Identify the Best Processes Posted on July 3, 2008 Nancy Gonzales (bio) suggests finding a niche in a field that is not yet mature and making interventions in that field culturally sensitive from their inception.

I think there really is no one best way or one model to develop culturally sensitive, valid intervention. And I think we really, as a field, need to think of trying to identify the best processes and practices for ensuring cultural relevance and sensitivity, but recognize that depending on the problem population, depending on whether or not there is any evidence that a program works for a particular group, depending on the maturity of the field that we're going to come at it from different angles.

So for example, treatment of depression and cognitive behavioral therapies for depression, fairly well established that they're efficacious. And therefore I don't know that anybody would want to start from scratch and think they're going to develop a new, completely new approach to treat depression.

There might be other more specific kinds of issues for which the development is less mature or unique problems. And there, I think trying to implement from the ground up starting with your theory, a culturally relevant theoretical model, and following that through, through all stages of intervention development, would be the way to go and an important thing for a researcher to do.

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