Lessons From Virginia Tech
May 4, 2008
Culturally competent mental health services are essential
Like all Americans, we continue to mourn the senseless tragedy at Virginia Tech a little over one year ago. It hits home for us because our agency, Asian American Recovery Services Inc., is dedicated to serving individuals with mental health and/or substance abuse problems, like Cho Seung-Hui.
Since this tragedy occurred, we have given a lot of thought to what we, and our colleagues in the public health sector and the broader community, could and should do to keep another tragedy like this from occurring again. This assessment has particular urgency since we know from our clinical experience that Cho’s mental health issues are not unique or even unusual.
We have worked with young people locally who have expressed themselves in similar, violence-obsessed writings, and who have equally serious psychopathologies or diagnoses. Young people not that different from Cho are currently attending middle schools and high schools in our communities, and it is of utmost importance and urgency to help before violence comes to seem logical to them or even — as Cho alleged — unavoidable.
In the current climate, it is very difficult to help these troubled young people. As many of us know from personal experience, schools can be unpleasant places for young people who are different in any way from the peer norm: unathletic, too academically inclined, “too slow,” overweight or underweight, non-white, “too white,” questioning of sexual orientation, or any kind of peer-invalidating “deficit” that sets a young person up for exclusion, intimidation, bullying and even physical violence.
Bullying is unpleasant for any victim. But if you are a young ethnic or racial minority child, it has a special sting. Many young people fortunately show amazing resilience under peer hostility. They often find alternative ways to excel outside of very restrictive peer norms and are able to retreat to the safety of peer-validating circles of like-minded fellow students, while being supported by caring teachers, parents and other adults. But when bullying and other forms of hostility and exclusion combine to create an unsafe learning environment, and are experienced by someone with undiagnosed or untreated mental illness, the result is likely to be toxic. The potential exists in those cases for victims to express their frustrations in violent ways.
Inevitably, in demographically diverse communities like ours, we must reach out to many different minority group students (there are, for instance, more than 40 racial and ethnic groups living in San Mateo County). Can anyone fail to see that culturally competent mental health services are no longer an “extra,” but essential to quality care and effective outcomes? Quality care must assume cultural competence as a requirement rather than just a desirable supplement to mainstream care. It is one of the most basic, scarce, yet obtainable skills necessary for effective practice of mental health in our community today.
A school-based approach is important, but it is unlikely to be sufficient in and of itself, since many mental health problems have roots in families or ethnic communities. Both young people and their families need a “system of possibilities” for accessing mental health services in professional service environments that are welcoming, supportive, safe and culturally proficient. Since there is no way we will be able to match every client with a like language, ethnic, racial or class practitioner, cross-cultural training is imperative and possible, given the will.
Jeff Mori is the executive director of Asian American Recovery
Services Inc., one of the nation’s largest behavioral health organizations that specifically works with Asian and Pacific Islanders in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. David K. Mineta is the deputy director and also oversees the organization’s San Mateo County services.
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2 Responses to “Lessons From Virginia Tech”
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I never saw anybody talk about or report that Asian male copycat guy that got taken in. I think Asian Americans need some introspection into the Harvard-Or-Bust mentality that seemed to conflict with the Date-A-Beauty-Or-Die ideals of American young manhood. Like I said about those polygamist FLDS folks, whatever problems THEY had, they never produced a Virginia Tech shooter, and their kids don’t have to deal with Crazy Asian Mother Sees B+ scenarios.
I think there is a need for more interaction between parents and their children. Mental issues occurs across all cultures and society. Appreciate Jeff M. writing on this serious and dangerous issues at American school campuses. However, I hope that people don’t lose track on the main/real issues that causes these shooting sprees. The Virginia Tech event happpened to have an Asian at the gun trigger but we should look at this as a cultural matter. It’s a mental issue. Otherwise all the other shooting and killings across the US in the last 10 years which were done by mostly white kids would term as a “caucasian killing” disease like recent the “Austrian incest” syndrom. Unstable people have the same diesease - mental illness and they all should be attended to the same way. TVLand