Cultural and Linguistic Competence Training Series: Diversity Works

In 2018 the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities partnered with the Yale School of Medicine to participate in the Recovery Oriented Service Evaluation (ROSE) study the first federally-funded, nationally representative study of recovery-oriented practices in community mental health centers and as they relate to service utilization and treatment outcomes. 

As a part of the ROSE study, staff members from provider agencies across Georgia completed the Recovery Self-Assessment (RSA). The RSA is a 36-item measure designed to gauge the degree to which programs implement recovery-oriented practices. It is a self-reflective tool designed to identify strengths and target areas of improvement as agencies and systems strive to offer recovery-oriented care. The RSA contains concrete, operational items to help program staff, persons in recovery, and significant others to identify practices in their behavioral health agency that facilitate or impede recovery. The RSA was developed to operationalize and measure practices that are supportive of a person's recovery, including an environment that:

• encourages individuality and focuses on strengths
• promotes accurate and positive portrayals of mental illness while fighting discrimination
• uses a language of hope and possibility
• offers a variety of options for treatment, rehabilitation, and support
• supports risk-taking, even when failure is a possibility
• actively involves service users, family members, and other natural supports in the development and implementation of programs and services.
• encourages user participation in advocacy activities
• helps people develop connections with communities and develop valued social roles, interests and hobbies, and other meaningful activities.

Guided by outcomes within the Yale study’s five domains in consumer care, particularly in the Diverse Treatment Options domain,  DBHDD’s Office of Behavioral Health Prevention and Federal Grants, Office of Children, Youth and Families, Office of Recovery Transformation, and Office of Quality Improvement developed Diversity Works: A Cultural & Linguistic Competency Series for behavioral health providers and stakeholders across the state.

This series of webinars and in-person trainings is designed to equip participants with new skills, tools, and strategies to have more meaningful conversations and thoughtful interactions across diverse populations when delivering services. Our goal is to support building relationships that infuse recovery principles and increase our ability to effectively engage through recognizing and respecting diversity through our words and actions.

Over the course of 16 months we will embark upon a journey with 10 dynamic experts who will challenge our paradigms and provide learning to help create safe spaces and encourage culturally compassionate dialogue that incorporates an individual’s beliefs, values and needs. It is our hope that this new learning elevates our service delivery to new levels of engagement that are uniquely shaped by the people that we serve.

2020 - 2021 Webinar Schedule

Please click on the registration site for more information about the diversity works team and their workshop descriptions.

Visit https://cvent.me/oPMw7v to register for training

Please click on the webinar topic to view the engagement video

Please click on the registration site for more information about the diversity works team and their workshop descriptions.

Visit https://cvent.me/oPMw7v to register for training

Training Content Questions? Email [email protected]

Registration Questions? Email [email protected]