The Training and Supervisory Needs of Racial and Ethnic Minority Students

What Helps and What Hinders in Cross-Cultural Clinical Supervision

This study investigated what helped and what hindered in cross-cultural supervision. The participants were 25 visible minority graduate students and early counseling professionals. They were individually interviewed according to an expanded version of Flanagan’s critical incident technique. The most frequently cited positive themes were subsumed in five key areas: (a) personal attributes of the supervisor, (b) supervision competencies, (c) mentoring, (d) relationship, and (e) multicultural supervision competencies. The most frequently reported negative themes were grouped into five areas: (a) personal difficulties as a visible minority, (b) negative personal attributes of the supervisor, (c) lack of a safe and trusting relationship, (d) lack of multicultural supervision competencies, and (e) lack of supervision competencies. The results support a person-centered mentoring model of effective supervision.

The development and initial validation of the Multicultural Environmental Inventory: a preliminary investigation

This article describes the development and initial validation of the Multicultural Environmental Inventory (MEI). The MEI is an instrument designed to measure an individual's perceptions about the degree to which graduate counseling programs address multicultural issues within curriculum, supervision, climate, and research. This investigation was conducted using the data from 208 students and faculty from counseling psychology graduate programs across the United States approved by the American Psychological Association. By using techniques of exploratory factor analysis, a 4-factor solution was determined to account for the relationships among the items on the MEI. The instrument was modified from 53 to 27 items on the basis of the items' effectiveness in measuring the underlying constructs of interest, and internal consistency information is provided on the final revised instrument (MEI-R). The factors underlying the MEI-R are discussed within the context of a multicultural environment in graduate counseling programs, and directions for future research are considered.