JCCAP FDF/2022

This year's Forum looks a little bit different. Instead of in past years where the conference was held over the course of 2 to 3 days, this year's programming will be held in the form of a webinar series spanning from July to December. While we have all address and workshops listed, the descriptions and YouTube links will be updated as the events occur, so stay tuned for full descriptions of the programming.

Addresses

Future Directions Address 1: Future Directions in Research on Brief, Scalable Interventions

Presented by Dr. Jessica Schleider, Ph.D.

Description

Of the children and adolescents in the United States that experience significant mental health difficulties, only 20% access specialized mental health treatment, only 5% complete such treatment, and the modal number of treatment sessions attended in evidence-based care is 1. The problem that these statistics convey is further exacerbated by provider shortages, as Schleider explains. However, single session interventions (SSI) have the potential to help, in certain cases, as much as longer term treatments, and can fill otherwise unfillable gaps in mental healthcare systems.

In her address, Schleider discusses two SSIs, "Project Personality" and "The ABC Project" that have shown promise for youth depression. Schleider details the methodology and future directions of these approaches, emphasizing the potential for social media platforms, industry partnership, drop-in centers, minority-specific programs, and waiving parent permission to promote youth autonomy to streamline dissemination of such approaches.

Elaborating further on the future directions of SSI work, Schleider discusses the necessity of the field to:

Strengthen mechanisms for the systematic dissemination of evidence-based SSIs into community settings, such as to individuals on waitlists
Center work predominantly around the needs of youth, from intervention co-design to direct-to-teen deployment
Increase the use of lay and peer providers to disseminate SSIs
Strengthen industry engagement and partnership to utilize the expansive reach of related companies with complementary aims
Improve cost-effectiveness research on SSIs in order to ensure open access to intervention materials as the norm in the field of Psychology

Watch the YouTube video recording of the address enter link here.

Future Directions Address 2: Future Directions in Research on Racism

Presented by Dr. Riana Anderson, Ph.D.

Description

Watch the YouTube video recording of the address enter link here

Future Directions Address 3: Future Directions in Research on Lay Health Workers

Presented by Dr. Miya Barnett, Ph.D.

Description

Watch the YouTube video recording of the address enter link here.

Workshops

Diversity and Inclusion

Presented by Cassandra Boness, Ph.D. and Chardée Galán, Ph.D.

Description

The field of Psychology has made significant strides over the course of the last decade in improving diversity among recruits to graduate programs. However, comparatively few minority students, especially Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) are retained throughout these degree programs and subsequent career pathways. In this workshop, Boness and Galán discuss the practical implications of their recent work on anti-racism in graduate training programs.

Boness and Galán use the analogy of a leaky pipeline, wherein "leaks" occur when a diverse student body is recruited, but individuals ultimately alter their academic and career trajectories due to adverse experiences with institutionalized racism and discrimination, effectively maintaining lack of diversity as a status quo in the field of psychology. Boness and Galán identify both cultural taxation and decreased sense of belonging as drivers of discrimination, detailing the nuanced and intersectional factors at play.

As Boness and Galán explain, we must build an actively anti-racist system that is meant not only to recruit BIPOC to psychology graduate programs, but additionally to retain those individuals throughout their trajectories. This means changing the current approaches to training and ensuring that all students and professionals alike graduate with the skills necessary for antiracist practice in research, receive education on concrete skills for communicating and facilitating cross cultural experiences, and are trained on navigating discussion of experiences of racism in clinical settings.

Boness and Galán emphasize the need to move beyond simple representation, pushing for active reform. In contrast to performative tokenism, authentic change involved embedding DEI principles into the culture of degree programs and moving beyond the surface "quick-fix" level to ensure every individual implements concrete measures for informed anti-racist change. Authentic change works toward the central goal of creating a culture wherein individuals can intervene in cases of microaggressions and discrimination to implement a dynamic conversation surrounding race, ethnicity, and cross-cultural experiences during education, clinical work, and research.

Boness and Galán divided the workshop into three smaller working groups, which were instructed to deep-dive into two or three detailed plans for change centered around either:

Increasing the recruitment, retention, and sense of belonging among faculty and students of color
Advancing cultural humility in clinical training and supervision
Improving training in racially and socially just research practices

All working groups reconvened for a larger discussion at the end of the session, led by Boness and Galán.

Watch the YouTube recording of the workshop here.