INFORMATION

After working with numerous members of the NIMC family over the past several months, we are prepared to kick off the NIMC’s Student Mentoring/Early Career Leadership Development Project. The project will initially consist of two groups that complement one another although each will have a different approach to mentoring and leadership Development training.

Dr. Dana Comstock, a professor at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas and Ms. Khadijat Quadri, a graduate student in Mental Health Counseling at St Mary's University have volunteered to oversee one mentoring/leadership development group. This group will infuse many of the principles associated with Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) in the formation, planning, and implementation of this initiative. Although still in the planning phase, you can learn about some of the principles that will guide the Relational-Cultural Student Mentoring Group meetings group by reviewing an article Dr. Comstock has co-authored (to be published in the August issue of Counseling Today) that is attached with this e-mail. We are most grateful to Dr. Comstock and Khadijat for volunteering to organize Relational-Cultural Student Mentoring Group meetings and encourage all of you to consider checking it out when it begins. More information about these meetings will be forth-coming.

The initial NIMC Student Mentoring/Early Career Leadership Development Training group will have its first training session on July 21st from 4:00 pm EST (that’s 3:00 pm CST, 2:00 pm MST, 1:00 pm PST and 10:00 am Hawaii time). Students and individuals in the early stage of their career development in the mental health professionals are invited to attend this and other follow-up training sessions.

True to the title of our organization (The National Institute for Multicultural Competence) these training sessions will focus on different aspects of multicultural competence and their relevance for fostering revolutionary changes in the mental health professions and our society at-large.

These group meetings will be 1 hour and 30 minutes in duration.

The first 40 minutes will involve a formal presentation on a broad range of issues related to the multicultural-feminist-social justice counseling movement. The following 40 minutes will be reserved to have students and other persons attending these cyber meetings make comments and raise questions for discussion. This part of the mentoring/leadership training format is particularly important to build a sense of community in ways that personalize the meaning of the issues covered in the meetings. The final ten (10) minutes of this mentoring/leadership training group will provide a time for summarizing, announcing the next meeting time and agenda, and to solicit evaluative feedback from those persons attending the meeting.

Participants will often be provided with reading material in advance of our meetings. For the July 21st meeting, we will distribute copies of the 34 multicultural competencies (and directions for you do a self assessment of your current level of multicultural competence), a copy of the set of advocacy competencies that have been formally endorsed by the American Counseling Association (ACA), and information related to a comprehensive ecological counseling framework (The Community Counseling Model) that represents a new approach to the work mental health professionals do that is consistent with the multicultural-feminist-social justice movement.

The information provided in these materials is important not only for the July 21st meeting, but for future Student Mentoring/Early Career Development Leadership Training sessions that will follow. In a sense the information continued in these materials will be foundational for the work and training sessions that follow.

Please e-mail me at Michael@hawaii.edu if you would like to attend and participate in the July 21st Mentoring/Leadership Development Training session. We are very excited about formally kicking this project off and look forward to your involvement on the NIMC’s Talking Community cyber system.

In the continuing struggle for justice and peace,

Michael D’Andrea Professor and Executive Director of the NIMC

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