A mixed method evaluation of the North East Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic mentoring scheme launch: Reflections & actions

Abstract

Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) individuals are underrepresented in the UK clinical psychology workforce and in the wider psychological professions (Scior et al., 2016). An ethnically diverse and representative workforce within the psychological professions is imperative to addressing the well-documented inequity in access and disparities in the NHS (Kline, 2014). Diverse organisations also lead to safer, more effective, and culturally responsive service provision (Haigh et al., 2014), including better patient care (Kline, 2014).The lack of diversity in the qualified workforce is reflected on clinical psychology training programmes, including evidence that applicants from BAME backgrounds experience multiple barriers at several stages across recruitment and selection as well as during training itself (Ragavan, 2018). These disparities exist despite psychology being a popular choice of undergraduate degree for BAME students (Turpin & Fensom, 2004). Recently there have been calls to ‘even the playing field’ and to develop initiatives to increase equity of access for aspiring clinical psychologists from a BAME background (BPS, 2015).With this in mind the North East Clinical Psychology Training programmes collaborated to develop a regional BAME mentoring scheme to address evidenced disparities faced by BAME aspiring Clinical Psychologists. To initiate the mentoring scheme, a virtual Launch event was hosted by the Newcastle Clinical Psychology Doctorate in August 2020.Out of 120 attendees, 48 completed the pre-evaluation questionnaire and 28 attendees completed the post-evaluation questionnaire. Some questions were relevant to both North-East courses, relating, for example, to a general sense of belonging in the profession and confidence and hopefulness about securing a training place in future. Other questions were specific to the Newcastle Clinical Psychology Doctorate and assessed, for example, intention to apply to this course, belief that training at Newcastle would be positive, and understanding around what skills and experiences would support a strong application to Newcastle.For the Newcastle-specific questions, results indicated that post-event, participants reported that they were significantly more likely to understand the skills and experience required for admission to the course. Participants were also more likely to believe that the Newcastle DClinPsy training programme would support individuals from a BAME background, however this result was not statistically significant. For the cross-course questions, participants reported that they were more likely to feel inspired to be part of the profession following the event, however this finding was not statistically significant. Qualitative analysis found that participants felt the event was ‘insightful’, ‘inspiring’ and ‘informative’.Although the feedback from participants was generally positive, this paper additionally explores and critically reflects on the value of widening access schemes and highlights the need to address structural and institutional barriers and disparities in clinical psychology beyond ‘widening access schemes’.