Transforming Careers in Mental Health for Bipoc: Mentoring Strategies to Promote Healing and Social Change

There has been an unprecedented and growing challenge to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) principles, practices and theories over the past decade. Higher education and social work education have been one of the targets of the challenge, with prominent educational institutions finding themselves in the crosshairs of the increased politicization of DEI. As institutions, scholars and practitioners identify approaches to sustain this important and core area of scholarship in social work, the role of collective strategies are critically important, as are the narratives of those social work scholars who have been forging ahead and making progress. Mentoring is utilized in social work as a strategy for socializing emerging and junior professionals and may also be a core strategy for addressing the current challenge to DEI. The social work profession cannot abide by its person-in-environment lens while simultaneously denying the host of environmental inequities that impact people and their social functioning and outcomes. What can and does resistance look like in the face of such a challenge? What is the role of mentoring in resisting, persisting and overcoming? There is an opportunity to explore strategies and approaches that can be shared and tailored across different roles and career stages among social work researchers, clinicians and administrators. In this roundtable session, special guests and contributors to a new edited volume, Transforming Careers in Mental Health for BIPOC: Strategies to Promote Healing and Social Change (2024), will engage the audience in a critical conversation about the role of mentoring for BIPOC researchers, clinicians, and administrators in cultivating strategic and courageous responses to the current attacks on DEI in higher education, training, and mental health practice contexts. This is a critical time to engage in consolidating progress and gains while planning for continuous and sustained action. The session's key take-aways will include a discussion of the professional challenges and concerns facing BIPOC researchers, clinicians and administrators in expanding their impact and their ranks to better meet the mental health needs of historically under-represented communities and an exploration of a range of approaches to creating an authentic, transformative career in mental health for BIPOC. Presenters will discuss the ways in which the challenge to DEI is manifesting in their current professional context, including any relevant historical context. They will discuss how they tried to advance their work and what strategies or approaches they identified to resist, persist and persevere towards progress. What role did mentoring play in their resistance and their choice of strategies? How do they mentor others with these challenges in mind? Presenters will address the research, leadership, and clinical practice contexts. The doctoral students will address the role of mentoring in their own ability to resist and persist. We aim to spark a conversation that will promote understanding of the shared responsibility we have to protect and advance the scholarship and practice of promoting and achieving diversity, equity and inclusion.50 modified by 72.80.236.92 on 4-15-2024-->