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Outstanding Community Service: Rebecca Cameron

Trying to serve a segment of the population that encompasses 13 language groups is no easy task. Psychology professor Rebecca Cameron not only has to deal with that hurdle, but also help develop services for clients whose view of the world is much different from the view of western culture.

On campus, Cameron teaches abnormal psychology and personality theories to undergraduates and coordinates clinical and counseling field work for graduate students. Her off-campus work with Asian Pacific Community Counseling and the organization’s Transcultural Wellness Center earned her Sacramento State’s 2007-08 Outstanding Community Service Award.

Cameron was the president of the counseling program from July 2006 to July 2008. Several Sacramento State social workers were instrumental in creating the program 31 years ago, and it still draws the support of University people such as Gloria Gonzalez, Mike Lee, Lakshmi Malroutu, Sue Taylor and Susan Ko, Cameron says.

The most recent and ambitious project launched by the counseling program is the Transcultural Wellness Center. Located on 14th Avenue near the University, the center helps Asian- and Pacific Islander-American clients get the help they require, adapted to their unique needs. The center is a Full Service Partnership with Sacramento County and serves about 150 clients of all ages.

Providing help for these clients can be much different than a direct approach normally used in western culture. Rather than just confronting the client with the fact you’re meeting their needs, a more indirect approach is required, Cameron says.

An eastern culture might also view some symptoms of psychosis as a spiritual occurrence. So now a shaman might be included among the counselors and therapists helping a client, Cameron says. “It provides the correct kind of help for the way a person views the world.”

And then there are the language needs. Program translators have to be prepared to help clients who speak Hmong, Vietnamese, Fijian, Laotian, Tongan and eight other languages.

Cameron first became interested in California’s Asian- and Pacific Islander-American communities because they provide a counterpart to the western way of thinking. And her interest is more than just professional, it’s also personal. Cameron’s family includes her husband Christopher,10-year-old daughter Catherine and 5-year-old Jacqueline Anne Chong-Bo, who was adopted from China. “It’s important for me to be immersed in the Asian- and Pacific Islander-American communities because my daughter’s going to need that,” Cameron says.

Cameron says she was surprised and appreciative when she won the award, but emphasizes that the counseling program’s accomplishments represent the work of many people.

As long as people such as Cameron continue to get involved, Asian Pacific Community Counseling will be reaching out to help the community for many years to come.