Hmong Mental Health Initiative
History and Development
In the last decade of the twentieth century, Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota clarified its mission and vision for serving the special health needs of children. The hospital focused its commitment to children. Family-centered services and unique pediatric services were defined at the center of its mission. Services for the community and in the community guided new directions.
As the mission of the hospital was examined by individual departments, new directions for services continued to be explored. In 1996, the department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine was created. The department has helped Children’s concentrate on community initiatives. One central function of the community health department has been to assist patient care departments in defining and pursuing community-based services. As initiatives of Child and Family Services were considered, the possibility of expanding services to the Hmong community was considered. The insufficiency of pediatric mental health services for Hmong children, the shortcomings of Children’s existing relationship in the Hmong community, and the interest of mental health staff in working with Hmong clients were the primary reasons mental health services for Hmong children were explored.
Expanding services to a non-English speaking client group required the development of culturally appropriate practices and protocols within Child and Family Services. It also required the strengthening of partnerships with Interpretive Services. Child and Family Services worked with staff of Interpretive Services to increase staff cultural competence and to develop the model for service provision. At the same time, Child and Family Services began working internally with various care departments of Children's to improve the efficiency of referral between mental health providers.
As preparations were made, a survey was conducted at the annual Hmong 4th of July Soccer Festival. The survey was used to help improve Child and Family Services understanding of community mental health needs. Research was also conducted within the community through interviews and discussions with a variety of providers working with Hmong clients and families. This examination of needs showed three predominant areas of concern and need for services for children within the Hmong community: depression among teens, family instability, and developmental delays and learning problems.
In addition to gathering information about services needed for Hmong children, Child and Family Services met with program staff of various community staff to explore ways to develop and collaborate services. In 1999, a network was formed to strengthen links between Hmong providers and agencies. The incident in 1998 of a Hmong mother of St. Paul who strangled her six children had stunned the Hmong community and the mental health community. Following this tragedy, representatives from Hmong assistance associations, mental health clinics, hospitals and other agencies met to form the Hmong Mental Health Providers Network. The network has worked to advance ideas for services, outreach, and funding. Some of the efforts the providers network has pursued have included outreach at the Hmong New Year festival, the development of a collaborative effort to provide scholarship funding for graduate level mental health education for southeast Asian providers, a general initiative to improve networking among providers, and the initiation of the task force to develop Hmong mental health concepts.
Since the Hmong Mental Health Initiative was launched in January, 2000, the department of Child and Family Services has expanded services to Hmong children and families considerably. The department has taken Children’s goal and mission and implemented it through its services to Hmong families. Child and Family Services has expanded from almost no services to Hmong children to an average of eight patient service hours/ week making the initiative one of the largest specialty service programs in the department.
The Hmong Mental Health Initiative reflects the mission and vision of Children’s in many ways. With family therapy as one of the target treatment areas, the initiative has a definite family-centered approach to services. Pediatric services are unique in that they combine the expertise of a Hmong interpreter and liaison with psychological, psychiatric, and neuropsychological services. In order to meet the needs of family, services in the community have been expanded through home visits, increased direct contact with schools, and increased collaboration with other community agencies. Finally, services have been developed with input from the community and will be evaluated for efficacy with input from the community.
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