Panel Discussion 27 - Approaches to Facilitate and Enhance Culturally Responsive Consultation

Professional interest and discussion of diversity, equity and inclusion and culturally responsive care has steadily increased over the last several years. Misdiagnosis due to cultural misunderstandings, ruptured therapeutic relationships due to microaggressive clinical encounters, and clinician overall discomfort (e.g., anxiety, guilt, shame) in broaching topics related to race can continue to create barriers to adequate mental health care for clients of color. Such factors require more attention than didactic interventions (e.g., CEs, lectures, scholarly readings), thereby warranting the incorporation of culturally responsive consultation within clinical settings. Specifically, such consultation enables clinicians to address education gaps, implicit or explicit biases, and emotional discomforts that impede culturally responsive care, and offers support with translating available culturally responsive assessment and intervention frameworks into their clinical practice. Panelists were chosen to discuss various approaches to culturally responsive clinical and organizational consultation. Each panelist provides consultation in the context of various settings, including academia, hospital settings, internship programs, individual and group-based consultations programs, and tailored workshops. Initial discussions will describe approaches to defining culturally responsive care. Panelists will provide an overview of conceptual frameworks guiding their consultation process. Topics will progress to include considerations of when and to adapt CBT for diverse populations, the importance of ongoing consultation, navigating sensitive conversations around cultural differences given ongoing sociopolitical events, and providing consultation to national organizations. Panelists will then discuss successes and challenges in diversity-focused consultation experiences and provide recommendations for supporting meaningful dialogues around diversity. Finally, panelists will demonstrate culturally responsive case conceptualization with clinical examples and invite audience members to participate.