BRIDGES- Bias Reduction Intervention: Deaf Gain in Employment Settings

This project is a collaboration between faculty in the undergraduate and graduate clinical programs in psychology to address bridges and barriers our students experience on their way to becoming professional psychologists.

Anecdotally, we have observed barriers our students experience in their educational careers. Students have described experiences of bias and discrimination that have impacted their progress through their degrees.

Nationally, there is a need for deaf mental health professionals to serve deaf populations, but bias against deaf students may result in an underrepresentation of deaf clinicians. We created a participatory research community of students and faculty in the Department of Psychology to assess ways in which our classes, departmental programs, and external training programs can support all students in achieving success.

Ongoing projects are informing curricular modifications, interventions, and other programming changes in our department and training programs.