Division 49 Institute: The Joy of Mentoring!
Michele D. Ribeiro, EdD, ABPP, CGP, AGPA-F, APA-F
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What does mentoring entail and what are the benefits of mentoring? Mentoring is the call to give back for all the support one has been granted from others, often in the field one is in, but sometimes it can be outside of it. It can be both formally and informally established. During my graduate training and practicum experience in 2003, I formally began my group psychotherapy supervised experience with my then supervisor and co-leader, Dr. Anne McEneaney, at the Rutgers College Counseling Center. Through her, I then was introduced to one of her close colleagues, Dr. Joshua Gross and then later through my involvement in AGPA, to Cindy Miller Aron, LCSW, a guru also in the field of group therapy. Early on in my training each of them truly impacted my learning in very profound ways and became mentors on my group psychotherapy training journey. They also helped me grow into leadership; because they saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. This can often be the case, where one doesn’t always see the skills and talents within oneself. But through another, we can come into what others see in us. I am still grateful for my mentors’ care and support today.
What does Division 49 offer in terms of mentoring? The Division 49 Institute was created by two board members several years ago, Drs. Lisa De La Rue and Shala Rae Cole. This special initiative was created to increase membership diversity, and they specifically sent out an email-invite to the larger APA membership, encouraging BIPOC professionals (including ECPs and graduate students) to engage in our division and learn about group psychotherapy.
The Division 49 Institute started off with five psychologists who signed on as mentors in 2021. I was one of the initial five. The institute set sail officially in 2022 and I will be finishing up with my second cohort of mentees this December 2024. This cohort overlapped by one year with the first cohort I mentored.
Benefits
The benefits of the institute as a mentor are clear to me both personally and professionally. My involvement has been such a rewarding experience in terms of connecting with motivated and interested students as well as supporting their process in graduate school, which most of them are/were in at the time of their involvement as mentees. During the first year, the group of mentees asked to meet monthly to discuss cases, group psychotherapy material, and engage in our own group processes. When convention time came around, all mentees were invited to come to the APA convention in MN with support for their registration. One of my mentees took on the opportunity and he and I met for dinner to meet in person and get to know each other more. I then invited him to two socials held by Div 49 and Div 52 at the convention. We expressed the benefits from connecting in person, and he stayed consistent in his participation for the second year of his two-year institute via Zoom.
Scholarship
As I continued to meet with my mentees, several of them expressed a desire to have some scholarly activity come out of the mentoring experience. The ideas of a research project, writing something, and/or presenting were identified as possibilities. Given the mentees’ numerous demands; however, there seemed to be barriers for executing a research project within the mentoring experience. Wanting to meet their needs, I kept looking for options to involve them in opportunities including coming up with something of our own. So, when the opportunity arose for me to co-write a chapter for a ‘supervision of group psychotherapy’ manual, I knew this could be a possible opportunity to share with them. Within my first mentoring cohort, two mentees expressed interest in this scholarly project of writing a chapter, and we are currently close to final stages of editing this chapter for publication for AGPA. At the same time, another mentee of mine showed interest in co-presenting on a symposium panel I would be chairing at the International Congress of Psychology in Prague, CZ this past July. With the support of Division 49, she was able to have financial assistance with some of her expenses so she could present her interests at her first international conference. Her symposium presentation was on group therapy for older adults, and the topic and she were well received at the conference. To meet her family and see her excitement of learning and presenting at this conference as a graduate student was pure joy. Having met after the conference through the mentoring group, I was also able to see her enthusiasm in sharing with the other mentee about her experience and growing in her confidence. This prompted the group to raise interest in pursuing a topic to present at the upcoming APA Convention in 2025. We all agreed that this could be a wonderful way to represent the work that can come from the Division 49 Institute Mentoring program and the overall potential in continuing the institute in future years. Always trying to see leadership in my mentees and keep them involved in the division, a final win for Division 49 is two of my mentees are strongly considering campaigning for the Student Chair Rep positions (we have two open) for the Division 49 board. I am almost certain that their interest grew from participating in the two-year mentoring program and the group work they have engaged with during their practicum experiences.
An Invitation and Call
In closing, the Division 49 Institute has been a wonderful opportunity for me to engage with motivated and interested students and for our division to grow in talented and enthusiastic membership. And, we need YOU to continue passing the torch. Division 49 is planning to open up a call for new mentors followed by an open invitation for new mentees. So, a final aim of this article is to invite you to say “YES” to mentoring for our division and to help positively shape the next generation of psychologists interested in group psychotherapy.
For more information and/or to say YES to being a mentor, reach out to Stacy Graves who is currently overseeing the next stages of the Institute. Stacy can be reached at stacyjgraves@gmail.com
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