Diversity
Commitment to Anti-Racism
The Master of Arts in Applied Child & Adolescent Psychology: Prevention and Treatment program is committed to practicing anti-racism by fostering diversity and inclusion while promoting equity in all its activities, policies and practices.
Current and historical acts of oppression and prejudice disproportionately devalue people of diverse identities including race, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, gender identification, ability and socioeconomic status, among others. We are committed to recruiting and retaining staff and students from marginalized and historically excluded groups. We are also dedicated to training all students to do effective clinical work with diverse children, adolescents and families.
We understand that anti-racism must involve institutional level change and we are committed to identifying and challenging bias and racism in every decision we make to achieve more equitable outcomes for our students. The program’s leadership; Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) Committee; and faculty are continually working to create a learning environment that centers diverse ideas, perspectives and lived experiences, and honors all identities.
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) Committee
The diversity of our students, faculty and staff enhances the excellence of our program. Our shared goals regarding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) aim to improve the quality of our program, the training of our students, the services our students and graduates provide to their clients, and the mental health of our broader community.
Our program’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) Committee uses a variety of strategies to build and promote an anti-racist, equitable and inclusive culture. It conducts ongoing reviews of courses to increase DEI content and ensure minoritized and historically excluded voices are represented; addresses programmatic and structural issues related to DEI; supports faculty trainings on creating classes that are inclusive and address equity issues; manages bias reporting; and supports Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) students as well as students from other marginalized and oppressed groups.
The 2023–2024 IDEA Committee includes Liliana Lengua (faculty leadership), Marisa Keller (faculty), Anthony Osuna (faculty), Dannielle Whiley (faculty), Erjing Cui (faculty), Nikita Nerkar (student) and Ray Almeyda (student).
Student Representation
We recognize that a diverse student body benefits everyone: students, instructors and the program as a whole. According to a 2015 report by the American Psychological Association, only 15% of the psychology workforce is BIPOC, compared to 38% of the U.S. population. According to Pew Research projections, the United States will be majority BIPOC by 2050.
Nationally, a 2021 APA survey reports that students in a sample of master’s programs across the U.S. were 37% BIPOC and 52% white on average. Through critical examination of our recruitment and admissions processes, the University of Washington Master of Arts in Applied Child & Adolescent Psychology: Prevention & Treatment program is committed to attracting, retaining and graduating increasing numbers of students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds as well as historically underrepresented populations.
Citations:
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/02/datapoint
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2008/02/11/us-population-projections-2005-2050
The Land We're On
The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Duwamish, Puyallup, Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations.
The Master of Arts in Applied Child & Adolescent Psychology: Prevention & Treatment program acknowledges that we are uninvited visitors to their homeland, also the homeland of the Duwamish People, who continue to pursue their federal recognition.
We invite you to reflect on the lands on which we reside and acknowledge all of the ancestral homelands and traditional territories of Indigenous peoples who have been here since time immemorial. Acknowledging the ceded and unceded land on which we all stand could not be more important in our current historical moment. We encourage you to consult Native Land to learn more.