This presentation hopes to introduce a new model based on the traditional Afrocentric relationships.  It differs from other models in that it is an individualized responsibility of immersing oneself into the total life of one’s protégé who also makes a commitment to follow the pattern with someone else.  The mentoring model comes out of the traditional African concept that it takes a village to rear a child.

The purpose of this presentation is to provide a “Healing Model” to start the work of healing the Cultural Trauma young women and girls of African descent have experienced in their lives and to assess, implement, and facilitate a series of interactive based modules on developing and maximizing the development of positive self-esteem among these young females

The Black community has confronted a plethora of socio-cultural, political and psychological assaults within the past 400 years. These assaults have affected the totality of Black Life personally and professionally. This presentation explicates how a clinical practice as well as a professional (life) coaching business can thrive through a collaboration that will meet the total psychological needs of the Black Community.

In honor of Asa Hilliard III, this presentation will utilize an interactive multimedia experience to engage the participants in effective pedagogical practices and expose racism in the educational environment. This dynamic presentation will disseminate effective knowledge regarding race and educational excellence, demonstrate the challenges preventing educational change, and interactively teach the skills necessary to implement high quality educational experiences for African children.

2 Hrs MCEP/CEU/LCPP

This session will identify some of the unique conditions African Americans encounter in education, and in professional training and placement institutions as they attempt to receive prerequisite experiences to become professional psychologists or other mental health specialists. Presenters will explore added opportunities for increased resources at historical Black education/ training institutions; initiate discussions on access issues related to federal, state, and local resources and placement.

Report from ILLINOIS TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE COMMISSION, “Shattered Consciousness & Fractured Identity: The Lingering Psychological Effects of Enslavement and Colonization.”  This presentation offers a further refinement of the practice of Black Psychology by (1) defining and exploring a set of African and African centered foundational concepts and (2) addressing the problematics of “disease of a whole people” and “illness of the Spirit” as unrecognized and more severe than orthodox mental illness constructions.

1.5 Hrs MCEP/CEU/LCPP

Nearly 40 years ago, the Association of Black Psychologists helped to get a ban of IQ testing in California, specifically in the Bay Area, known as the Larry P. v. Riles court case.  Although this was a great move forward, challenges still remain in assessment and placements, especially in regards to the placement of African American students in classes for students labeled “emotionally-disturbed (ED)” in California and throughout the nation.  ED remains the most subjective category of assessment and placement of the 14 special education handicapping conditions in the education code.  ABPsi is needed again to address this ongoing challenge.

Parents Early Childhood Education-Positive Action Choices Training (PECE-PACT) is a multifaceted, culturally responsive program designed for parents, teachers, and preschoolers to prevent behavior disorders.  This workshop will specifically address emotional regulation, one of the components of this model.  Addressing emotional regulation fosters resiliency and reduces risk factors.

During the presentation titled Increasing Protective Factors for Gifted African-American Students, participants will be introduced to the concepts of risk and resilience in gifted African-American children and how they serve as a theoretical framework for addressing their social and emotional needs.

This paper will demonstrate that the nonverbal behaviors of people of African descent have roots that reach back to Africa in both time and space. Nonverbal behavior is communicated without words, including but not limited to:  posture, proximity, touch, eye gaze, facial expression, gestures, head-nodding, coded handshakes, tone inflection, drumming, dancing, and masking.

A representative sample of undergraduates from a historically black university in the United States and a Nigerian university completed questionnaires to examine the cultural influence on stress and self-concept.  The results indicated that both groups were similar on stress variables that focus on universal characteristics but different on culture-based variables.

The purpose of this study was to understand the relationship of stereotypical roles on African American adolescent girls’ self perceptions and attitudes/intentions regarding sexual behavior. Study results suggest that African American girls who internalize images presented to them in mainstream media may also endorse unhealthy attitudes in the sexual domain.

Children of substance abusing parents (COSAP) are at greater risk for the development of behavioral problems, most commonly internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Peleg-Oren, & Teichman, 2006). The purpose of this presentation is to begin to understand the influence of parenting practices and familial interactions in the development of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in African American COSAPs.

This presentation will discuss the linguistic similarity between Bantu-Kongo languages and African American Ebonics with the intent of demonstrating that language is not only demonstrative of being human, it also is a direct reflection of the mind of a people. Utilizing the concept of “voice,” transference and linguistic deep structure, the presentation will illustrate how Ebonics as a Bantu-Kongo language serves as an act of resistance towards cultural and linguistic hegemony and key to understanding the mentality of Black people.

Two studies were conducted to clarify past findings that have demonstrated a consistent relationship between endorsing negative attitudes about being African American (i.e., the preencounter attitudes of Cross’s theory of Nigrescence) and experiencing depression and low self-esteem.  While much of the literature examining these relationships has used simple correlations, we examined the role of a previously unconsidered mediator: Shame. 

Focus group data collected in NYC colleges demonstrate the complexity for Caribbean-born women of negotiating racial and gender identities, while pursuing a US college education. Findings point to the importance of refining current psychological theories of race and gender identity, and accommodating immigrants’ perspectives in urban public institutions.

History and culture are dialectically linked, and the presenter has been on a clue seeking mission through many regions of the world to explore this connection.  This session will provide ideas to enhance ABPsi’s impact on world politics in order to reaffirm what it means to have an African consciousness

3 Hrs MCEP/CEU/LCPP

The Ancestral Healing Model (TAHM) is a culturally competent enhancement, intervention and prevention model that examines the nature of family cultural traditions through a course of actions that include training, genealogy, journaling, art, nutrition, exercise, music, dance and interactive role-plays to motivate positive and healthy lifestyle change.

This presentation will address the issue of academic underachievement among African American students by providing some practical steps that parents and their students can take to alter the downward spiral of educational underperformance, helping parents to develop a four year educational plan with and for their children, discussing the qualities that colleges look for in prospective students and tips for behavioral change that can result in higher educational performance

This study investigates African Self-Consciousness as a protective factor with regard to internalization of engendered racial myths and stereotypic roles of Black women.  It proposes that having a healthy cultural identity reduces the tendency to endorse myths and stereotypes of Black women that may put them at risk for obesity.

Presenters will recount the vibrant and, at times, turbulent history of the field of Black Psychology provided through the oral histories of five prominent elders, including discussion of each elder’s professional journey, review of the inception of the ABPsi, and perspectives on future goals for the field of Black Psychology.

A new model of Afrikan American male identity development is presented.  Utilizing the travails of the nameless main character in Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, along with Black and Afrikan-centered psychological theory, this theory moves beyond the Cross/Thomas theories as concerns Afrikan American male identity development.

The 19c question was “will white women or black men vote first?”  The 21c question is “which for the presidential nominee?” Black women still hang in the balance.  The real question is “how 21c blacks ask the same questions and expect different answers?”  Is it black people in white insanity?

The Jamaican literature on race and ethnicity are mainly sociology-based and neglect social-psychological and psychological issues.  The current paper discusses the complexity of two issues, esteem and identification, through content analysis of 15 self-descriptions of racial/ethnic identity from undergraduate students at a university in Jamaica.

Racism is an ever-present factor in the lives of many African Americans.  Although discrimination is not as severe as the days of Jim Crow, African Americans continue to experience racial provocation.  The focus of the present paper is to understand how racism impacts the mental health of African American women as well as discover potential mediating and moderating factors.

1.5 Hrs MCEP/CEU/LCPP

This workshop will focus on theories of mental health/mental illness and cultural factors related to the utilization of mental health services, i.e, stress and coping, drop-out and retention, cultural mistrust, and models of Western and Traditional methods of healing. Treating PTSD in adolescents will be highlighted. Implication for practice and research will be emphasized.

In addressing their charge to protect and serve, this panel of active Black Police Officers in the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area will discuss how their training, career choices and image/attitudes in the community create challenges for their personal lives and their professional effectiveness as police men and women. Exploring the complex and possible conflicting mind-set of being a Black police officer is an unaddressed feature of the Black community’s overall mental health. The discussants will explore how this complexity affects the psychology of the relationship between black communities and black police officers’ mental health and well being. The panel will conclude with identifying concrete ways in which the Association of Black Psychologists can collaborate with Black Police officers in supporting the mental health psychology of our communities

By surveying the work of W.Curtis Banks, this panel is a serious attempt to respond to Banks’ un-encountered problem by using metaphysics as the means to, as Banks says, “construct particularist theory” in African centered thought. Banks challenges Black scholars to articulate a functional and logically consistent metaphysics in Black studies, and to date the discipline has failed to answer this challenge.

The preservation and revitalization of the Black family is the single most important policy issue facing people of African ancestry. The purpose of this symposium is to engage participants in a dialogue about what a healthy Black family is, and to clarify the roles that the Association of Black Psychologists, and other organizations and institutions should play in the promotion, preservation, and revitalization of healthy Black families

This think tank will discuss current issue and the findings emergent from a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation supported study that (1) explored ways to reduce the health disparities of displaced residents, (2) assisted mental health professionals in identifying clinical interventions used to resolve long-term problems emergent from trauma, grief, and loss, and (3) discussed non-traditional methods of counseling Hurricane Katrina Survivors who continue to live in transitional settings such as shelters. 

1.5 Hrs MCEP/CEU/LCPP

This workshop conducted by members of the Education and Assessment (Testing) Committee will examine the current use of testing and evaluation procedures in the school setting.  Presenters will address the history and impact of I.Q. testing on African American children from the Larry P. case to the present time.  They will provide a critical review of legal issues related to non-discriminatory assessment, an analysis of targeted assessment for specific learning disabilities and criteria for eligibility for special education.  The workshop will focus on strength based, culturally congruent assessment, interventions and evaluation of African American Children.

The purpose of this workshop is to examine the historical and contemporary use of sports imagery and icons to distort, damage, and/or debilitate the “mind-set” and overall psychological well being of African (Black) people and to Identify strategies, programs and projects for ABPsi (Black psychologists) and sports figures that can aid in solving and resolving problems affecting the African (Black) community.

Framed in the context of ethics, the psycho-cultural decimation of African-U.S. people and aboriginal Hawaiians at the hands of Caucasian American civilization is described.  The processes employed in effecting this decimation are mentacidal and amount to psychological warfare.  The results have inferiorized both victim groups and  placed each in extremis.  Reparations for these damages are warranted.

The birth of Black Studies as an academic program and Black Psychology as a professional discipline in many ways can be seen as the birth of twins. Born of the same mother and father, mental liberation and cultural revitalization, these two interests literally nurtured each other. This workshop will identify and trace the fundamental ideas and social conditions that gave rise to the contours, context and content of Black Studies and Black Psychology and will highlight the philosophical grounding that guided the trajectory of their institutional establishment.

Oakland Freedom School program is a child focused, supplemental youth development educational program, designed for African American children that are reflective of African/African-American precepts, culture and experiences.  This presentation will present an integration of theoretical conceptualizations in regards to African American youth development; perceptions of major stakeholders and discuss the results of an evaluation of Oakland Freedom Schools.