community." Wallace helps to connect Men's Voices members with events provided by other men's groups and organizations in Charlotte, "and they access these other activities together, as a group." MeckCARES has involved dads in activities with the Charlotte Police Department's Gang of One programand supported a group of dads to travel to a fatherhood conference in Atlanta. Mecklenburg County fathers even held a Father of the Year essay writing contest in which 1,500 6th–12th grade youth wrote essays to ‘nominate' their fathers. According to Wallace, they have pulled in Wachovia Bank, the Charlotte Bobcats, the Joe Gibbs Racing Team, Coca-Cola, Dunkin Donuts, and others to support their activities.
Individuals who are interested in reducing the incidence of "absent dads" in their community are encouraged to participate in monthly technical assistance calls as part of CCAT's Fatherhood Initiative. Contact Ken Martinez (kmartinez@air.org), Frank Rider (frider@ffcmh.org), or Kim Williams (kwilliams@ffcmh.org) for more information.
Mississippi Families as Allies for Children's Mental Health, Inc. (MS FAA)
MS FAA is a statewide, not-for-profit organization for Mississippi's children and youth with mental health needs. All services are offered free of charge and complete confidentiality is maintained. Organized by families in 1989, MS FAA was one of the founding members of the National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health and is its official State Organization for Mississippi. In 1990, MS FAA received one of the first 15 Statewide Family Network Grants. MS FAA is a proud partner in the development of the Mississippi Statewide System of Care. MS FAA is in partnership with the CommUnity Cares system of care community in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Respite Activities
As part of its mission to support families and youth, MS FAA has developed several non-traditional, non-clinical services. One of the most sought-after services is respite, which they started in 1995 through a grant from the Mississippi Department of Mental Health. Known as Family Time Out and certified by the Department of Mental Health (DMH), MS FAA respite pairs capable, trained, and certified respite mentors in one-on-one relationships with children or teens who have severe and persistent mental health needs. Through the program, the family gets a much needed break while their child gains a mentor and therapeutic recreational activities designed to build new skills and strengths.
Group Respite
MS FAA also offers respite through group activities. Group respite served as a vehicle for the development of additional services for youth enrolled in the state's first system of care (SOC) initiative (COMPASS), which began in 1999 in Hinds and Rankin Counties (Jackson Metro area). Group respite remains the primary choice for youth over 13 enrolled in Mississippi's second system of care initiative, which began in 2006 in the Pine Belt area of the state. Three counties around the city of Hattiesburg (Forrest, Lamar, and Marion Counties) form CommUNITY Cares. As in the previous SOC community, several youth programs grew out of group activities; they are Spring Break Respite, Summer "Camp" for Teens, and Creative Expressions Saturday Art "Camp" for children under 12 (this last program is pending in CommUNITY Cares).
Spring and summer are when children and youth are out of school, and it can seem to stretch on forever. This is especially true for children and youth with serious mental health needs and/or substance abuse issues who have extremely limited recreational options. MS FAA developed three separate and distinct "camp" programs to help alleviate children's and teens' summer time blues. Through these three distinct programs, not only did the children have the opportunity to participate in therapeutic recreational activities designed to build new skills and strengths, but families were afforded respite time too. This time apart allows members of families some space to grow and develop their own identity. It eases pressures and allows them time to relax, knowing that their child or youth is well attended to in an enriching, understanding, and safe environment.
Spring Break Respite
This one-week mini-program offers all-day activities for multiple age groups during the week of spring break. Professional respite mentors, under the supervision of the MS FAA respite and youth coordinators, organize field trips, enrichment programs, and therapeutic recreational activities for all participants. Spring break (and even Christmas break) respite is offered to all CommUNITY Cares enrollees and to Family Time Out enrollees in the Jackson metro area.
Summer Camp for Teens
Organized in 2002, at the request of the COMPASS Family Advisory Board of MS FAA, the summer day camp for youth focused on fostering healing and improved self-worth in adolescents with serious mental health needs. Approximately 15 teenage males participate three days a week each summer in morning sessions of social skills workshops, computer training, discussions, and academic study. Afternoon activities include arts and crafts, recreational games, community service projects, and field trips. Youth in CommUNITY Cares spend a week in the summer learning social skills, including ordering at a sit-down restaurant, horseback riding, writing, and reciting poetry, and taking part in a ropes course.
Creative Expressions
The summer art day camp for children ages 12 and under, founded in 1998 by MS FAA, links the professional arts community with the mental health community, fostering healing and improved self-worth in children with serious mental health needs.
Each Saturday, from June through August, 20–25 children participate in various enrichment activities, including arts and crafts, reading, music, creative drama, storytelling, swimming instruction, gardening, and puppetry. Each Saturday's programs are developed in partnership with guest artists and are staffed by professional respite mentors and artists. Time includes free play, one-on-one mentoring, and personal attention. Arts-related outings and field trips are also scheduled. Funded through the Mississippi Arts Commission and the Department of Mental Health, Division of Children and Youth Services, Creative Expressions was nominated for a Governor's Arts Award and is well recognized through local, regional, and national arts and mental health conferences for its innovative programming. A similar program for CommUNITY Cares and other Hattiesburg area children is currently in development.
Involvement in any of these MS FrA Respite programs allows children and youth to:
- Experience healing, pleasure, and a sense of competency
- Learn new concepts and try new projects without fear of failure
- Improve interpersonal social skills
- Develop curiosity and creative expressions
- Discover untapped talents and strengths
Each of these programs, tailored specifically for children and youth with serious mental health needs, goes well beyond simply providing fun, safe, and healthy recreation; they inspire hope and dreams for the future. When it's your child, you know, as MS FAA does, that children's mental health matters.
For more information on their provider training program, program policies and procedures, or their preparation for family/provider match, fell free to contact them at:
Mississippi Families as Allies for Children's Mental Health, Inc.
5166 Keele Street, Building A
Jackson, MS 39206
601-981-1619/601-981-1496 (fax)
1-800-833-9671
MS FAA Web site
E-Mail: info@msfaacmh.org
Communicating Across Cultural Lines
To communicate across cultures can seem like a difficult task, and sometimes can seem overwhelming and even almost impossible if you do not understand the difference in roles and expectations, differences in worldview associated with cultural beliefs or acculturation, and more importantly if you do not know the language. However, many professionals have learned to use creativity, interpreters, cultural brokers, and personal reflection to understand how to communicate effectively across cultures.
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In our efforts to provide culturally and linguistically responsive services in our Wraparound Oregon Early Childhood project in Multnomah County, we have developed an interpreter policy and procedure guide. This guide establishes the guidance for a cultural and linguistic competency plan. The purpose of this policy was to describe the essential practices and processes for the proper provision of interpretation and translation services. It was also created to raise awareness of interpretation (including sign language) and translation needs to encourage staff to proactively plan for those needs. Moreover, the policy is to ensure that our staff have the knowledge of accessing interpretation and translation services and the confidence to use them. To highlight a few of the sections in the manual, sections include:
- Determining the need for an accredited interpreter
- Understand Consecutive and Simultaneous Interpreting
- Understand types of interpreters needed for hearing impaired
- Working effectively with interpreters
- Standard of Excellence we require from an Interpreter Service
- Tips for working with interpreters
In our efforts to provide culturally responsive services to our non-native English family members in Multnomah County, we have also designed Spanish script cards for our facilitators and family partners. The Spanish script cards provide step by step instructions in how to respond in Spanish while on the phone with a Spanish speaking family member. In addition, the cards provide the phone numbers of our four contracted interpreter services and the step-by-step process of connecting a three way phone call with both the family member and an interpreter. The scripts are laminated on 3x5 cards front to back, and are carried in our purses and wallets. Below is an example of our Spanish script cards.
Spanish Script (during live conversation)
If a monolingual Spanish speaker calls say:
- Un momento por favor. Voy a obtener un interpreté por teléfono.One moment please. I will get an interpreter on the phone.
Three-way instructions
- You will have the person on your line. Once you tell them to hold, hit the green (send) button.
- That will "click" you over to the other line.
- At that point you want to either dial the number or go to "options" and hit contact list and click on the name.
- Then hit the send button again.
- Then all three parties should be on the phone.
If you do not want to use the three way say:
- Voy a llamarle con un intérprete tan pronto tan posible. I will call you with an interpreter as soon as possible.
Wraparound Oregon places a high value on culturally responsive practices as inherent in quality clinical practice — we cannot provide quality clinical services without cultural and linguistic competence. In coordination with the Portland State training Academy, we are currently designing Wraparound 101 trainings specifically for interpreters throughout Multnomah County. As a system of services and supports, we have learned that it is essential for interpreters to understand our multifaceted Wraparound meetings, Wraparound values and principles.
If you would like to download or review the Interpreter Policy Manual please go to the Wraparound Oregon Web site.
For more information, contact:
Aisha Hollands
Cultural & Linguistic Competency Coordinator Wraparound Oregon
Email: aholland@mesd.k12.or.us
503-257-1660