Amherst is located 30-45 minutes north of Holyoke and Springfield, Massachusetts which are very ethnically diverse communities. 41% of Holyoke residents and 27% of Springfield residents identify themselves as Latino/a (predominantly Puerto Rican), and 21% of Springfield residents identify themselves as black or African-American. Amherst also has a smaller but sizeable ethnic minority population, including but not limited to Asian-American (9% of the population), African-American (5%), and Latino/a (6%) communities. Community agencies have been very open to helping faculty and students recruit research participants through their sites, which have resulted in a number of research projects, dissertations, and theses that have ethnically diverse samples. Many of our clinical practica sites provide services to diverse populations. Summaries of research and clinical opportunities are below:
Clinical Practica Opportunities:
Psychological Services Center (PSC)
Through his role as Director of the Psychological Services Center, Christopher Overtree strives to increase access to mental health services to members of disadvantaged groups. By providing low-cost mental health services, the Psychological Services Center can be accessed by a wide range of community members. Additionally, our areas of specialty give opportunities for community members to identify areas of need and receive services tailored to those needs.
Mt Holyoke College Counseling Services
Clients are high achieving women from a wide variety of backgrounds. The counseling center sees about 25% of the college body at some point during their 4 years. Some clients are nontraditional students and there is good exposure to diversity with regard to sexual orientation and gender (e.g., transgendered students). There are also many international students.
Springfield/Holyoke Juvenile Court Clinic
Clients are juvenile offenders who have been referred for mental health assessments. The majority of cases are in the 12-17 year old range. Most clients are male and are Latino (primarily Puerto Rican) or Black and come from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background. Many Latino parents of the client do not speak English. The number of females charged with crimes and/or referred to the court clinic is steadily increasing.
ServiceNet/Department of Mental Retardation
Clients are dually-diagnosed individuals with developmental disabilities and various psychiatric disorders and include both adults and children from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Experiences include both individual and family psychotherapy and assessment at a community outpatient clinic.
The Baystate Day School
The Baystate Day School is a therapeutic day school for children and adolescents (ages 5 - 18) with psychiatric problems that prevent them (at least temporarily) from attending a typical school. The program is housed on the south campus of Baystate Medical Center, in the heart of Springfield, MA. Most students come from the Springfield school district, with a few from Holyoke and a few from more outlying suburban regions. Roughly 80-90% of the students belong to minority ethnic groups, and probably 70-80% are near or below the poverty line. Gangs, violence, and the juvenile justice system are very real problems for many of the adolescents in the program. The practicum is the closest to an urban, typically "inner city" experience available in Western Mass that I am aware of.
Bay State Neuropsychological Testing Practicum
Neuropsychological testing is offered at an outpatient division of Bay State Medical Center. Patients range from young children to older adults and are referred for testing by doctors or psychotherapists. Presenting problems include ADHD and learning disabilities, psychological disorders (e.g., depression, pervasive developmental disorder), and physical insult from accidents or tumors, among others. You will learn to administer a broad neuropsychological testing battery and to write testing reports.
May Institute
The May Institute delivers services to developmentally disabled individuals with a range of disorders, levels of functioning and ages. The interventions they provide are strictly behavioral in orientation. There are some opportunities to get involved with research at this practicum - though that requires some initiative. As a practicum student, you can get involved with the May in one or more of the following programs.
Early Intervention: This program provides interventions to infants and toddlers who have been given diagnoses on the Autism spectrum. This program involves home visits.
School-based interventions: The May recently opened a school in W. Springfield for children with developmental disabilities. This is a great opportunity to do intensive work with children who have autism-related disorders (including Down's Syndrome and Retts), to learn how to manage a child's behavioral problems, and to learn about applied behavior analysis (i.e., the power of reinforcement). I've worked at the school for a while and it has been a very valuable experience. If you are interested in working with children and/or schools, you can't go wrong here.
Adult services: The May operates group homes throughout the Pioneer Valley (including one in Noho and one in Hadley near Hampshire College) and provides day services for developmentally disabled adults. There are a range of levels of functioning and your involvement could range from training staff to implement a behavior plan, collecting and analyzing data on existing behavior plans and developing and modifying behavior plans/assessments on a wide range of topics from language acquisition to functional analyses of self-injurious behavior.
Research Opportunities
Recent theses & dissertations that include ethnically diverse samples
Beckford, S. (2003). Relations among psychosocial risk factors, coping behaviors, and depression symptoms in late adolescent West Indian girls. Dissertation
Cheng, A. (2003) Narratives of second-generation Asian American experience: Legacies of immigration, trauma, and loss. Dissertation
Dobbs, J. (2003). Attention in the preschool classroom: The relationships among child gender, child misbehavior, and types of teacher attention. Master’s thesis.
Dobbs, J. (2003). The association between preschool children’s socio-emotional functioning and their mathematical skill. Comprehensive Exam depth paper.
Dobbs, J. (in progress). Family literacy and preschool children's social-emotional development in a head start population. Dissertation.
Fisher, P. (2003) Early math interest and the development of math skills: an understudied relationship.Dissertation
Greer, J. (2003). The relationship between cultural background and the experience of patients in primary care medical settings. Dissertation
Rodriguez L. (2004). The cultural context of parenting. Master’s thesis
Simon, S. (2004). Accessibility of treatment for depression in a diverse sample of women. Dissertation
Wong, F. (2003): The experience of Chinese American women with cultural stereotypes and parental expectations. Dissertation
Publications and presentations that focus on ethnically diverse samples
Arnold, D. H. & Doctoroff, G. L. (2003). Early education of socioeconomically disadvantaged children. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 517-545.Bonica, C., Yershova, K., Arnold, D. H., Fisher, P. H., & Zeljo, A. (2003). Relational aggression, relational victimization, and language development in preschoolers. Social Development, 12, 551-562.
Dobbs, J., Arnold, D. H., Doctoroff, G. L. (in press). Attention in the preschool classroom: The relationships among child gender, child misbehavior, and types of teacher attention. Early Child Development and Care.
Doctoroff, G. L. & Arnold, D. H. (submitted). Changes in externalizing behavior in preschoolers: The predictive utility of parent report, teacher report, and observation. Invited revisions under review at Journal of Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology.
Doctoroff, G. L., Greer, J., & Arnold, D. H. (submitted). Gender differences in the relationship between social behavior and early academic development in preschoolers. Invited revisions under review at Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.Kim, H-J, Arnold, D. H, Fisher, P. H., & Zeljo, A. (submitted). Parenting and preschoolers’ symptoms as a function of child gender and SES.
Maxie, A. C., Stephenson, M., & Arnold, D. H. (submitted). Do therapists address ethnic differences in cross-cultural psychotherapy?
Rodriguez, L., Cespedes, Y., Stoessel, B., Miller, T., Arnold, D., & Harvey, E. (2003). Validity of the Parenting Scale for Puerto Rican Parents. Poster to be presented at the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, November, 2003.
Wisocki, P. & Skowron, J. (2000). The effects of gender and culture on adjustment to widowhood. In R. Eisler and M. Hersen (Eds.) Handbook of Gender, Culture and Health. New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Wisocki, P.A., Hunt, J., & Souza, S. The experience of anxiety by elderly black women. In preparation.
Current large-scale research projects focusing on ethnically diverse populations
New Parents' Mental Health in Socio-Cultural Context. Principal Investigator: Maureen Perry-Jenkins. This five-year study will examine changes in mental health and family relationships across the transition to parenthood among African American first-time parents. The study involves in-home, intensive interviews with new mothers and fathers at multiple times across the first year of their child’ s life.
A Prospective Study of the Development of ADHD and ODD. Principal Investigator: Lisa Harvey. This project examines 3-year-old children who show behavior problems and follows them until they are 6 years olds. The project seeks to examine factors that predict which children outgrow early behavior problems. 43% of this sample are African-American or Latino children.
Preventing School Failure and Conduct Disorders in High Risk Children. Principal Investigator: David Arnold. A prevention trial evaluating the effects of family and school community partnership programs for economically disadvantaged preschool children, with a focus on school and behavior problems. This project also examines individual differences in outcomes, considering both protective and risk factors. |
Department of Psychology, Clinical Division 