My path to becoming a clinical psychologist had more challenges than I could ever imagine. The most memorable moment in my journey was during my time working at an adolescent in-patient behavioral facility. One of the kids on my unit experienced a traumatic flashback that led to some dangerous behaviors, both for himself and others. Following company policy, I put him into a physical restraint to keep him and the other kids safe. But I knew the restraint was only a short-term solution to a much bigger problem rooted in pain, trauma, and a lack of power. As a Black man growing up in southern Louisiana, I often found myself experiencing discrimination while fighting twice as hard for the same opportunities. In my personal struggle, I found additional motivation to positively impact minority populations, such as myself. The culmination of my experiences drove me to become what I never had: a kind and competent clinician who looked like me. I find myself among the Black men in Clinical Psychology that make up less than 1% of its population. In that, however, I recognize a unique opportunity to make an impact and be what I didn’t have. The culmination of my experiences motivates me to serve the under privileged. Lack of representation is one of many barriers to accessing care for minority and marginalized populations in our country. Another barrier, and arguably one of the biggest, to mental healthcare is insurance and the inability to pay for consistent, quality care. For quite some time, I have aspired to make positive changes through changing healthcare policy to include more billable diagnostic criteria and lower co-pays for clients. While still holding policy level goals, those lofty dreams will take time. My current focus is on the personal impact I can make. Specifically, following the completion of my doctoral training, I aim to open a practice that employs other clinicians from different backgrounds, disciplines, and training models. In this imagined multicultural, cross-discipline clinic, all partners would be required to take on two clients pro bono who are low to no income. Their efforts would be supplemented by grant or fundraising money tailored for charitable work. Coincidentally this personal goal is also what I would change about mental healthcare to make it more accessible. More clinicians willing to make themselves accessible to poor marginalized groups would make such a positive impact. As individuals struggle to pay for the costs of mental healthcare, other barriers arise in getting to providers. This can be related to transportation or allocation of time to prioritize mental healthcare. Telehealth is an avenue that I hope to utilize as a way to serve diverse communities and make competent care more accessible. Although it has challenges like crisis management and the trouble shooting, the benefit of reducing barrier of travel and time management as barriers is truly invaluable. The most innovative thing we could do to utilize telehealth is to provide clients with computers or tablets to use for telehealth sessions. In a similar way that schools give children laptops and tablets for homework, we could provide clients with the same so that they have more access to their services. I am committed to becoming a clinician, researcher, and advocate who expands access to compassionate and culturally informed mental health care. Receiving this scholarship would allow me to fully invest in my education now so I can focus on building the future I envision. The scholarship ultimately would allow me to pursue these goals with the focus and commitment they require, rather than being pulled back by financial strain.

My dream for as long as I've been in the field of mental healthcare has been to restructure our healthcare system in a major way for Black and Brown children. While an ambitious goal, everything that I have done thus far in my career has been to prepare myself for achieving this goal. I hope to achieve this in two ways. The first is to have a training level and resume sufficient enough to be credible when I am advocating for systemic policy change. I am currently completing training for my doctorate in Clinical Psychology, and once I am done with training I hope to create a research track that tackles inequities in healthcare for minorities. My hope is that the research I lean into will provide a meaningful path to lobbying policy makers for change that can be empirically backed. The second part of this plan is to directly provide support to marginalized people. Once established, I hope to open my own practice in which I can employ professionals from a variety of areas in mental healthcare so that we can all provide in-depth, cross-discipline care for people who can't access mental healthcare in a normal context. Dedicating my research, clinical practice and career efforts to providing competent, culturally informed care to Black and Brown kids is certainly a lofty goal, but one that I am very much committed to.

I was working at an in-patient behavioral facility for adolescents when I had a meaningful realization about myself. One of the kids on my unit experienced a traumatic flashback that led to some dangerous behaviors for him and others. Following company policy, I put him into a physical restraint to keep him from hurting himself or others. But I knew the restraint was only a short-term solution to a much bigger problem. While it was something I always knew, this moment truly brought to mind a desire to help those without the ability or resources to help themselves. My life has repeatedly been shaped by a drive to understand others while chasing equity for disempowered people. As a result, I have found that my goals have centered around clinical psychology. My desire to pursue clinical work heightened following the achievement of my bachelor’s degree. At that time, I had the pleasure of working with adolescents both in behavioral facilities and at a juvenile detention center. In doing this work, I was made painfully aware of the lack of resources for marginalized adolescents struggling with mental health disorders. It was then I realized that I truly loved the clinical applications of psychology. I found joy every day in working with different kids, and I also struggled with seeing them not receive higher quality care. Each day that I interacted with the kids on my caseload strengthened my desire to pursue clinical work. This passion to help further grew when I began working as a Mental Health Specialist while enrolled in my master’s program. I improved my time management skills, as I went to school full-time with an assistantship while working 30 hours a week. After my time in the program at UL, I accepted a position as a Psychiatric Case Manager, where I provide resources for those experiencing mental health crisis. I also provide psychological education groups to the patients. Additionally, I work with a clinical team to determine the best treatment plans and actionable steps for the patients within the hospital. Despite these experiences, I still recognize I’m ill equipped to provide what the adult and adolescent clients and patients I’ve seen need. As a result, I have decided to pursue my doctorate in clinical psychology so I can be as competent as possible when I work with these vulnerable populations. In every facet of our lives, our mental health makes an impact on our ability to function, our access to freedom and happiness, and ultimately how others might enjoy the same things. Knowing this, it strengthens my desire to aid others in growing to a point where they can mitigate the effects of their mental disorders and live a fulfilling life. With that, I hope to continue destigmatizing mental health, especially for marginalized populations like Black teens, and ultimately work with these populations to improve outcomes. My world was forever changed when I allowed myself to be open to new perspectives that would benefit those closest to me and even those who I might never even meet. I can only hope to make a positive impact for as many people as I can.