Help-Seeking Attitudes and Behaviors of English-Speaking Caribbean College Students: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Clinical Practice

Professional counselors are ethically bound to provide culturally responsive counseling services. Multicultural competence is an ongoing process and requires one to continually improve in three main areas: knowledge, attitudes and skills. While the literature provides an extensive amount of information on many minority populations, information on the English-speaking Caribbean population remains largely nonexistent. Likewise, despite the growing numbers of Caribbean college students in the United States, Caribbean mental health is still not addressed in graduate counseling programs. This dearth of information on Caribbeans may negatively impact a counselor’s ability to provide culturally appropriate services to Caribbean college students. This article provides a brief overview of the Caribbean culture in an effort to equip counselors with the resources needed to increase knowledge, improve skills, and examine their attitudes towards this population. Therapeutic interventions and recommendations for working with Caribbean college students are also addressed.