IPS has been at the forefront of research, development and delivery of Aboriginal mental health cultural competency intervention programs (CCIPs) since 1998. The origins of this are the PhD research of Dr Tracy Westerman, Managing Director of IPS (Westerman, 2003) which resulted in the development of the Aboriginal Mental Health Cultural Competency Test (CCT). The CCT determined that those who are ‘culturally competent’ in Aboriginal mental health practice consistently have skills across five key areas; (1) cultural knowledge including local knowledge, general knowledge, application of cultural knowledge and mental health specific knowledge; (2) skills & abilities which includes the ability to apply mainstream mental health training in a manner which is effective with Aboriginal clients; (3) attitudes and beliefs which is about the desire and motivation of practitioners to be ‘culturally competent’; (4) resources and links into the local community, and finally, (5) organisational cultural competency.

From this strong research base, IPS has been able to utilise its range of workforce development products and services to successfully improve the measured cultural competencies of organisations and individuals Australia wide. Interventions can include the delivery of IPS’ Aboriginal Mental Health Training Programs; Cultural Audits of an Organisations Policies and Procedures as well as the development of Aboriginal Mental Health Service Delivery Models. 

THE VALUE OF MEASURING CULTURAL COMPETENCE

The value of the CCT is that IPS is able to provide a baseline gauge of the cultural competencies of organisations and individuals. The CCT is completed on-line and a feedback report is provided that details an individual’s ‘baseline’ skills across all five areas of cultural competency but also includes analysis of what the individuals scores mean in relation to their ability to work with Aboriginal clients. The report also provides specific strategies to ensure improvement of these skills deficits over time. Effectively the CCT feedback becomes a Cultural Supervision Plan which can be utilised by the participant as a blueprint for their cultural skills development needs into the future. Additionally, as the CCT has been normed on over 623 people, scores can also be compared to the ‘average’ level of cultural competency in the Australian workforce. 

IPS’ ACHIEVEMENTS IN IMPROVING ORGANISATIONAL CULTURAL COMPETENCIES

IPS analysed the results of six Organisational Cultural Competency Intervention Programs (CCIPs) involving 177 individuals over twelve months (during 2010 - 2011). These programs all involved three stages including; (1) measurement, feedback and analysis of individual and organisational cultural competencies via administration of the CCT; (2) Design and delivery of an IPS Aboriginal mental health training program based on cultural competency results, and; (3) re-evaluation of cultural competencies (post-test), determination of improvement from pre-training to post-training intervention and recommendations to develop cultural competencies over time. Results demonstrated statistically significant improvements across all areas of cultural competency from pre to post-training intervention DOWNLOAD RESULTS OF THESE PROGRAMS HERE

IPS success in their Aboriginal Mental Health Cultural Competency Programs has resulted in the expansion of their services into General Cultural Competency Programs which makes these programs accessible to the non-mental health specific field.