2015 Association for Women in Psychology Conference

Look behind the “curtain” of publishing with editors from Sex Roles, Psychology of Women Quarterly, Women’s Reproductive Health, and Feminism & Psychology in a safe, supportive setting. Learn about manuscript submission, reviewing, deciphering decision letters, and finding homes for your manuscripts. Sponsored by the early career caucus.

Janetta Louise Johnson … is the Program Director at TGI Justice Project. TGI Justice Project is a group of transgender people—inside and outside of prison—creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom. Janetta Louise Johnson is an Afro-American Transsexual from Tampa, Florida. She moved to San Francisco in 1997, where she has worked in various capacities at non-profits and social service agencies. She recently survived 3 years in federal prison and is committed to developing strategies and interventions to reduce the recidivism rate of the transgender community. 

Sonya Shah … is the Justice Program Director at Insight Prison Project and responsible for the oversight of the Victim Offender Education Group (VOEG) program statewide and nationally. She serves on the leadership team for Californians for Safety and Justice. Sonya has served on the advisory board for Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth and the board of trustees for the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), where she is an Associate Professor.  Sonya is actively immersed in seeding restorative justice practices locally and nationally and ending the charity based model of working in communities Sonya has been teaching social justice education for 20 years. In all group facilitation, Sonya creates learning environments that: reflect values of equity; nurture the unique perspective of each participant; build collective and community-based knowledge; challenge oppressive assumptions and structures; and expose students to new ways of thinking through contact with new knowledge, belief systems, theories and practices. Sonya was awarded the prestigious Fulbright fellowship and Jacob Javitz fellowship.

Gary “Malachi” Scott … paroled after 15 years of incarceration for second-degree murder. He was tried as an adult at the age of 15 and sentenced to 15 years to life. While incarcerated he was involved with Restorative Justice in various capacities, from participation, trainings, stewardship, and co-founded San Quentin Kid C.A.T. (Creating Awareness Together) who’s curriculum is driven by restorative practices. He was the Sports Editor for the San Quentin Newspaper and published a New York Times article titled, "Prison is to Violent for Young Offenders."  “Malachi” currently does youth outreach for west side clinic and also leads healing circles and peace and justice community walks in North Oakland.

 

The presenters in this symposium work in the same University department and campus community. Our work addresses current challenges confronting women: microaggressions, rape culture, facing chronic illness Parkinson’s Disease) at a young age, and the drastic increase in selfies on social media. Our responses to these issues vary in scope and innovation but our intention is to offer symposium attendees a model for community collaboration. This year, the United States celebrates the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act. “Empowering Change”, was a campus-wide initiative to celebrate this act and most panelists were heavily involved in the planning and implementation. This initiative allowed us to examine current racial and other microaggressions that occur on our campus through a classroom generated photo campaign. Images are powerful and increasingly used in activist strategies like the above mentioned photo campaign. Two of us use images in very different ways. Selfies have exploded in popularity yet virtually nothing is known about the effect on self-esteem, body image, and attractiveness in young women who post these images on social media. New data will be presented on this phenomenon. Working with a filmmaker, one of us combines personal narrative with images of a young single mother newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. With the changes in Title IX reporting on sexual assault and rape, college campuses need to understand those student groups who are more at risk for being embedded in rape culture and adopting rape myth attitudes. Data from a study examining rape myth acceptance will be shared. It is hypothesized that those in Greek life and who play sports will show higher rape myth acceptance scores than those in other extracurricular activities.

Sexual assault represents a significant problem on college campuses in the U.S. but many incidences are unreported or are mishandled by authorities (Bradley et. al., 2009, Jervis, 2008). Prevention programs address the growing phenomenon of sexual assault on college campuses; however, many interventions result in a victim-blaming approach, have minimal to non-significant results, and/or are limited in their participants’ demographics (e.g., Gidycz et al., 2001; Bradley et al., 2009). In most approaches, the issue of consent is not taken into account. The Yes Means Yes (YMY) approach to sexual assault prevention recently legislated in California has heightened the issue of sexual assault prevention in the public consciousness and defined consent for sexual activities as an explicit yes, or “affirmative consent” rather than an absence of “no” (SB-967 Student Safety: Sexual Assault, 2014). This novel approach to sexual assault prevention education warrants research into its effectiveness. The first presentation reflects the conceptual process behind the design of the pilot intervention, including a review of existing programs and literature, choice of measures, and the creation of the YMY pilot intervention. The second presentation will address the analysis of qualitative questionnaires completed by participants in the pilot study. These questionnaires focused on ways the intervention could be improved in future studies. Analysis procedures included open coding on the questionnaires and finding emergent patterns among participants’ responses (Given, 2008). Results indicated a need for more discussion and inclusion of male issues. Quantitative and qualitative data collected during the pilot study allowed for implementation of additional components to strengthen the framework for YMY. The final presentation will focus on how the project was modified to incorporate the feedback and improve the intervention. Our ultimate goal is to develop, implement, and test an effective sexual assault prevention program in colleges.

Advocacy and social justice are concepts that are often mentioned in clinical training to up-and-coming mental health professionals, yet mentorship regarding these topics is often lacking within supervision. Clinical psychology trainees often work in close supervisory relationships to hone their clinical skills and theoretical orientations, which makes it an exemplary arena to discuss advocacy and social/restorative justice at various systemic levels. It is commonly understood that, ethically, supervisors and their supervisees should be discussing issues related to multiculturalism and diversity as related to the trainee’s clients; however, that is often where the discussion ends. What is frequently missing in clinical programs and at practicum sites is a critical and ongoing dialogue related to the intersecting identity categories of both the supervisee and the supervisor as this can greatly impact the supervisory relationship, and consequently the therapeutic relationships that the supervisee has with her or his clients. In order to address this concern, a de-identified, supervision vignette will be presented (via PowerPoint) within the theoretical framework of social dominance theory accompanied by an integration of feminist theory. The supervisory vignette will be utilized to generate understanding and ability of audience members in identifying and predicting: (a) intersecting identity categories, (b) dominant societal patterns, and (c) power differentials – all within the supervisory relationship. Some of the intersecting identity categories in the supervisory vignette are: (a) gender, (b) race, (c) sexual orientation, (d) gender expression, and (e) disability status. After a thorough explanation of the clinical supervision example, the presenter will address how the supervisory relationship can impact the therapeutic relationships that a trainee has with her or his clients. The importance of navigating intersecting identities within clinical supervision as a means of mentoring trainees in advocacy and restorative justice will be a central theme of the presentation.

Current literature (e.g., Jackson & Scheel, 2012) has called for paradigm shifts on multiple ecological levels to incorporate restorative justice into psychology training at the master’s level. Specifically, training programs that currently train master’s level practitioners must begin to metabolize the spirit of restorative justice through various ways of shifting curricula, program philosophies, and learning outcome goals to support counseling and psychology training for master’s-level clinicians in becoming more inclusive of collaboration, multiple perspectives, and navigating intersecting identities. Further, the psychology literature also calls for a change in how accrediting bodies that accredit master’s-level programs begin to place sociocultural and justice issues at the center of their standards in order to accredit programs that have these issues as a central part of their program. This proposed paper presentation addresses the above calls from the psychology literature by introducing as well as discussing the progress of the Master’s in Counseling Accreditation Committee (MCAC), the counseling accrediting arm of MPCAC (Master’s in Psychology and Counseling Accreditation Council (MPCAC) since its introduction to AWP members at the AWP conference in 2011. MCAC’s Standards of Accreditation directly exemplify the AWP 2015 theme of Restorative Justice and the areas of personal and collective accountability, bolstering feminism in academia, and global reconciliation through collaboration. The presentation has two attendee-centered goals: (a) introducing and discussing the progress of MCAC as an alternative accreditation process at the master’s level; and (b) addressing how MCAC’s master’s level accreditation standards exemplify feminism through program philosophy, evaluation of master’s level training, and principles of doing social justice work. The authors, both current site visitors for MCAC and former members of the MCAC board, will be able to answer attendee questions about the accreditation process and help individuals to understand the value of program accreditation at the master’s level using alternative formats.

Criminal Justice (CRJ) undergraduate students at Bronx Community College (BCC) are striving toward professional careers, such as local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, lawyers, judges, probation and parole officers, and social workers, that provide special restorative justice opportunities. As professionals, our students’ will ultimately accept responsibility for healing and rebuilding their communities. They will also face extraordinary challenges working within a field that thrives on oppressive, patriarchal values that are counterintuitive to the restorative justice perspective (e.g., strict obedience to authority, emphasis on punishment, little support for victims and their families, and lack of rehabilitative services for offenders). Additionally, the majority of our students reside in communities that are themselves in dire need of restorative justice efforts. Most BCC students live in the Bronx, a borough of New York City with a 2.9% increase in murders, 15.2% increase in rape, and 1.5% increase in felony assaults since 2013 (Police Department City of New York, 2014). The Bronx has the highest unemployment rate out of the five boroughs, 12.7% compared to the citywide average of 9.2% (New York City Public Information Office, 2013). BCC is a Hispanic serving institution, with 60.4% Latino and 30.3% Black students (http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/). Thus, our students enter the classroom with admirable aspirations to become community leaders, while simultaneously coping with personal experiences of oppression on a daily basis. As instructors of a learning community for CRJ students, we have a unique and privileged opportunity to help our students promote restorative justice in both their personal and professional lives. We propose a presentation to share and deconstruct our experiences teaching and collaborating with students. In the spirit of the conference theme, the purpose of this presentation is to discuss how we apply a feminist pedagogical approach as part of our own restorative justice mission.

This paper will examine the ongoing process of implementing restorative justice at Holy Names University in Oakland. Our presentation looks at this process from an academic perspective and a disciplinary perspective. Highlighting the voices of two female faculty members representing the Criminology and Philosophy departments, respectively, the Dean of Student Development and Engagement, and a graduate student whose masters thesis is on implementing restorative justice in residence life, this paper seeks to understand how feminism and justice complement each other within an urban university setting founded and run by Catholic nuns. The study examines if and how restorative justice aligns with current justice trends within Oakland and ways in which criminology students might benefit from restorative justice training. It will also consider how restorative justice can be employed in a diverse student body with differing levels of justice comprehension. We will look at the communal benefits and shortcomings of implementing a restorative justice judicial framework within the university overall and how we might extend the model into classrooms as well as boardrooms. Lastly, this panel will highlight blind spots of the RJ movement at this level of education and what future trajectories of restorative justice in post-secondary education might look like. Faculty members will build upon the work of current criminology students whose recent deconstruction of justice programs in the Bay Area has led to compelling questions around agency, silencing, and healing. Additionally, presenters will discuss how the transition from strictly punitive practices towards restorative justice models within the university student conduct system connects to ever-evolving “campus culture” and a growing need to both serve as well as thoughtfully engage a dynamic student population. Building off of recent student research and case studies, our presentation seeks to envision a sustainable university system in line with restorative justice principles and practices.

The mission of ABD Productions/Anne Bluethenthal & Dancers is to inspire social change through the arts.  Based in San Francisco, our women- and queer-centered multi-ethnic company is committed to the production of new dance works created in collaboration with diverse communities.  Our dances grow from deep investigations into the language of movement, using that vocabulary in eloquent, bold, and subversive acts of art.  We endeavor to awaken our collective humanity by injecting the possibility of transformation and beauty into complex and challenging subjects, from globalization and genocide to global warming and gender fluidity.

ABD has a long history of Community Arts Practice, Community partnership, and art-making that arises from communities of spirit. In addition to the formal performances, festivals, concerts, artistic collaborations, and benefit performances, ABD has consistently combined their artistic work with community partnerships around issues of social justice and global politics. Bluethenthal's community arts projects ranged widely and include work with:

• Formerly homeless residents of San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood
• Palestinian and Jewish artists/activists
• Breast Cancer organizations
• Young women and girls
• Women with HIV and Women on issues of gender-based violence
• Organizations working on valuing women's work.

Borrowing from words by Celeste Miller and Arlene Goldbard, we believe that Community Arts Practice is based on the understanding that cultural meaning, expression, and creativity reside within a community and that the artist is an integral part of community life.

(http://www.abdproductions.org/)

As the U.S becomes a more multiculturally diverse nation, the need for increased multicultural and cross-cultural research in psychology is an ethical imperative. The utilization of indigenous healing practices in the United States have greatly increased in popularity among minority populations. However, despite their increased utilization, indigenous forms of healing are often devalued or invalidated due to their differing epistemological worldview from the Western positivist paradigm. There has been little research done into understanding the healing mechanisms of these practices and understanding how and why they are effective. While indigenous approaches in psychology continue to be somewhat invisible within the dominant professional paradigm, attention to cultural healing practices was common among such founders of psychology as C. G. Jung, at a time when many other Western traditions dismissed any perspectives that were derived outside of the Western “scientific” paradigm. Sinha (1997), among the first psychology scholars to provide a definition of indigenous psychology, suggested that such psychology(ies) share emphasis on the cultural foundations of knowledge, local practices, interpretations grounded in local frames of reference, and locally relevant results. Undoubtedly, contemporary feminist psychology, embedded within Third and Fourth Waves of feminism, emphasizes these very same values. However, training, writing, and presentations on specific ways to integrate indigenous perspectives as well as research methods, remain scarce. Therefore, this proposed Symposium would provide not only a review of contemporary perspectives on indigenous, shamanic, and folk healing perspectives outside of traditional Western psychological paradigms, but also invite participants to learn about these practices within the context of clinical work, research, and personal experiences of three women-presenters. These presentations will draw upon research on indigenous healing practices in South America as well as contemporary shamanic work in North American context. Lastly, the presenters will introduce rationale for ways that indigenous approaches can function as liberatory, feminist, and socially relevant practices both outside and inside the Western context.

In the 19th century the paramount moral challenge was slavery; in the 20th century totalitarianism; today, it is the brutality inflicted upon women. This Symposium addresses the pervasiveness of gender violence globally, followed by an in-depth discussion of sex trafficking, and concludes with a discussion of approaches to empower women and promote gender equality