• Expertise in developing culturally competent services is required both in mainstream and more specialist services. A framework for cultural competence in service provision is outlined. Cultural competence can be realised through developing individual and organisational
competence via a relationship that is both inter-dependent and mutually reinforcing. • Resources should be directed at staff
training and enhancing understanding of different minority ethnic group cultures.
• Addressing racism and systems within organisations that support it are required.
• Continuous monitoring of services is needed to ensure adaptation to changing population needs, changing drinking trends and appropriate targeting of services where most needed.
• Young people from minority ethnic groups face additional challenges of reconciling drinking behaviour with cultural and gender expectations. Their preferences for support need to be explored.
• Well-conceptualised and theoretically underpinned ethnographic research approaches can usefully guide culturally appropriate service development, as they locate the research question within the context of the underlying values and attitudes of the group(s) being researched. A clear rationale is given for the approach and issues have emerged from among the researched ‘community’ itself. Findings will be directly relevant and benefi t individuals.
Differences in how the problem drinker and female family members cope with problem drinking point to a range of needs when they are accessing services. To this end, Ahuja et
al. (2003) note that detachment from family
members’ drinking problems by others in the family is encouraged by many professional treatment services, and they call for professionals to be conscious of the ways in which Sikh women try to cope with their husband’s problem drinking and to recognise their diffi culties in attaining any degree of independence. Professionals need to recognise the links between masculine identity and drinking in Sikh culture, and that men may play down both the problems around their drinking and the concern of female family members, in attempts to preserve their masculine identity.
In the light of fi ndings such as these, Orford et
al. (in press), have developed a two-component
model that focuses fi rstly on understanding the experiences of different family members and, secondly, introduces fl exible ways of working with them. Research has been carried out among two different minority ethnic groups in the Midlands and, despite referring largely to the treatment of drug problems, it strives to offer examples of good practice and a model for future development of service provision in which the impact of the problem on the family is addressed.
Two further examples are provided of how culturally sensitive research can be used to guide the development of culturally specifi c services with a focus on recovery from problem drinking. Factors enabling people with drink problems to recover without outside help are surveyed in the fi rst study, and the dimensions of spirituality and religion are explored in the second. The emphasis in both studies is on the exploration of the processes and mechanisms underlying recovery within the broader context of the attitudes and beliefs of the groups being researched.
Minority ethnic usage of local community-based alcohol services is often found to be underused, even in areas where community penetration of a specialist service is well developed (Cameron, 1995 in Cameron et al., 2002). One reason for this may be that a signifi cant change in drinking practice can occur among people who have drunk excessively in early adulthood the literature. A clear rationale for the approach
is provided for each study and the issues researched have emerged from within the cultural context and needs of the individuals being researched. These issues are directly relevant to the particular participants involved and emergent fi ndings will potentially benefi t them. The studies also tend to use theoretically underpinned approaches and illustrate how well- conceptualised research can be used to inform the development of culturally specifi c services.
This study by Ahuja et al., (2003) identifi es the ways in which different family members attempt to cope with alcohol problems within their families in the Sikh community and is the only UK study found to address coping with drinking in the family context. It uses a combined qualitative and quantitative approach and questions are based on psychological constructs with interviews conducted in the participant’s preferred language.
Signifi cantly, the effect of problem drinking on the drinker’s immediate family has rarely been addressed, yet the female members of a family in which there is a male problem drinker are usually very willing to be supportive in their treatment (Ahuja et al., 2003). The study revealed a number of important fi ndings. One was the difference in perceptions of the male problem drinker and female family members on the effects of their drinking, with male drinkers not recognising their excessive drinking as a problem affecting their family and believing it to be under their control. Sikh women were, however, affected by their husband/father’s drinking in many aspects of their daily lives – social, economic, personal and emotional – and the stereotype of the Sikh wife quietly tolerating her husband’s drinking was neither accurate, nor refl ected the complexity of different ways in which mothers and daughters sought to cope with his behaviour. Wives felt duty bound to be supportive but isolated from their community as attempting to conceal the husband/father’s behaviour from public knowledge denied them the very support that they needed.
but who in their later years cut down on their consumption or become abstinent.
Cameron et al., (2002) examined the reasons why the patterns of problem drinking among Asians and White males might change over their lifecycles and how those changes then stabilise. While health, self esteem and being able to cope and work were mutual concerns for motivating Asian and White groups to stop or reduce their alcohol intake, there were striking differences. Compared with the White population, who were found to be more isolated, less concerned with their public image and more interested in psychological and domestic problems around their alcohol use, the Asian population had a stronger sense of community, more coherent social networks of extended families and a readily available, often abstinent and religion-based culture, within which they could re-establish links more easily. Cameron et al. (2002) conclude that goals and treatment within services should refl ect the attitudes and beliefs of the communities of origin of their clients.
The exploratory work of Morjaria and Orford, 2002, among men recovering from problem drinking, points to different models of recovery for South Asian men and White members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). South Asian men already had a pre-existing foundation of beliefs embedded in their cultural values and underwent a process of reaffi rmation of their beliefs. White AA members, in contrast, mostly lacked any spiritual beliefs and needed to develop a faith by undergoing a process of conversion. For South Asians, recovery itself was the goal; for White AA members it was lifelong abstinence. Morjaria and Orford suggest that among South Asian people there is great potential in further exploring more culturally embedded processes of recovery, about which little is known, to further our understanding and to develop culturally appropriate services that can incorporate the spiritual aspect of recovery.