Diversifying Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology: A Change Gonna Come.

OBJECTIVES: Workforce diversity is an ongoing challenge in the field of clinical child and adolescent psychology. This article discusses individual, institutional, and nonspecific factors that contribute to a lack of diversity among clinical child and adolescent psychologists and offers suggestions to diversify and advance the field of clinical child and adolescent mental health. METHOD: Seventeen professors, licensed psychologists, faculty, and clinicians in the field of clinical child and adolescent psychology answered questions about workforce diversity and who is permitted access to the field. No formal research was conducted. RESULTS: Individual factors included: racial discrimination and microaggressions, feelings of isolation, otherness, and not belonging. Institutional factors included: racism in academia, racial underrepresentation, ethnocentric and culturally-biased training, biased admissions selection processes, financial barriers, and lack of institutional commitment. Nonspecific factors were: values misalignment, hidden expectations, suboptimal mentoring, and limited research opportunities. CONCLUSIONS: Drawing on recent scholarship and the Contexts, Actions, and Outcomes (CAO) Model, we recommend institutional changes in programs, policies, practices, resources, climate, partnerships, and inquiry to improve diversity in the field of clinical child and adolescent psychology.

Measuring institutional and structural racism in research on adolescence and developmental science.

Dismantling racism and oppression in adolescence requires sound measurement and rigorous methods. In this commentary, we discuss the measurement of institutional and structural racism and approaches to operationalizing structures and systems in adolescent research. Drawing on a recent framework for the conceptualization, measurement, and analysis of institutional racism and health (Needham et al., Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, in press), we highlight several considerations for measuring institutional and structural racism. These include definitional issues, the tension between individual- and area-level measures, questions of timing, and matters of design and analysis. We conclude with suggestions to address gaps in existing literature and call for transdisciplinary training, collaboration, and partnership to promote the healthy development of Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) adolescents and young people.

"Easier said than done": A qualitative investigation of Black emerging adults coping with multilevel racism.

OBJECTIVES: This qualitative investigation examined how Black emerging adults cope with their worst experiences of racism at multiple levels (individual, cultural, and institutional). METHODS: A sample of 189 Black emerging adults (M age = 19.34, 68.3% female) from a predominantly White institution completed an online questionnaire with an open-ended question regarding their worst experience of racism and how they coped. Responses to these questions were coded using deductive coding schemes based on established theory-Jones' (1997) tripartite model of racism and Harrell's (2000) typology of coping. RESULTS: Results indicated that the majority of participants utilized active and inner-directed coping strategies in response to their worst experience. More participants responded to institutional-level racism with active rather than passive coping. There were no differences in proportions of participants who responded to individual- or cultural-level racism with active rather than passive coping. Similar proportions of participants also reported inner-directed versus outer-directed coping in response to individual-, cultural-, and institutional-level experiences. CONCLUSIONS: Implications for practice, policy, and programming to support the mental health of Black emerging adults are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).