PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: The Asian Mental Health Partnership Initiative (AMHPI) was initiated by the Asian Health Coalition to increase Asian American awareness of and accessibility to culturally and linguistically competent mental health services and resources. This project was the only Asian focused collaboration to be funded from 2007 to 2010 by a multi-year bilingual bicultural demonstration grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health.

TARGET POPULATION: Asian American Immigrant and Refugee Communities in Metropolitan Chicago

COLLABORATING PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS:
• Chinese American Service League
• Chinese Mutual Aid Association
• Cambodian Association of Illinois
• Hamdard Center
• Korean American Community Services
• Lao American Community Services
• Lao American Organization Elgin
• Vietnamese Association of Illinois
• Chicago Community Counseling Center

PROGRAM GOALS: The overall goal of the AMHPI was to improve the access and utilization of culturally competent mental health services in Asian communities. In partnership with community-based organizations and mental health providers invested in the AAPI communities, the program achieved the following:
• Identified current mental health issues, attitudes, help-seeking practices, and commonly used resources.
• Identified and reduce barriers to mental health care and services through education and dialogue
• Identified resources for cultural and linguistically appropriate mental health care
• Increased mental health literacy and access to culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health education resources among Chicago’s limited English proficient AAPI communities
• Built the capacity of partnering AAPI community-based organizations to address the mental health needs/ emotional support needs of their clients.
• Conducted youth outreach with the long term goal of diversifying the social services/mental health workforce.

CONTACT: For more information please contact info@asianhealth.org