Viability of Concept Mapping for Assessign Cultural Competence in Systems of Care for Children's Mental Health: A Comparison of Theoretical and Community Conceptualizations

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The need to prepare more effective mental health systems for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families in the United States is well recognized. In 1961, the Joint Commission on Mental Health and Illness found that mental health needs of children and youth were going unmet. Noting a lack of community resources and uncoordinated mental health programs, the report cited specific recommendations to "shape community mental health programs around local needs", and to engage States in providing consultation to communities for local community planning. In 1965, the Joint Commission on the Mental Health of Children began its work assessing the requires of the nation, culminating in 1969 with recommendations to build systems of care for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families (Lourie, DeCarolis, Katz-Leavy & Quinlan, 1996). Findings of unmet needs were repeated when The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) published Unclaimed Children (Knitzer, 1982), a landmark study showing fragmented, uncoordinated, and sometimes inappropriate, services for children. In the mid-eighties, a Congressional account sponsored by the Office of Technology Assessment examined the state of the children's mental health knowledge base, substantiating the large number of children with serious mental health care requires and the respective lack of treatment available (Saxe, 1998).