This is the third in a series of articles based on roundtable discussions on issues relevant to community coalitions from CADCA´s National Leadership Forum XVI, held Feb. 14-16, 2006, in Washington, DC. This discussion was facilitated by Marge Bartoletti and Willie Mitchell, members of CADCA´s National Coalition Institute´s Leader/Mentors.
Effective coalitions are comprised of a cross section of members from the local community. Coalitions that are balanced in terms of age, ethnic background, gender, social class, and economic status are positioned to be more effective than those in which one ethnic group or social class predominates. However, all too often coalitions either lack a balanced representation on the coalition as a whole or within the coalition leadership.
The purpose of this roundtable discussion was to identify diversity challenges and share approaches that coalitions have used successfully to make their coalitions more inclusive. The group agreed that understanding different cultures includes learning who is included in the group and how they respond to outreach from the coalition. This can be challenging because many populations struggle with the identity issue themselves.
For example, one participant from Indiana said, “The Latino population is expected to behave homogeneously, but we do not. We must avoid oversimplification and really pay attention to variables that affect different people, such as national origin.”
However, a participant from Illinois stressed the importance of identifying similarities among cultures. “We must not be afraid to ask questions about other cultures,” she said.
A participant from New York noted that it is the responsibility of the individual coalition to put out information for all cultures, for example, providing materials in different languages or offering translators during public meetings so that non-English speakers can participate.
Several other participants mentioned identifying “gatekeepers” and conducting outreach through them—for example, a coalition might post flyers in local grocery stores or distribute pamphlets at neighborhood barbershops or hair salons. Other participants noted success through ethnic radio stations or newspapers.
“Find your alliances,” said one participant from Ohio. “Don’t waste time with those who don’t want to listen or help. In addition, you should strategically go after someone with some ‘pull’ or political power in the specific community you’re trying to reach.”
Several participants noted that they are struggling to adapt “model programs” for communities with large populations of recent immigrants. The recommendation from the group was to use as much of a curriculum as possible, adapt materials, and then include the challenges in reports to the federal government, for example, there were no Spanish translations and no resources to have the materials translated.) “We need to let the government know what is going on and give them the feedback they need to improve,” said the participant.
One participant added it would be helpful to have more training opportunities on cultural competence and substance abuse to enable coalitions to better serve the communities that are hardest hit.
CADCA’s National Coalition Institute has identified several guiding principles that enable coalitions to have positive interactions in culturally diverse environments:
For more information, visit the Cultural Competence section of this Web site.