Person-Centered Culturally Responsive Assessment Guidelines
The following guidelines will loosely adhere to the domains of the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) (APA, 2013) in tandem with leading evidence-based assessment recommendations for multi-informant, multi-method interview procedures for youth mental health.   ​
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The CFI is a brief cultural assessment that is freely available and part of the DSM-5. It has shown promise in improving engagement, rapport, and diagnostic accuracy. The interview is meant to be used flexibly, and as a starting place, to assess important cultural and contextual factors. Many of these topics should be reassessed with frequency. The assessment is not a closed conversation; it is best viewed as a starting point for conversations.  
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Core Domains of Person-Centered Culturally Responsive Assessment
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The guidance provided above is only a starting place. Just as it is critical to conduct ongoing assessment of youth avoidance behaviors, anxious distress, intrusive thoughts, obsessions, and compulsions, so too, it is important to continue assessing cultural and contextual factors. Click here for ongoing and indepth cultural assessment recommendations.
Potential Challenges​​
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If you suspect the client may have stressors, but is not able to discuss them, brief measures may be useful to incorporate, in addition to the clinical interview (e.g., measures of racial stress, acculturation stress; see Additional Measures section).  ​
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Additionally, if you begin the assessment with the caregiver in the room and notice that the client or caregiver appears uncomfortable, you can re-ask those items when you are with the client or caregiver alone and remind them of confidentiality and its limits.  
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Potential Pitfalls​​
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Many clinicians are concerned about “prying into” client’s identity and background, and share sentiments like, “Won’t clients share these topics if they want to, when they are ready?”   ​
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Clients may not always bring up aspects of their identity even if they want to talk about it. Given inherent power dynamics in the clinician–client relationship (see Relationship-Building Strategies), it is important that the clinician initiate these conversations to demonstrate their interest and the value of the client’s perspectives and experiences.  
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Respecting a client’s refusal to disclose specific information is also a way of demonstrating you value and respect their autonomy, so if the client does seem hesitant, don’t push disclosure especially early on in treatment. 
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Note: We recognize that clinics have varying policies and requirements related to intake and assessment procedures. Intake assessments also often include assessments of medical, developmental, educational, and social histories. We have provided an example integrated biopsychosocial and culturally responsive assessment to use as a sample guide (see below). These guidelines will need to be tailored to your clinic setting. We highly recommend incorporating person-centered culturally responsive assessment from the beginning, but these questions can (and should) be asked throughout treatment.  
Printable Resources
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