John D. Cowden, MD, MPH, QBS

Director, Culture & Language Coaching Program; Medical Director, Qualified Bilingual Staff Program; Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine; Clinical Assistant Professor of Population Health, University of Kansas School of Medicine

Full Biography

Children’s Mercy Kansas City (CMKC) and John (JC) Cowden, MD, MPH, QBS, Pediatrics, in partnership with Adelante Kansas City, received a two-year, $385,220 award from the Children’s Services Fund of Jackson County for the project, “The Community of Bilingual Practice: Advancing Mental Health Equity through Cultural and Linguistic Capacity-Building in Jackson County.”

Adelante Kansas City is a Children’s Mercy program that provides one-on-one culture and language coaching for mental and behavioral health providers. The program’s goal is to advance the mental health and wellbeing of the Spanish-speaking, limited English proficiency population in the Kansas City area.

Dr. Cowden will collaborate with Adelante Kansas City’s four “core partner” organizations, which include CMKC Developmental and Behavioral Health Division, Front Porch Alliance, Mattie Rhodes Center, and the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault (MOCSA).

Dr. Cowden and the project partners plan to create and grow the Kansas City Community of Bilingual Practice (KC CBP) in Jackson County and throughout the KC metro area to increase:

• Connections
  • Create new opportunities for connection among bilingual practitioners and their organizations, as well as between community members and health and human service providers.
• Capacity
  • Increase the capacity in the Kansas City metropolitan area for providing high-quality, culturally responsive health and human services to Spanish-speaking community members.
• Career Pathways
  • Cultivate career pathways for bilingual individuals hoping to work in health and human services and support career development for those already in the field.

“This award will allow us to share the lessons we have learned in the Adelante KC Program across a much broader group of bilingual professionals and organizations serving Spanish-speaking community members,” said Dr. Cowden. “The KC CBP offers us a new way to come together in advancing toward health equity.”