What are the mentoring needs and experiences of aspiring psychologists and students from minoritised ethnic backgrounds?

Afrah, Hana (2024) What are the mentoring needs and experiences of aspiring psychologists and students from minoritised ethnic backgrounds? Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Background
Aspiring clinical psychologists from minoritised ethnic backgrounds (APMEs) face many barriers to accessing the clinical psychology profession (Scior et al., 2015), which start before the application stage (Turpin & Coleman, 2010) and can also be seen within higher education. For example, students
from Minoritised Ethnic (ME) backgrounds have lower educational attainment (Richardson et al., 2020) and are less likely to attend prestigious universities (Boliver, 2013). To tackle these barriers, NHS England offered funding for clinical psychology training programs to provide mentoring schemes to APMEs (HEE, 2021). However, there is no known research on the needs of the recipients of the mentoring schemes.

Aims
The thesis portfolio contains a systematic review, which aimed to explore the formal mentoring experiences of ME students in higher education, and an empirical paper, which aimed to explore the mentoring needs of APMEs in accessing mentoring schemes.

Methods
The systematic review explored mentoring experiences of ME students by synthesising data from ten qualitative studies using thematic synthesis (Thomas & Harden, 2008). The empirical paper explored mentoring needs of APMEs through a qualitative study whereby eight focus groups with 14 APMEs were conducted and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2012).

Results
The combined findings of the systematic review and empirical paper suggest that APMEs and ME students need personal, academic, and professional support from mentors, and face systemic barriers that are confounded by their minoritised identities. To deliver effective mentoring, mentors must provide contextual and relational support that is sensitive to mentees’ minoritised identities and complex needs.

Conclusions
This thesis contributed to a limited evidence base and revealed that ME students and APMEs have interlinked needs which must be addressed in the context in which they occur. Implications for higher education institutions and policymakers were discussed, with an emphasis on systemic and contextualised support.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
Depositing User:	Nicola Veasy
Date Deposited:	05 Nov 2024 15:24
Last Modified:	05 Nov 2024 15:27
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/97514
DOI:

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