Fostering our Health Equity Literacy: Exploring the CLAS Standards as a Blueprint for Education, Healthcare, and School Mental Health Systems Collaboration
Join the Pacific Southwest MHTTC for a three-part series aimed to increase school or systems leaders’ health equity literacy. In this series, we explore the National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards, a set of 15 actions steps intended to advance health equity, improve quality, and help eliminate health care disparities. The CLAS Standards were originally developed as a tool for public health, not school mental health; this series seeks to benefit school mental health outcomes by merging tools and systems.
Together, we will examine how the CLAS Standards can help foster cultural and linguistic appropriateness within the health care delivery system AND enhance your school mental health efforts.
By attending this three-part learning series, healthcare, education, and school mental health professionals will find a blueprint for collaborations that enable the type of care that truly meets community members’ needs.
Note:
- We strongly recommend that those who wish to participate in Session 2 also attend Session 1. Session 1 will establish background that is necessary for Session 2.
- While it is not required to attend all three sessions, we kindly request that participants attend at least one of the first two sessions to be able to come to Session 3.
Who is this series for?
This series is offered to school and mental health providers in the Pacific Southwest (Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and U.S. Pacific Islands of American Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau). We are also opening this series to other providers outside of our region.
- State leadership (e.g., departments of education, child services, behavioral health)
- District, county, and local behavioral health and education leadership
- Professional behavioral and school mental health associations (e.g., associations for school psychologists, school counselors, school nurses, school-based health centers)
- Community-based organizations that provide mental health services
Learning Objectives
As a result of participating in this training series, participants will be able to:
- Improve access to care by learning how early identification and support of mental health in schools can be done in a cultural and linguistically appropriate way.
- Increase fluency with the CLAS Standards adaptation process.
- Identify steps and strategies for implementing and integrating CLAS Standards in school mental health and education system contexts.
Session 1
An Introduction: How the National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services Standards (CLAS) Can Elevate Our School Mental Health Equity Commitments
Tuesday, November 29th, 2022 | 3:30 – 5:00pm PST
What are CLAS standards and why should we adapt them to school mental health contexts?
In our first session together, we will establish an understanding of how we can integrate CLAS into our school mental health programs to maximize our commitment to health equity. The CLAS Standards encompass a primary standard (“to provide effective, equitable, understandable, and respectful quality care and services that are responsive to diverse cultural health beliefs and practices, preferred languages, health literacy, and other communication needs”) and fourteen other standards categorized into three themes: 1) Governance, Leadership, and Workforce; 2) Communication and Language Assistance; and 3) Engagement, Continuous Improvement, and Accountability.
These standards provide broad goals for ensuring cultural and linguistic appropriateness within the health care delivery system. Rarely are they translated from public health systems into school mental health and education contexts…until now! Join us as we explore how culture and language influence the delivery of mental health services in school settings and communities.
Session 2
A Deeper Dive into the CLAS Standards: Mapping Health Equity Literacy onto Our Education and School Mental Health Systems
Tuesday, December 6, 2022 | 3:30 – 5:00pm PST
What Does the Adaptation of CLAS Standards to School Mental Health Systems Look Like?
The 14 standards that are listed after the primary CLAS standard are classified into three themes: Governance and Leadership, Communication and Language Assistance, and Engagement, Continuous Improvement and Accountability. In Session 2, we go deeper into the different standards, identifying elements that are essential to adapting these standards and exploring how they might be implemented in different systems settings. For example, how do you identify champions of the standards on the ground? How do you elicit feedback and adapt the standards to your context in a collective, collaborative way?
Please note: We strongly recommend that those who wish to participate in Session 2 also attend Session 1. Session 1 will establish background that is necessary for Session 2.
Session 3
Implementation and Sustainability: A CLAS Standards Learning Lab
Tuesday, December 13, 2022 | 3:30 – 5:00pm PST
Our third session of the series is an interactive workshop led by our facilitators. In it, you will identify the steps for designing an adaptation process to meet the needs of your school system’s cultural context. Join us to creatively translate the standards into useful guidelines for your leadership, collaborations, cross-system partnerships, and more.
Please note: We kindly request that participants attend at least one of the first two sessions to be able to come to the third session.