Jessica Henderson Daniel, PhD, ABPP
	Check out the Fishbowl books The Emperor of Ocean Park This story follows the mysterious death of a Black judge. Caramelo This novel is a multigenerational tale of a Mexican-American family. The Fall of Rome A teacher struggles as the only Black faculty member at an elite boarding school. 72 Hour Hold A Black 18-year-old suffering from bipolar disorder finds no help from the mental health community.

On November 1, families across the nation will switch off their television sets as part of National Family Literacy Day. While reading together can bring families closer, the act of reading can also help to teach understanding about various cultures and backgrounds. Just ask Children's Hospital Boston's Jessica Henderson Daniel, PhD, ABPP, senior associate and director of Training in Psychology and associate director of the Leadership Education in Adolescent Health, who has spearheaded several reading-related initiatives at Children's.

Daniel has combined her life-long love of reading with her mission to improve patient care for those from various racial and ethnic backgrounds by creating opportunities to make Children's clinicians more culturally aware. "Providers who feel competent in providing care across racial/ethnic differences have more options about how to talk to parents and consequently experience less anxiety in those interactions," she says. "This can result in both better care and improved patient and provider satisfaction."

Back in 1988, after receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health to increase the number of minority clinicians at Children's, Daniel first recognized the potential of using novels to explore issues of mental health and cultural awareness. So she invited clinicians of color to present such novels, including Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, about four Chinese-American women's relationships with each other and their daughters, and The Color Purple, Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the problems faced by Black women during the 1930s in the South. "Every cultural group is represented by many voices," says Daniel. "Novels can provide an introduction to a cultural group though the narratives of the different authors. The characters' lives highlight an array of relationships in the context of beliefs and values. It can be an engaging way to learn."

Fifteen years later, Daniel expanded her unique approach by creating the Diversity Training Through Literature Fishbowl Grand Rounds as a way for faculty, residents, fellows and interns to become more engaged in learning about diversity by watching senior clinicians from Psychiatry, Psychology and Social Work participate in panel discussions. These discussions explore how race and/or ethnicity play into a certain novel's story line and how cultural issues affect characters' mental health.

Guest moderators lead discussions and help put stories in context with current issues relating to race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and social class, and at the end of the event, the audience joins the discussion. This year, three Black clinicians discussed the book 72 Hour Hold, by Bebe Moore Campbell, which explores the world of a Black middle class family struggling to find care for a bipolar adolescent.

In addition to the Fishbowl series, Daniel inspires literacy and cultural understanding through her program, Booking It in the Waiting Room. The program donates free books to the waiting room of the Division of Adolescent Medicine for adolescents, from pre-teens through college age. During the annual Martin Luther King Observance, which Daniel organizes, she has provided lists of suggested books for children, adolescents and adults by Black authors and holds drawings for gift baskets of these books for children and adults.

After years of organizing and hosting such events, Daniel has had a chance to reflect on the impact of her efforts, especially the Fishbowl series. "I believe that faculty and trainees are committed to offering quality care regardless of patients' demographics," she says. "We live in a society where being politically correct can trump honest conversations and inquiries," says Daniel. "I want people to feel comfortable learning. Talking about race and ethnicity in mixed company is not the norm, but we can learn how to do this."

In the spring, Fishbowl will feature The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. Watch for details in future issues of Children's News.