Expanding the Psychological Wellness Threshold for Black College Women

Background and Purpose: Many college students face additional personal, social, academic, and vocational concerns during their matriculation that requires them to navigate developmental tasks, focusing on emotional adjustment, interpersonal relationships and academic concerns.  Black college women often experience compounding stressful daily life events, such as gender and racial discrimination and feelings of isolation due to their minority status. These distinct challenges add a layer of complexity to the psychological and social adjustment of Black college women. The field of college mental health is faced with the critical task of providing culturally-relevant services that meet the complex psychological needs of their growing Black student populations.  The current literature suggests that to enhance mental health treatment outcomes for Black college women, programs must be culturally-relevant and include subsidiary services (i.e., ethnic and linguistic matching, schedule flexibility, extended sessions, peer support networks) that are more helpful than standard college counseling programs. The authors present data from an innovative strengths-based, group intervention program entitled “Claiming Your Connections,” aimed at reducing stress and enhancing psychosocial competence among Black women.

Methods: This study used an experimental design, composed of an intervention and a comparison group with pretest and posttest measures to study the effectiveness of the CYC group intervention among 96 Black college women at five colleges within the Northeast and Southeast regions of the United States.  The CYC group intervention consisted of ten-weekly, 90-minute sessions. Structured and didactic methods based upon Black feminist perspectives and Black women’s psychological and social needs and experiences are integrated into each session to make the manual culturally congruent.

Data were analyzed using SPSS version 21 for Microsoft windows.  Descriptive statistics were used to examine the demographic characteristics of the sample.  Chi-square and independent two-sample t-test analysis were conducted on demographic variables to estimate group differences.  Repeated measures analysis of variance (RANOVA) was used to test intervention effects for the outcome variables.  This was a two group (CYC intervention, no-treatment-control) by two-time point (pre-intervention, post-intervention) by three outcomes (perceived stress, external locus of control and active coping model).

Results: At pretreatment both groups indicated moderate levels of depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and psychosocial competence.  At post intervention, the CYC groups reported a significant reduction in perceived stress and locus of control compared to the wait-list control groups.   Pillai’s Trace F-values represent the outcome variables and were found to be significant at the p< .01 level for the main effects of both time and condition for the variable of perceived stress and locus of control.

Implications: The data provided promising findings for the CYC group intervention program and its efficacy with Black women who report having difficulty managing stressors of daily life. Social work practice research must continue to focus on understanding of the psychosocial competence characteristics underlying adjustment and adaptation for Black students and of the patterns of change needed to successfully matriculate at universities and colleges.