Mentoring Students in Clinical Training

As schools and clinical training programs move into the second decade of the 21st century and the demographics in the US continues to change, it becomes more and more imperative for doctoral and master’s clinical training programs to develop ethical, appropriate, and innovative strategies to mentor students. Themajority of the clinical education and training programs focus on education, knowledge, and assessment skills. Mentoring in clinical training programs is as valuable as other core competencies in clinical programs. O’Neil et al. described mentoring as being effective across disciplines like medicine, education, business, nursing, and psychology. 

A mentor is an individual with adequate clinical experience who can help direct the early career of a mentee. A mentor must possess clinical, assessment, ethical, professional, business, and multicultural skills in order to propel the career of a mentee. Although strong mentorship relationships are considered an essential component of professional development and career preparation, many mentees report not having strong mentorship relationships. Little research exists on doctoral and master’s mentor programs incorporating cultural competence. This manuscript will discuss cultural competence, the culture-centered model (CCM), and sociopolitical development as essential mentorship tenets in any masters or doctoral clinical psychology program.Read more....