Multicultural Council
New on the MCC Web Pages
4/24/2013
HHS Releases Blueprint to Advance Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care
The enhanced National CLAS standards are a blueprint to help organizations improve health care quality in serving our nation's diverse communities. They are grounded in a broad definition of culture, in which health is recognized as being influenced by factors ranging from race and ethnicity to language, spirituality, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and geography.
4/15/2013
AUCD Celebrates Minority Health Month
In accordance with the vision for people living with developmental and other disabilities to have a future in which culturally appropriate supports are universally available across the lifespan that lead to a healthy quality of life, AUCD celebrates Minority Health Month. Learn about some of the network's targeted efforts in education, research, and service aimed at reducing racial and ethnic health disparities at the intersection of disability and minority health.
4/15/2013
Finding Answers Intervention Research (FAIR) Database
Finding Answers Intervention Research (FAIR) Database The FAIR Database contains journal article summaries fromsystematic reviews of racial and ethnic health disparities intervention literature. The FAIR Database was designed to provide a customized list of interventions that match a user's interest in the following areas: disease area, racial/ethnic population, organizational setting, and intervention strategy.
4/12/2013
Promoting Equity through Health Impact Assessment
This report, co-authored by PolicyLink, describes the imperative to ensure equity in HIAs, identifies principles for equity in HIAs and recommends strategies for the implementation of each principle. The report also shares specific examples of HIAs that show the principle in practice, along with two case studies that effectively incorporate all the principles. The report also describes some of the challenges for ensuring equity in HIAs as well as strategies to overcome the challenges.
4/12/2013
Are Minority Children Disproportionately Represented in Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education?
Study findings recently published in the Educational Researcher examine whether children who are racial-ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in early intervention and/or early childhood special education (EI/ECSE). The researchers analyzed 7,950 48-month-olds participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a nationally representative data set of children born in the United States in 2001. Findings indicated that by 48 months of age, minority children are disproportionately underrepresented in EI/ECSE.
4/12/2013
How Far Have We Come in Reducing Health Disparities? Workshop Summary
At the turn of the 21st century, several important reports and events designed to raise awareness of health disparities and to describe initial efforts to reduce health disparities took place. The Surgeon General's office released several reports that showed dramatic disparities, for example, in tobacco use and access to mental health services by race and ethnicity. Second, the first real legislation focused on reducing health disparities was signed into law, creating the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities within the NIH. In 2001, the IOM released its landmark report, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, highlighting the importance of a focus on health care quality rather than a focus on only access and cost issues. Building upon these reports and events, the IOM held a workshop on April 8, 2010, that discussed progress to address health disparities and focused on the success of various federal initiatives to reduce health disparities. This document summarizes the workshop.
4/12/2013
Infographic: The Roadmap to Reduce Disparities
The RWJF national program Finding Answers developed a six-step framework to help people and organizations reduce disparities. Now available in a simple graphic that's easy to distribute - or tack up above your desk -the Roadmap can help you fit reducing disparities into all health care quality improvement efforts.
4/12/2013
National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities: Community Engagement Toolkit
The National Partnership for Action To End Health Disparities was developed with the mission of mobilizing and connecting individuals and organizations across the country to create a nation in which all people have a chance to reach their full health potential. This National Partnership for Action: Toolkit for Community Action will help individuals, communities and organizations from the public and private sectors work together to implement programs and policies and engage with the NPA to reach that goal.
4/12/2013
New Equity of Care Video on Collection and Use of Data to Reduce Health Disparities
In recognition of National Minority Health Month, Equity of Care has released a short video on the collection and use of race, ethnicity and language (REAL) preference data and its important role in reducing health care disparities. The video is the first in a month-long rollout that will detail the work of the Greater.
4/12/2013
Office of Minority Health
The Office of Minority Health and partners are dedicating the month of April to raising awareness about the remarkable moment of opportunity to advance health equity through the Affordable Care Act. By improving access to quality health care for all Americans, the Affordable Care Act will help reduce health disparities that plague communities of color and result in higher rates of disease and premature death. This year's theme Advance Health Equity Now: Uniting Our Communities to Bring Health Care Coverage to All is a call to action to improve the health of our communities and increase access to quality, affordable health care for everyone.
4/12/2013
Points of Empowerment
The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) funded Empowerment: Building Research Infrastructure Capacity (Project Empowerment) offers Points of Empowerment, a series of topical fact sheets on minority populations with disabilities. The latest issue is a recap of survey data on college students with disabilities. Previous topics include stroke, brain injury, employment, and perceptions of psychiatric services.
3/26/2013
AUCD 2013: Calling All Proposals
Deadline Extended to June 12, 2013
The AUCD Conference provides a special opportunity to share your interests, talents, and perspectives in a range of disability related topics with others in the network and our partners.
3/26/2013
AUCD 2013: You're Invited
Promoting Inclusion in an Increasingly Diverse World
This Conference theme promotes our network values of inclusion of all persons with developmental and other disabilities in community life and engages the network in conversation and practices to ensure our work reflects the changing cultural and linguistic landscape in our Centers and States.
The Multicultural Council is established as an integral part of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD).
Mission
The mission of the Council is to advocate on behalf of the cultural diversity and cultural competence mandates of the Developmental Disabilities Act and other relevant legislation and policy as amended. The Council fulfills this mission to the Association and its constituent membership by serving as a conduit for technical assistance, providing input into policy, and engaging in other support activities deemed necessary to advance the area of cultural competence as mandated by the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AIDD) and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB).
Purpose
The primary purpose of the Council is for training, direct service, outreach, technical assistance, clinical services, research, and dissemination to be provided in a culturally competent manner and secure the meaningful participation of individuals from diverse racial and ethnic and linguistically diverse backgrounds at all levels of the Association's membership.
Functions
The Council shall: serve as a focus for the identification and discussion of issues regarding cultural competence and cultural diversity; serve as a representative voice of the cultural diversity and cultural competence interests and concerns within the Association's network; and influence the development and implementation of national policies and initiatives relevant to achieving and sustaining cultural competence and cultural diversity within each member program.
Membership
The Council membership shall consist of one representative, endorsed by Director of the member program, who shall serve an unlimited term as long as s/he is the Multicultural or diversity Director/Coordinator. If no such position exists, a designee who best represents the overall cultural diversity and cultural competence interests of that Association member shall be designated to the Council by the program's Director.
