Culture Counts: Best Practices in Community Education in Mental Health and Addiction with Ethnoracial/ Ethnocultural Communities

The Culture Counts Project is a provincial project, which began in October 2003. The project aims to research, identify and develop a best practices model for community education and knowledge exchange in mental health and addiction with culturally / linguistically diverse communities to ensure that programs effectively meet the needs of these communities.

Culture Counts is founded on a partnership between CAMH and seven community-based organizations serving the following groups: the Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Tamil communities in the GTA; in Peel Region, the Punjabi community; in Ottawa the Somali community; and the Serbian community in Windsor. The partnering organizations include:

• Portuguese Mental Health and Addiction Services, Toronto Western Hospital
• Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services
• Punjabi Community Health Centre
• Society for the Aid of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) Minorities – SACEM
• The Multicultural Council of Windsor-Essex County
• The Somali Centre for Family Services in Ottawa
• Vasantham – A Tamil Seniors Wellness Centre (PDF)

The project’s other partners include the Ontario Public Health Association (OPHA) and the Association of Local Public Health Agencies (ALPHA).

The report, Culture Counts: Best Practices in Community Education in Mental Health and Addiction with Ethnocultural / Ethnoracial Communities (PDF only), outlines the best practice approaches arising from research and the experiences of the participating communities.

The best practices model guided the adaptation and development of public education materials to reflect culturally appropriate low-risk drinking messages. Subsequently, the Low-Risk Drinking Guidelines (LRDG) were culturally adapted and translated for five of the participating communities, including Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian and Tamil. The principles for cultural adaptation, plus recommendations from the communities, guided the design and messages of the Serbian and Somali posters. The resulting community education materials are available in a downloadable PDF format:

• Polish version of LRDG brochure
• Portuguese version of LRDG brochure
• Punjabi version of LRDG brochure
• Russian version of LRDG brochure
• Tamil version of LRDG brochure
• Serbian alcohol-related poster
• English poster based on Serbian poster design

More information is available about the project, its partners and products.

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