Tony B. Benning
The Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) model of care for individuals suffering from severe mental illness has proven to be successful in affecting a range of positive psychosocial outcomes such as reduced hospitalizations and improved access to suitable housing and vocational opportunities. As evidenced by a team in inner city Toronto, an encouraging recent trend has been to adapt ACT design and models of care delivery to the needs of the increasing cultural diversity that is seen in the Canadian context. That particular model of best practice utilized various strategies for tailoring care to the needs of the culturally diverse population in Toronto including linguistic pairing between staff and patients, offering culturally specific psychosocial rehabilitation, and assessing patients’ acculturation status. Adaptability and responsiveness to the culturally diverse population should be given more priority as a criterion against which the design and performance of mental health services in general are evaluated.
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