NURS FPX 6026 Assessment 1 Analysis of Position Paper for Vulnerable Population

Analysis of Position Papers for Vulnerable Populations

The fact that there are mental health disparities amongst the marginalized youths is also evidence of the general inequities in the system, which are present in accessibility, quality, and relevance to their culture. One of the issues that black adolescents face in the United States is access to proper mental care, despite the similar rates of mental health disorders among them and their counterparts (Opara et al., 2021).

The structural racism, provider prejudice, and institutional distrust inform these differences. Trauma-informed care and interprofessional teams, which are culturally responsive, imply that there are some promising steps that can help them bridge these gaps. This paper reviews the reasons, the reality, problems, and the policy positions of culturally responsive, trauma-informed care (CR-TIC) frameworks among black adolescents.

Position About Health Outcomes 

The black adolescents in the United States, and particularly those who have depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have unmet mental health needs that are disproportionate. Despite the same level of prevalence of mental health conditions among Black youth as they are with their White counterparts, they are far less likely to receive evidence-based treatment and far more likely to receive punitive or dismissive responses in healthcare and education (Opara et al., 2021).

• Addressing Health Inequities

Structural racism is the cause of this disparity, along with implicit bias among providers, socioeconomic factors, and historical mistrust of medical institutions. The interdisciplinary team recommends the CR-TIC as a mandatory intervention in the school and community-based mental health setting that is working with Black adolescents. It is cultural humility combined with the knowledge of the historical and systemic trauma and application of the Strengths-based approach to improve access, retention, and clinical outcomes.

The targeted health care problem under consideration is the lack of mental health care among black teens in the United States, especially individuals who are depressed, anxious, and have PTSD. The critical importance of this population is that, although the prevalence of mental health conditions is the same among these youths and their White counterparts, they are not provided an opportunity to be treated systematically because of the systemic barriers they face. The situation is also quite difficult; however, suicide was the third cause of mortality among Black Americans between 15 and 34 in 2023, which indicates the lack of mental health needs (Office of Minority Health, 2024).

Punitive reactions, implicit bias, and structural racism are inequities of current care, which impose themselves on poor health outcomes and increase mistrust in medical institutions. The CR-TIC model should be used to enhance care and outcomes and address cultural competency, trauma awareness, and strengths-based interventions to develop access, retention, and beneficial clinical outcomes (Ranjbar et al., 2020). Operating on this stance is crucial since it goes directly to the problem of health inequity, builds trust, and provides Black adolescents with compassionate, effective, and equitable mental health care.

• Assumptions

The position of the team is supported with the assumption that mental health inequities cannot be attributable to the natural characteristics of the population, but instead are provoked by the system inequities in the accessibility, quality, and appropriateness of care. It also assumes that mistrust can be decreased with the help of culturally responsive interventions, i.e., interventions that are created in collaboration with the community and implemented by anti-racist and trauma-informed trained providers (Esaki et al., 2022).

Moreover, the team supposes that mental illness in the long-term can be reduced through early intervention using school connections and community alliances by contributing to academic inattention, misuse of substances, and the juvenile justice system.

Interprofessional Team’s Role

An interprofessional team comprising psychiatric nurse practitioners, clinical social workers, school counselors, community health workers, pediatricians, and family advocates is required to offer extensive mental health care to Black adolescents. The individuals in the team have specialized competencies. The nurses and the doctors provide the medical care, and the social workers and counselors provide the therapy and support (Noel et al., 2022).

The one presented is the connection between community health workers and families, and the job of educators is to introduce these services into schools. This type of collaboration is conducive to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Framework on Trauma-Informed Care that is based on shared decision-making and coordination throughout the sectors.

Professional collaboration leads to uniformity in care and the elimination of duplication of services. It also makes it so that the support is age- and culture-sensitive. One such institution is a school-based healthcare facility, like the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH), where the paradigm implementation will allow introducing mental health screening into wellness check-ups and simultaneously offer group therapy sessions with culturally equivalent clinicians (Richter et al., 2022).

Such integration does not just integrate mental health care but also helps to overcome logistical issues, including traffic and working parental schedules, which often confine Black families to utilization of the outpatient services.

• Challenges

The team may also find the implementation of the collaboration very problematic. The incompatibility of the training paradigm and ad hoc arrangements of reimbursements may hamper actual collaboration, as well as the specialization of professionals. Implicit bias can also destroy trust when well-intended providers fail to behave, and unless it is addressed through regular training on anti-racism, it cannot be eradicated (Vela et al., 2022).

There is also a shortage of resources in impoverished schools and local clinics, which means that it is not possible to have a diverse staff or develop CR-TIC guidelines. The most effective interprofessional initiatives cannot be constructed without any institutional commitment or sustainable funding that will result in the short-term fragmentation or implementation.

Evidence and Positions of Others

There is a growing body of literature indicating that culturally responsive and trauma-informed care can be used to improve mental health outcomes of Black adolescents. A cultural adaptation (i.e., the use of Afrocentric values, family integration, and stories about the community) intervention by Joo and Liu (2020) yielded a significant level of improvement in treatment adherence and symptom reduction as compared with the level of symptom reduction through regular cognitive-behavioral therapy only.

• Trauma-Informed Care

Similarly, the principles of racial trauma presented by Cenat (2022) explain that when the concept of systemic oppression is regarded as the source of mental suffering, it will lead to a more accurate diagnosis and applicability to treatment. As Hunte et al. (2021) note, the position statements of the National Black Nurses Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics also endorse the concept of incorporating the anti-racist models into the screening and referrals process of pediatric mental health.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the CDC, there is a need to detect trauma among young individuals who are marginalized at a tender age. Adil and Suarez (2021) proposed that psychological help would be accessible in secure places like schools and places of worship. All these sources support the method offered by the team because they demonstrate that the culturally based, trauma-sensitive care not only improves the clinical outcomes but also makes individuals stronger and less stigmatized.

• Knowledge Gaps

Despite this good evidence, there are gaps in knowledge that are important. Very scant longitudinal data have been discovered on the ultimate consequences of CR-TIC models on scholastic achievement, participation in juvenile justice or mental health classes in adulthood in Black adolescents. In addition, it is also necessary to state that the cost-efficiency of interprofessional CR-TIC teams within the under-resourced real-life conditions is another aspect that should be considered, as mentioned by Schlosser et al. (2024).

The best dosage, time, and fidelity measures of the culturally adapted interventions are yet to be determined. Further research is needed to identify the factors of CR-TIC that lead to the most significant changes, whether they be the consistency of the provider race, the strength of family involvement, or a specific form of therapeutic intervention. Without this granular evidence, the successful practices in different communities may not be combined.

Contrary Positions

Other people will doubt the need for culturally sensitive mental health care. They believe that CBT interventions are useful with every patient and are afraid of creating stereotypes or diverting resources to time-proven methods, which has been observed in the study of Huey et al. (2023). Other people can argue that the systematic obstacles, such as the insurance coverage or workforce shortage, have accumulated so much that it will be a futile undertaking to involve them in the localized, in-team structures.

As much as these perceptions have their ground on practical matters, they fail to appreciate the empirical reality that the typical EBTs merely fail to appeal and keep Black adolescents due to the cultural misfit and distrust. In addition, one may ask the critics whether trauma-informed care is distinguished as the one that is the most different in comparison to general supportive counseling, or could be effectively implemented without extensive training. These criticisms are legitimate, but they cannot be deemed as a weakness of the philosophy behind CR-TIC, as it represents the challenge in implementation.

• Conflicting Data

To build up buy-in, the team can respond by reframing CR-TIC as a supportive facility to EBTs instead of opposing them and making them more engaging and closer to marginalized youth. The team can propose a stage-by-stage application that will have a built-in gauge of evaluation so that the stakeholders can view the outcome of the application before they spend heavily.

The team can turn doubt into teamwork by locating the shortage of resources and bringing about possible and tested solutions. They suggest the use of community health workers and the training on the existing programs, as seen by Crawford et al. (2025). Lastly, the emphasis on the experiences and voices of Black adolescents and their families in the design of the program should ensure that the provided intervention is not only clinically but also culturally valid.

Conclusion

Culturally responsive interprofessional collaboration-based trauma-informed care has tremendous potential to improve the mental health outcomes of black adolescents. Its effectiveness has been proven by evidence, but problems of implementation and knowledge gaps should be addressed with long-term research and policy enforcement.

More cultural interventions, such as engagement of the community, can also help in fostering trust and effective therapy. Lastly, a systemic change founded on the principle of cultural humility and interdisciplinary action is the answer to equitable mental health care.

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