Antiracist mental healthcare training and development of multicultural awareness, knowledge and skills among school mental health providers in Canada

In Canada, mental health disparities persist among racialized populations, including Black, Indigenous and other people of color. A major barrier to equitable care is the lack of adequate training of mental health professionals on racial issues. To address this unmet need, Cénat and colleagues introduced the Providing Antiracist Mental Health Care online training course. This contains five modules addressing: (a) awareness of racial issues, (b) assessment adapted to the needs of racialized individuals, (c) a humanistic approach to medication management, (d) treatment approaches for issues related to racism, and (e) providing tailored antiracist mental healthcare to children, adolescents, and families from racialized communities. This article discusses the implementation of this training among mental health providers in a school board in Ontario, Canada (<i>n</i> = 27), assessing changes in participants' multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills at pre-, post-, and follow-up timepoints. The results show the ability of the Providing Antiracist Mental Health Care training course to effectively enhance multicultural awareness (<i>F</i>(2, 21) = 10.52, <i>p</i> < .001), knowledge (<i>F</i>(2, 21) = 11.88, <i>p</i> < .001) and skills (<i>F</i>(2, 21) = 5.21, <i>p</i> = .014) among mental health providers in ethnically diverse schools. The total score improved significantly (<i>F</i>(2, 20) = 12.17, <i>p</i> < .001) from pre-test to post-test, and follow-up, and no significant decrement from the post-test to follow-up was observed (<i>M</i> = 2.81, <i>SD</i> = 0.16; <i>p</i> = .861). This study brings evidence supporting the need for sustained and comprehensive antiracist training initiatives to foster racial equity in mental health and improve outcomes in care for racialized individuals.