Studying children with diverse gender and racial identities is important, as doing so can help us understand how identity and experience with race and gender relate to how children view these categories in the world. Due to their lived experiences in groups that violate essentialist beliefs (e.g., that categories are distinct, innate, immutable, etc.), multiracial and transgender children may hold different beliefs about gender and race than monoracial cisgender children. To test this question, 6-11 year olds completed a race and gender essentialism task (from Rhodes & Gelman, 2009). Data were collected from three main participant groups: monoracial cisgender (n = 87), monoracial transgender (n = 60), and multiracial cisgender (n = 78). Results indicate that, across participant groups (N = 225), children essentialize both race, F(1,178) = 1.02, p = 0.31, η² < 0.01, and gender, F(1, 177) = 1.33, p = 0.29, η² < 0.01, to a similar degree. These data suggest that one’s own identity and experiences might not be particularly relevant to how children endorse essentialist thinking about social categories.

Racial stereotypes can promote and reinforce racial discrimination. While racial stereotypes are often conceptualized along an inferior-to-superior axis, research suggests that in addition to this axis, perceptions of racial groups can also be placed along a foreign-to-American axis, with different racial groups at different levels on each axis. If stereotypes of foreignness are viewed differently than those of inferiority, this model may explain why views on discrimination against racial groups vary based on the specific racial group. We hypothesize that Americans will view stereotypes of perceived cultural foreignness as more acceptable and less discriminatory than stereotypes of perceived inferiority. In two studies (N = 70, 103), UW undergraduates reported that stereotyping someone as foreign because of their race is viewed as more acceptable than stereotyping them as inferior (ps < .05). However, undergraduates did not report discrimination based on perceived foreignness as less discriminatory than discrimination based on perceived inferiority. These results suggest that while racial stereotypes about foreignness are considered more acceptable than racial stereotypes about inferiority, they are viewed as equally discriminatory. However, minority groups may view racial stereotypes differently than Whites, skewing these results. A third study (N = 100) found Whites rated racial stereotypes of foreignness as more acceptable (p < .001), less harmful (p < .001), and more fair (p < .001) than racial stereotypes of inferiority. Understanding how inferior- and foreign-based stereotypes are viewed differently from each other may allow us to understand why some forms of racial discrimination might be viewed as more acceptable to engage in.

Despite research supporting the efficacy of certain mental health practices, many mental health care providers in community mental health institutions are not utilizing evidence-based practices (EBPs) consistently as their method towards patients receiving mental health care. This is a problem because the patients in need do not benefit from therapies intended to help them. Clinical supervisors (clinicians who provide clinical direction and guidance to less experienced providers) play an important role in how often and how effective clinicians are at implementing EBP’s in their treatments. The purpose of our project is to examine the feasibility and self-reported usefulness of providing case-based consultation to clinical supervisors in supporting the implementation of EBP. We expect that clinical supervisors will report that they benefited from EBP case-based consultations by having an increase in confidence and competence in supervising mental health care providers in their efforts to use EBP. So far, we have successfully recruited 9 clinical supervisors from 9 community mental health organizations. Clinical supervisors completed a pre-survey that tested their comfortability in supervising mental health care providers implementing EBP. In addition to gathering quantitative data via the survey, we are also analyzing qualitative data from transcripts of the consultation calls with the clinical supervisors. After the 6 consultation calls, we expect that supervisors will rate the calls as high in usefulness. We also plan to learn about any barriers or challenges that the clinical supervisors experienced. With the data that we have collected during this pilot test, we hope to conduct further research testing if EBP implementation to clinical supervisors through case-based consultations creates a downstream effect by resulting in an increased level of competency and comfortability for clinicians.  

There is a demand for on-going training resources for American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) resource parents caring for older youth (12-20 years) in the foster care system. This exploratory, qualitative study evaluated the effectiveness of a resource parent on-going training curriculum, Critical On-Going Resource Family Education (CORE Teen), which was developed in 2016 to increase the stability and longevity of resource parents facing the unique challenges of caring for older youth. CORE Teen was implemented with a tribe located in the south east region of the United States for a pilot study. Two semi-structured focus groups were conducted with a total of 22 parents that participated in the sample: 1) with resource parents that have received CORE Teen, and 2) with those that did not. Interview questions focused on differences in the experiences of resource parents who have received teen-specific, on-going training compared to foster parents without access to resources that specifically target their parenting practices. A thematic content analysis produced these ten themes: (1) desire for information; (2) lack of preparation; (3) normal teen behavior; (4) difficult transitions; (5) trauma; (6) mental health; (7) importance of kinship ties; (8) training outcomes; (9) training recommendations and (10) policy recommendations. Themes indicated that the intervention group articulated a greater comfort level in parenting teens than the parents in the comparison group. Findings highlight the importance of training to increase caregiving capacity of resource parents caring for American Indian youth, who are at the intersection of lacking developmentally appropriate support and historical marginalization.

There is a long-standing concern that in American society, historical roots, structural racism, and systems of power have perpetuated the spectrum of negative health outcomes in communities of color. As the status quo is maintained, policy and public opinion reflect the continual oppression of minority families. Through my research, I created a visual and multimedia project that will identify the relationship between public policy and the social determinants of health, and how these factors have affected different communities of color within Washington state and the national level. I conducted extensive library research, analyzed and interpreted data, and utilized GIS technologies to visualize the placement of different communities. This work includes identifying historical background information, past U.S. policies, and relevant literature. In this visual and multimedia project, I displayed four puzzle pieces representing different communities (Asian, Native American, Hispanic, and African Americans) on a map, and examined public policies implemented by European colonizers that racialized minorities in unique ways. This chronological project displayed contemporary policies in housing, economic, employment, education, and criminal justice. Overall, I looked at each group's distinct experience of racial health disparities and will use this platform for dialogue to emerge for students and community members on these topics to prioritize the needs, barriers and solutions to confront racism.