Center for Multicultural Human Services
http://www.cmhsweb.org
701 West Broad Street, Suite 305
Falls Church, VA 22046
703-533-3302

Founded in 1992

Exec. Director: Dr. Dennis Hunt
Chair, Board of Directors: N. Thomas Connally, MD.
Staff: 35 full-time staff, 65 part-time staff
2005 Budget: $4.5 million

Mission and History
The mission of the Center for Multicultural Human Services (CMHS) is to help people from ethnically diverse backgrounds succeed by providing comprehensive, culturally sensitive mental health services and by conducting research and training to make such services more widely available.

CMHS was founded in 1992 by Dr. Dennis Hunt to respond to the social and mental health needs of the growing immigrant and refugee population in the National Capital Region. This organization grew out of Hunt’s work in the 1980s finding foster placement for unaccompanied Vietnamese minors through Catholic Charities in Richmond, VA. Over the years, CMHS has evolved into a multi-dimensional service provider responding to the needs of the growing immigrant and refugee community in the region. The organization, whose professional staff and volunteers speak more than 30 languages, also trains local, national, and international human service professionals to provide culturally appropriate services to people in need.

Services
CMHS is a nonprofit organization staffed by multi-ethnic, multilingual social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, education specialists, art therapists and graduate interns from local universities.

CMHS offers a broad range of mental health, social, educational, health and language services geared to the unique values and characteristics of individuals and families from diverse cultures. They help people understand and navigate American culture and organizations so they can become self-sufficient. The CMHS approach is holistic, community, and family-centered, with a special focus on children and at-risk youth.

The majority of CMHS's work is concentrated in preventive services, including programs for at-risk youth, parenting skills, anger management classes, and psychiatric services for children and adults. CMHS has developed extensive experience and expertise in treating people of all ages who are dealing with traumatic stress resulting from surviving war in their homelands. In addition, CMHS helps people navigate a new environment through literacy, English, and life and job skills training, as well as transportation, interpreting, and emergency shelter services.

For over 10 years, CMHS has offered clinical training programs for emerging professionals in psychology, social work, and counseling. Our training programs are model programs for building the cultural competence of the U.S. mental health workforce in order to increase access to quality mental health care for critically underserved, culturally and linguistically diverse population.