Education
Goal: Increase diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism (DEI/AR) learning opportunities for faculty, staff, students, and administration.
Department members have collaboratively:
- Coordinated the administration of faculty and trainee surveys on culturally responsive supervision across the department to understand and address needs in that area
- Updated the Academic Grand Rounds policy to ensure that at least three Grand Rounds per year focus on DEI/AR-related issues.
- Created a tip sheet to help didactics presenters provide DEI/AR context for their content.
- Revised the faculty appointment and promotion policy to require ongoing DEI/AR training for faculty.
- Launched a curriculum retreat to convene training program directors to share best practices on integrating DEI/AR content into their curricula.
Recruitment
Goal: Increase representation, retention, and success among historically underrepresented students and employees, as well as women in science and medicine.
Department members have collaboratively:
- Created a BIPoC RA Mentorship Program that provides RAs across DPHB with mentoring support that speaks to the needs of young researchers of color.
- Overhauled trainee recruitment and admissions policies to allow remote interviews (for equity), standardize interview questions (to minimize bias), and include contributions to diversity in the rating scale for applicants.
- Initiated implicit bias training for faculty involved in the admissions process for trainees.
- Hosted away-rotations in psychiatry for medical students through the Diversity Visiting Student Scholarship and an NIMH-funded Summer Research Fellowship.
- Presented departmental diversity metrics and activities to recruits who interview for the clinical psychology training programs.
Culture
Goal: Improve the climate and culture within and across departments on campus to promote inclusivity, safety, and belonging.
Department members have collaboratively:
- Created a Spanish language supervision group for Spanish-speaking trainees who work with Spanish-speaking clients.
- Formed faculty-of-color, trainee-of-color, LGBTQ+, and disability/chronic illness affinity groups that meet regularly for department-sponsored dinners.
- Launched a peer mentoring program that matches trainees of similar backgrounds or interests.
- Filled a new Communications Manager position to communicate DEI/AR initiatives and other departmental matters internally and externally.
- Created a $25,000 diversity award to support an early-career faculty member with a clinical or educational project.
Community
Goal: Increase relational and transformational engagement with the local community, and increase opportunities to produce scholarship on issues of equity, justice, power, and privilege impacting historically underrepresented groups.
Department members have collaboratively:
- Organized a Day of Service for child track psychology residents and postdoctoral fellows to partner with local nonprofits on community service projects.
- Developed a STAR COBRE pilot program to award up to $40,000 to research projects focused on health inequalities and/or marginalized groups.
- Created summer job experiences through Brown University Health for first-generation college students interested in learning about research and clinical care in child psychology.
- Penned a Providence Journal op-ed in support of behavioral health response teams as an anti-racist intervention in policing.
- Created a scholarship for investigators from less-resourced institutions to train with the Qualitative Science and Methods Training Program (QSMTP).
