FourWinds.The evolution of culturally inclusive clinical psychology training for Native Americans

Abstract

Estimates suggest that by the middle of the next century, ethnic minorities will comprise over 50% of the US population. However, this rapidly changing demographic has not been reflected in the number of ethnic minority psychologists entering the work-force.This is particularly true for Native Americans, who, compared with their representation in the US population, are substantially more underrepresented than any other ethnic minority group at all levels of the educational pipeline (American Psychological Association, Commission on Ethnic Minority Recruitment, Retention & Training in Psychology, APA CEMRRAT, 1997). It is clear that in order to increase the numbers of Native Americans in the professional psychology work-force, effective and culturally responsive methods of recruitment, retention and training must be developed. The Clinical Training Programme in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Dakota has a long-standing commitment to training Native Americans within a culturally sensitive and relevant educational environment. The focus of this paper is to describe an evolving culturally inclusive training programme for Native Americans that is embedded within the community based clinical psychology training programme at the University of South Dakota. This programme, called 'FourWinds', provides a comprehensive educational experience that emphasizes achieving a balance between the students' Native culture and their academic training and has the ultimate goal of increasing the number of Native Americans who enter and persist in the educational pipeline through the successful completion of their doctoral training in clinical psychology. In order to provide a context for the evolution of the FourWinds programme, a brief overview of the literature on cross-cultural training models in psychology will be presented, followed by a description of FourWinds and the critical events which have guided the evolution of this culturally inclusive clinical psychology training programme for Native Americans.