You are visiting us from Ohio. You are located in HHS Region 5. Your Center is Great Lakes ATTC.

National Recovery Month 2019: ATTC Resources Address Treatment and Recovery in Diverse Populations

By Maureen Fitzgerald 
Great Lakes ATTC 

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) first launched National Recovery Month in September 1989 to celebrate the millions of Americans living in recovery from substance use and mental health disorders. Over the past 30 years, National Recovery Month has promoted the message that treatment works, people do recover, and behavioral health is essential to overall health.

National Recovery Month also highlights the fact that substance use and mental health disorders affect everyone, regardless of age, race, gender, or socioeconomic status. With our increasingly complex and diverse population, providing culturally and linguistically appropriate treatment and recovery services is of vital importance.

Recognizing this, the ATTC Network Coordinating Office, regional centers, and population-specific centers have created a variety of relevant training resources. Topics covered include the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Health and Health Care and cultural humility. You’ll also find resources for working with African Americans, Latinx/Hispanic populations, American Indian & Alaska Native Populations, women, the LGBTQIA population, and youth.


Building Health Equity and Inclusion

All of these materials are now available for viewing and download on Building Health Equity and Inclusion, a new section of the ATTC website. This new page unites the Network’s collective expertise on culturally appropriate treatment and recovery services. Resources listed include practical tools that organizations can customize to meet the needs of a particular population or area.

New White Paper: Roadmap for Training and Technical Assistance Efforts in Substance Use Service Administration The Building Health Equity and Inclusion site features the recently published white paper, Roadmap for Training and Technical Assistance Efforts in Substance Use Service Administration: A Journey to Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services, which is also available in Spanish: Hoja de Ruta Para El Trabajo de Formación y Asistencia Técnica en la Administración de Servicios Para El Abuso De Sustancias. Developed by members of the ATTC Network CLAS Standards Workgroup and translated by the National Hispanic and Latino ATTC, the paper offers 7 recommendations to behavioral health and healthcare providers working to improve health and health care equity:

  1. Increase awareness and recognition of non-conscious stereotyping and prejudice toward racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
  2. Encourage full consideration of access to care.
  3. Recommend developing culturally sensitive assessment tools.
  4. Policy change.
  5. Diverse workforce.
  6. Improve efforts to conduct research with diverse populations.
  7. Increase efforts toward interprofessional collaboration in the prevention, treatment, and recovery of substance use disorders.


Updated Regularly with New Resources

Building Health Equity and Inclusion will be updated regularly with new resources developed across the Network. New this month is the Recovery Month 2019 Podcast: Recovery in African-American Communities, produced by the Great Lakes ATTC.

Related Resources from SAMHSA
In addition to the Recovery Month Toolkit, SAMHSA offers Recovery Month Promotional Materials ,which include public service announcements in English and Spanish. Other resources and information are available the SAMHSA page, Behavioral Health Equity Resources.

Does your organization serve clients from diverse populations? What resources do you find most useful in providing culturally and linguistically appropriate services? Let us know in the comment section below!

Published:
09/13/2019
Tags
Recent posts
Flowcharting Your Breakfast: How to Find the Right Altitude
The NIATx change model focuses on a sequence of four primary tools: After a walk-through, teams sometimes struggle to create a flowchart to map out the process they just examined. Whether you use a big sheet of paper and a marker, sticky notes on a dry-erase board, or any number of softwares, here are a […]
The NIATx Files: A brief history of the Nominal Group Technique
The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is one of the essential tools that NIATx change teams use to implement successful change projects.
Three Ways to Sustain Change with NIATx
The NIATx model is designed to help teams identify and implement a process improvement. While adopting a change is a significant accomplishment, the true test lies in maintaining that change and its positive outcomes over the long term: sustaining the change. Sustainability refers to the ability to stick with the new way of doing things and […]
ATTC's Pearls of Wisdom Podcast Series, Episode 4: The Next Decade (2023 and Beyond)
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network, we're taking stock of where we've been, and looking ahead to where we are going. We invite you to listen to our Pearls of Wisdom podcast series. Each episode examines a different decade in our network's history, and features conversations with the people […]

The opinions expressed herein are the views of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), SAMHSA, CSAT or the ATTC Network. No official support or endorsement of DHHS, SAMHSA, or CSAT for the opinions of authors presented in this e-publication is intended or should be inferred.

Copyright © 2024 Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Network
map-markermagnifiercrossmenuchevron-down