Mental Health Conditions and Challenging Behaviors in Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Gap between Research and Care

The term culturally-informed care, unlike trauma-informed care, may be relatively new to service providers (i.e. direct caregivers, therapists, etc.) and other professionals working with people with mental health issues or persons with disabilities. However, its necessity may be dated back to the beginning of the human service field when individuals may have resided in asylums or suffered other forms of social injustices at various cultural and global levels. Oakes (2011) argued that cultural competency has been lauded as an effective, direct intervention to address health care disparity issues; however the clarification of the cultural competency process in the professional development of mental health care providers working with health care disparity populations has been repeatedly identified as a critical empirical need. Considering the aforementioned, this article attempts to initiate or encourage conversations around the significance of culturally-informed care in the delivery of service/treatment to people with mental health issues, developmental disabilities, or intellectual disabilities. Culturally-Informed Care While service/treatment provision for people