Abstract
Over the coming decades, we can expect that cultural diversity will abound within the U.S. population and the imagery of an American melting pot will long be discarded. One significance of this trend will be the imperative to account for cultural diversity in assessing the needs of children with serious emotional disturbance (SED), to ensure that assessments, diagnoses, and treatments are accurate, fair, and meaningful. To achieve that end, however, will first require that all persons in the fields of education, mental health, social services, and juvenile justice become fully prepared to support children with SED and their families, prepared to bring to the process a sophisticated understanding of the interplay between culture and social behaviors. Nothing less than that level of preparedness will enable practitioners to develop unbiased interventions that competently and sensitively weigh cultural influences and target the needs of diverse students with emotional and behavioral difficulties. In this paper, we present the need for culturally competent practitioners in the area of SED, ways in which service providers can increase their cultural knowledge, and strategies for more effective service with this population.
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Cartledge, G., Kea, C. & Simmons-Reed, E. Serving Culturally Diverse Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance and Their Families. Journal of Child and Family Studies 11, 113–126 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014775813711
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014775813711