History

Established in 1992 with a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation the CCHCP was a response to an increasingly urgent need to decipher and to negotiate the diverse health care needs of the growing non-mainstream, limited English speaking populations in the Seattle area.

From its inception, the CCHCP has approached the issue of cultural competency from a unique perspective which acknowledges its complex, systemic nature. Consequently, the work of the CCHCP has substantively differed from that of most organizations in the field which focus only on specific pieces of the puzzle of cultural competency.

The CCHCP's approach places culture within the context of an interwoven network of relationships – between language and tradition, tradition and history, history and economics, etc. This basic but surprisingly atypical understanding of culture has allowed the CCHCP to build innovative programs addressing multiple layers of need within communities. The recognition that health care systems and institutions also operate as complex cultures, with specialized languages, traditions, and codes of conduct, has allowed us to develop similarly focused programs for organizational systems.

In 1996, with a second-time grant awarded by Kellogg we began a campaign to disseminate our programs and products at the national level, and have been providing trainings at public and private settings across the country. The scope and reach of our programs continue to shift and grow. The strength of our work lies in our commitment to remain grounded within the communities we serve, and our consistent efforts to evaluate the efficacy of our work. We continue to strive to anticipate and respond to the changing needs of our communities and the emerging challenges surfacing in the health care field.