Symposium Overview
The Center for Multicultural & Global Mental Health’s 10th Anniversary Symposium will address the dual pressures experienced by psychologists and mental health professionals of internal emotional exhaustion and external resistance to social change. It will equip psychologists and mental health professionals with the psychological tools needed to be personally resilient and to persist as strategic social change leaders.
Symposium Panel 1
Healing the Healer:
Radical Self-Care in an Era of Global Strife
In a climate of secondary traumatic stress fueled by sociopolitical change, global conflict, climate anxiety, and systemic inequity, psychologists and mental health professionals face unprecedented risk of burnout. This panel discussion will focus on moving beyond superficial self-care (e.g., bubbles and candles) to explore radical resilience and boundary management.
Symposium Panel 2
Social Justice Leadership:
Strategic Advocacy During a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Backlash
As institutional support for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) faces political and legal headwinds, leaders in higher education and behavioral health must shift from performative to protected advocacy. Panel 2 will provide a roadmap for sustaining social justice initiatives through risk mitigation, evidence-based impact, and strategic coalition building.
Symposium Learning Objectives
Panel 1 Learning Objectives
After participating in Panel 1 of the Symposium, attendees will be able to:
- Distinguish between standard burnout and the moral injury that occurs when systemic barriers affect psychologists' and mental health professionals’ provision of ethical care, especially when professionals and clients experience the same global stressors;
- Apply evidence-based, somatic and spiritually grounding techniques to manage and regulate vicarious trauma associated with sociopolitical conflicts; and
- Develop a personalized mindfulness/spiritual exercise to separate professional trauma-processing from private life.
Panel 2 Learning Objectives
After participating in Panel 2 of the Symposium, attendees will be able to:
- Analyze legal and social trends influencing DEI resistance in higher education and behavioral health;
- Demonstrate ways to strategically communicate the value of social justice to institutional allies without compromising mission integrity to build institution-wide protection for vulnerable programs;
- Explain the importance of utilizing return on investment data to advocate for the continued funding of vulnerable population programs; and
- Integrate DEI initiatives into standard institutional excellence and risk management frameworks to maintain regulatory alignment and safeguard program stability.
Center for Multicultural and Global Mental Health (CMGMH)
For a decade, the Center for Multicultural and Global Mental Health (CMGMH), as William James College's (WJC) flagship multicultural initiative, has stood as a beacon of pedagogical innovation, dedicated to reducing mental health disparities in vulnerable communities and diversifying the mental health and psychological workforce. CMGMH, which has cultivated approximately 500 emerging leaders and pioneered culturally inclusive academic concentrations, transformative leadership and mentorship programs with targeted financial investment has a diverse portfolio including:
- 4 Culturally Inclusive Academic Concentrations: African & Caribbean Mental Health Program; Asian Mental Health Program; Global Mental Health Program; Latino Mental Health Program.
- 2 Leadership Pipelines: Serving the Mental Health Needs of the Underserved Scholarship Program; Black Mental Health Graduate Academy.
- 1 Applied Learning Initiative: Service Learning & Cultural Immersion Programs.
Embodying the ethos of 'If you build it, they will come,' CMGMH has had a pivotal role in WJC's student body’s demographic transformation with significant increases in students from first-generation, economically disadvantaged, geographically vulnerable, ethnically minoritized, and linguistically diverse backgrounds. This increased diversity allowed WJC to became the only institution in Massachusetts awarded $6 million in 2020 to retain students from underrepresented backgrounds. CMGMH’s efforts have established WJC as the New England region’s center of gravity for multicultural education in psychology and mental health counseling.
