Black Mental Health Graduate Academy

The Academy’s Leadership and Mentoring Program provides you with critical cultural and academic support. In addition, the Academy’s Professional Development Program provides career orientation, skill building, and professional enrichment to support Scholars’ academic and career excellence. The Academy is committed to developing you as a future leader by:

1. Reinforcing Scholars’ appreciation for multiculturalism and developing relationships with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds.
2. Enhancing Scholars’ abilities to competently navigate racial, cultural, and sociopolitical challenges.
3. Encouraging Scholars’ intellectual growth by supporting their critical-thinking skills.
4. Strengthening Scholars’ abilities to articulate career choices based on assessment of interests, values, skills, and abilities.
5. Fostering Scholars’ civic engagement in local, national, and global communities as well as their willingness to challenge unfair and unjust behaviors.

As of October 2024, the Academy has had a total of 73 Scholars from WJC’s masters and doctoral level degree programs. Accounting for graduations, the Academy has grown from the pioneering group of 17 Scholars in 2016 to the current cohort of 25. 60%  of our Scholars are of Caribbean (e.g., Haiti) and African (e.g., Nigeria) first-generation immigrant families.

As a student in the Black Mental Health Graduate Academy, you will always have access to this network of faculty, students, and alumni. There are student and alumni gatherings throughout the year.

• As of October 2024 and since its inception in 2016, the Academy has enrolled a total of 73 Scholars from WJC’s masters and doctoral programs, including the current 25-person cohort.
• 45 prestigious merit scholarships and stipends have been awarded to Scholars. Meet our awardees and learn about these scholarships, including CMGMH Serving the Mental Health Needs of the Underserved, STAR Fellowship Program, LDR Fellowship Program, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Initiative (CAMHI), and HRSA Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET).
• 28 Scholars have increased awareness of mental health in the black community as guest speakers, presenters, and panelists on radio and television shows and podcasts, at conferences, and in high-school and college classrooms. These include guest spots on WGBH-TV Show "Basic Black" and the Black Mental Health Matters Podcast hosted by Dr. Kerry-Ann Williams.
• Our Scholars’ Psychology Today Blog have been viewed >34,000 times. These blogs highlight our students' impressive skills in effectively and broadly communicating complex issues associated with race/ethnicity and disparities in mental health.  A sampling  of  the  blog  posts  are  below:
  • Stereotyped and Devalued: The Story of Black Children by Simone Matthews
  • Black America: Psychological Costs of Economic Inequities by Carmaudely L. Galliotte, M.S., BCBA, LABA
  • Transracial Adoptions During the Black Lives Matter Movement by Damon A. Pryor, LMHC, PsyD
  • Black Americans' Psychological Pain and Resilience by Deon Mowatt, MA
• $7,500 Award from American Psychological Association’s Commission on Ethnic Minority Recruitment, Retention and Training in Psychology.

Applicants must have been accepted to or currently enrolled in a William James College graduate program. The Academy is exclusively affiliated with William James College.  If you are interested in learning more or would like to apply to the program, please contact Dr. Natalie Cort, Associate Professor in the Clinical Psychology Department, Co-Director of the Center for Multicultural and Global Mental Health and Director of the Black Mental Health Graduate Academy at natalie_cort@williamjames.edu or Gabrielle Palmer, Academy Administrator and Mentorship and Leadership Preogram Administrator for the Center for Workforce Development at gabrielle_palmer@williamjames.edu.