interweaving ethnicity and gender in consultation

Interweaving Ethnicityand Gender in Consultation:

A Training Experience

Pilar HernándezBen Bunyi

Ryann Townson

ABSTRACT. The training of family therapy consultants in mentalhealth and educational settings requires both a model for the develop-ment of skills and an understanding of the tasks leading to cultural com-petence. This paper describes and discusses the lessons learned by aconsultation team as it trained in consultation by assessing, designing, andimplementing interventions for a non-profit organization working withrefugee children. Attention to ethnicity and gender guided the consultationprocess because of their prominence in the consultee’s work with refu-gee children. The authors used the Cultural Context Model as a frame tointerweave culture and context in the consultation process and expand itsuse. doi:10.1300/J085v18n01_05 [Article copies available for a fee from TheHaworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:<[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>© 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Ethnicity, gender, consultation training

Pilar Hernández is Assistant Professor in Marriage and Family Therapy Programat San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 91182-1179.

Ben Bunyi and Ryann Townson are affiliated with the Marriage and Family Ther-apy Program, Department of Counseling and School Psychology, San Diego State Uni-versity, San Diego, CA.

Journal of Family Psychotherapy, Vol. 18(1) 2007Available online at http://jfp.haworthpress.com

© 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J085v18n01_05 57

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The practice of consulting has been around for various decades and hasbeen defined in a variety of ways. Broadly speaking, Harrison (2004) de-fined it as an interpersonal process in which a consultant provides assis-tance to a consultee in order to respond to issues that concern a thirdparty or client. Consultations with individuals, families, groups, and or-ganizations seek to enhance the consultee’s work performance. Froman ecological perspective, Kelly (1987) posits that people, settings andevents all play a role in the consultation process, and interactions be-tween people and their environment cannot be underestimated. In themental health field consulting has been a common practice for several de-cades formally and informally (Caplan, 1970; Caplan, Caplan, & Erchul,1994). In the field of family therapy, consultation with master familytherapists has also been a common practice in hospitals, communitymental health centers, and schools, as well as in private and public fo-rums (Andolfi & Haber, 1994; Carpenter & Treacher, 1989; Coffman,1990; Sluzki, 2000, 2004). The use of consultants became popular withthe expanded use of reflecting teams in family therapy. Reflectingteams were not only used to work directly with families but to assist cli-nicians in their work with families (Anderson, 1987; Griffith & Frieden,2000; Pare, 1999; Selekman & King, 2001). Epston and White (1995)contributed to expanding the meaning of consulting by illustratinghow therapists can shift their position and consult with their clients toimpact a family, other families, and communities. Therapists workingfrom a collaborative framework developed applications for workingwith schools (Fine, 1990). In sum, there have been multiple ways inwhich the practice of consulting has been defined and applied depend-ing on the context and approach used in family therapy.

In this paper, the authors specifically focus on consultation processesinvolving a consultant (an outsider with expertise in a particular area),consultees (individuals asking for assistance), and their organizationalcontext (the organization in the world of work). Specifically, the train-ing of family therapy consultants in mental health and educational set-tings requires both a model for the development of skills and anunderstanding of the tasks leading to cultural competence. This paperdescribes and discusses the training lessons learned by a consultationteam as it assessed, designed, and implemented interventions for a non-profit organization working with refugee children. Attention to ethnic-ity and gender guided the consultation process due to their prominencein the consultee’s work with refugee children. The authors used the Cul-tural Context Model (Almeida, 2004) as a frame to interweave cultureand context in the consultation process and expand its use. The authors

58 JOURNAL OF FAMILY PSYCHOTHERAPY


also embrace Meyer’s (2002) view of the consultant’s role as one inwhich consultants may advise and collaborate with community groupsand organizations to assist in identifying and solving problems, gather-ing and interpreting data, generating, implementing, and evaluating in-terventions, and integrating diversity and context in the consultationprocess (Ingraham & Meyers, 2000).

According to Greshan and Kendall (1987) research in consultationhas mostly been descriptive and has lacked an inclusion of environmen-tal variables. Their review indicates that the majority of the research hasbeen conducted on behavioral consultation models and that these mod-els have the most empirical support. School consultation appears to be themost frequent setting for practice and research (Dougherty, 2005). Inhis article, “A 30 year perspective on best practices for consultationtraining,” Myers (2002) posits that one of the areas for future researchand consultation training is the development of knowledge and skillsconcerning multicultural issues in consultation. In the field of multicul-tural consultation, Ingraham (2003) advocates the use of qualitativestudies to address the complexity of multidimensional cultural vari-ables, the need for “thick” descriptions, and contextual and powerdifferentials.

An interesting innovation and application of consulting services inthe mental health field was developed by Kirmayer, Groleau, Guzder,Jaswant, and Jarvis in Canada (2003). They implemented a clinical andcultural consultation service in the province of Montreal, Canada, to im-prove service delivery in mainstream settings for culturally diverse urbanpopulations. They evaluated 100 cases with regard to clinical assess-ments and formulations, recommendations, and referring clinician’s sat-isfaction with the consultation. They concluded that the impact ofcultural misunderstandings was prevalent throughout in the form of in-complete assessments, incorrect diagnoses, inadequate or inappropriatetreatment, and failed treatment alliances. Their consultation model effec-tively supplemented existing clinical services. These authors stressed theneed to expand awareness and training in clinical settings by (1) in-creasing awareness of cultural issues in mental health and clinical skillsamong primary care clinicians and social service workers, through in-service training; (2) strengthening training of mental health practition-ers in concepts of culture and strategies for intercultural care; and(3) training practitioners to work with interpreters and cultural brokers.The authors pay particular attention to consultation practices in relationto diversity and advance the idea that multiple dimensions of “diver-sity” interface in the everyday practice of consultation. This paper

Hernández, Bunyi, and Townson 59


describes and discusses the lessons learned by a consultation team as ittrained in consultation by assessing, designing, and implementing inter-ventions for a non-profit organization working with refugee children.

APPLICATION OF CORE CLINICAL COMPETENCIESGUIDING CLINICAL SUPERVISION

OF CONSULTATION PRACTICE

Hernández (2003) illustrated the use of the Cultural Context Model(CCM) in supervision. This model offers parameters to make visible andwork through the intertwined ways in which discourses about gender,class, age, ability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity play out in some-one’s life (Almeida, 1998, 2004). This model is distinguished fromother family therapy models primarily by its (1) focusing on the devel-opment of critical consciousness, accountability, and empowerment;(2) valuing historical information; (3) locating supervisees’ narrativeswithin the crucible of societal power dynamics; and (4) developing col-laborative, learning processes within communities. Although the CCMfocuses on these areas collectively and systematically, in this trainingexperience the focus was on the development of critical consciousness,accountability, and empowerment in consultation.

Critical consciousness has been defined as the development of a crit-ical awareness of personal dynamics within the context of social andpolitical situations (Freire, 1982). It is illustrated by an experience ofrecognizing cultural/societal prescriptions of choices for what they are,and not unquestionably as if they were “the natural order of things”(Hernández, 2003; Hernández, Almeida, & Del-Vecchio, 2005). Theprocess whereby supervisors, supervisees, clients, and communities de-velop critical consciousness is the first step toward empowerment andaccountability. The CCM encourages open conversations about the so-cial location of trainees, consultees, and supervisors with regard to class,age, gender, ethnicity, ability, and sexual orientation to foster processesof critical consciousness within these areas. In training, supervisors paycareful attention to the language they use and to the institutional barriersand stories elaborated upon in training to assist trainees to understandtheir role in their communities and the effects of power and oppressionin their lives and the lives of others. Thus, one training goal is to developthe ability to recognize and value different forms of expertise in thetrainees, consultants, and clients (Collins, 2000).



Elsewhere Hernández (2003) and Hernández, Almeida, and Del-Vecchio (2005) described the notion of accountability. Based onAlmeida’s work (1998), they defined it as a patterned way of relating toothers that expands rigid societal norms (e.g., of masculine and femi-nine behavior). This concept questions the multiple institutions thatmaintain and perpetuate racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia,and the ways in which these forms of oppression are manifested in fam-ily life. Unique characteristics of the CCM involve addressing develop-ing critical consciousness for those in privileged positions, and dealingwith the therapist’s responsibility to acknowledge and question her/hissocial location and act on behalf of those from which she/he benefits asa mental health provider. In a similar vein, Meyer’s (2004) applicationof Collin’s Black feminist epistemology into consultation points at theneed to address the question, “who are you to tell me what to do in myclassroom (or how to interact with my child)?” (p. 64). Assisting train-ees to clarify their values, beliefs, privileges, and use of self contributesto developing accountability.

The CCM addresses the process of empowerment at two levels. Oneof the empowering dimensions of the CCM stems from a mutual co-cre-ation of meaning in which the therapists are key in the re-construction ofthe clients’ life stories as it is understood in narrative approaches (Laird,1989; Weingarten, 1995). In consultation training, this mutual co-cre-ation implies that both supervisor and trainees acknowledge his/her lo-cation in the social world and its implications and elaborate their viewsand interventions with this acknowledgement. The second level ofempowerment simultaneously includes individual, family, communityconversations, and the linking of these conversations with social action.In consultation training, empowering develops as trainees gain voice inthe supervision, consultation, and organizational contexts. The devel-opment of a voice in a political context was illustrated by the AfricanAmerican trainee who participated in this experience as illustrated laterin this paper.

THE CONSULTATION PROCESS

The Consultation Participants

The consulting team invited to evaluate the non-profit organizationconsisted of a Colombian marriage and family therapy assistant profes-sor with extensive clinical experience in the United States and overseas,



and two third-year marriage and family therapy Master’s trainees: aFilipino male with an undergraduate background in ethnic studies andan African American female with an undergraduate background in psy-chology. Both had experience working with social agencies. The con-sultation team members had various degrees of experience workingwith diverse ethnic populations and their work emphasized cultural di-versity. The consultee was a non-profit organization working with refu-gee children. Two of the three male members who administrated theorganization and taught the children photography requested the consul-tation. Two were of European descent and one was Asian. Eventually, afemale of European descent joined the organization. They had bache-lor’s degrees in fields not related to human services but had experiencein teaching children abroad. The non-profit organization promotesself-sufficiency by teaching refugee children print photography anddigital media in a classroom setting. The classes were taught by the staffand community volunteers. The clients this non-profit served were pre-adolescent and adolescent refugee children primarily from Africancountries. Both consultants and consultees were all heterosexual.

Encounters

The program evaluation consisted of two planning meetings with thenon-profit staff, one-hour interviews with the staff, thirty-minute inter-views with three refugee children, observation of staff meetings, weeklyparticipatory observations of two of the photography classes for 32 weeksand 3 workshops.

Context and Social Location

Authors invested in integrating culture and context in consultationexplain that cultural competence is fundamental given the growing di-versity of United States and Canada (Washburn, Manley, & Holiwski,2003; Kavanaugh, Absalom, Beil, & Schliessmann, 1999). In the men-tal health field, cultural competence cannot continue to be considered asimple addition to a set of skills. Kavanaugh et al. (1999) and Kirmayer(2003) offer examples of how to conduct culturally competent consulta-tions in the schools, in Native American reservations, and how the gov-ernmental health system may increase the efficiency of the systems theyserve.

This consultation team had a commitment to integrating culture andcontext into the consultation process and this was one of the reasons



why the consultees requested their help. The consultees wanted to learnhow to relate to the children in a more competent manner and overcomethe interpersonal difficulties they faced with them. A key training com-ponent involved understanding the larger social context in the citywhere the non-profit operated and the social locations of the partici-pants involved. The consulting team viewed this consultation processas an engagement by which it would operate as a system with whicha group of people interact as a functional unit (Bateson, 1972). Thisfunctional unit included the ways in which ethnicity, class, gender, andsexual orientation organized how the consulting team members relatedto each other. The consulting team also kept in mind that this wouldbecome a relationship in which they would impact each other. That is,as consultants they were mindful of the impact that the consultees andthe children would have on the consultants and vice versa.

Broadly speaking, the city where the consultation occurred is one thatattracts refugees from all over world. In spite of this, it has few commu-nity-based services for refugees. It is a border city with several militarybases and people from Mexican descent are the largest ethnic group inthe area. It has been characterized as politically and socially conserva-tive. Its high cost of living makes it very challenging for refugees andlow-income citizens to survive. A major issue is that this is a major met-ropolitan area holding to the idea that it is a small suburban area. Thishas tremendous negative implications for public transportation, socialservices, housing, affordability, and jobs. Thus, the refugee childrenand their families were located in an area where it is difficult to survivefinancially.

What follows is a description and analysis of the consultation train-ing process. It has been divided into the following sections: micro-skilltraining, development of critical consciousness, accountability, andempowerment.

The Training Process: Skill Development

Training involved the use of basic interpersonal and micro-counsel-ing skills as well as the development of problem-solving skills, sys-temic hypotheses, and interventions requiring an advanced skill level.The Master’s family therapy trainees in the consulting team had alreadybeen trained in the following basic interpersonal skills: joining withthe consulting team or consultees, creating an environment conduciveto collaboration, explaining their role and responding to verbal andnon-verbal communication. The development of social influence and



trustworthiness was initiated by the lead consultant. In initial conversa-tions with the consultees, her work with traumatic stress in the UnitedStates and overseas was discussed as well as her consultation experi-ence overseas. Thus, when the trainees were introduced to the con-sultees, the stage was set to discuss the trainees’ level of skill andexperience. Table 1 illustrates the evolution of the process and the skillsinvolved in each phase.

In addition, trainees had already achieved a good level of competencyin micro-counseling skills (Ivey, 1991) such as non-verbal attending, lis-tening, expressing empathy, paraphrasing, summarizing, questioningand probing, and providing direct feedback. Research on the role thatthese skills play in the consultation process indicates that they build thefoundation for the whole process (Daniels & DeWine, 1990; Dougherty,Henderson, Tack, Deck, Worley, & Page, 1997). For example, the traineeBen Bunyi (B.B.) responsible for the initial joining and observation pro-cess observed one of the classes every week and met with the consultingorganization staff after the class. He heard their comments and partici-pated in the meeting at the very end by paraphrasing the staff’s com-ments, summarizing their views, offering questions and feedback onways to relate to the children.

Advanced skills involved understanding and learning how to con-duct a program evaluation, how to become a participant observer, andproblem solving (see Table 1). The qualitative program evaluationwas framed within the Responsive Evaluation modality developed byLincoln and Guba (1985). Within this model, the goals were as follows:(1) To identify issues and concerns based on direct, face-to-face contactwith people in the program; (2) to conduct direct personal observationsof the work; and (3) to develop themes that speak about the program’svision, activities, and goals.

Based on naturalistic and participatory observations, the consultingteam offered an evaluation of the non-profit program’s didactic compo-nent with refugee children, the program’s capacity to include a mentalhealth component, a description of the various visions that overlappedin the consultees’ agenda and the workings of a male-oriented organiza-tion working primarily with boys. This program evaluation involvedlearning to gather, analyze, interpret, and present data. Furthermore, itconstituted the basis for identifying problem areas and for offering sug-gestions on how to approach them. The consulting team identified thefollowing areas of strength: strong group cohesion, strong group commit-ment to the work with refugee children, resourcefulness, use of creativeand marketable skills in multimedia, and uniqueness of the program.



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65


Areas for further development included lack of inclusion of girls andwomen instructors/administrators in the program, interpersonal conflictwith the children, a need to understand traumatic stress dynamics in ref-ugee children, a need to understand how privilege and ethnicity played arole in interactions with the children, and differences and commonali-ties in the vision of the leadership for the organization as a whole.

Becoming a participant observer involved gaining skills to create aworking relationship with members of the organization, using organiza-tional analysis, assessing the climate and culture of the organization, as-sessing classroom dynamics, and facilitating group processes. Learningproblem-solving skills involved identifying problem areas and designingand implementing interventions in collaboration with the consultees. Oneof the problem areas identified was the instructors’ teaching style andits impact on the children. Prolonged classroom observations of inter-actions between instructors and children made evident that the instruc-tors’ teaching styles and their ways of handling conflict with thechildren generated dissatisfaction in both instructors and children. Theobservers recorded two particular teaching styles that were problem-atic: one that emphasized authority and obedience and one that empha-sized productivity, timely performance, and the completion of tasks.The consultees’ educational background did not include training in edu-cation and experience observing themselves as instructors. In order to de-velop awareness about the impact of the instructors’ styles and how theireducational upbringing was translated into their work with the refugeechildren, a reflecting team intervention was proposed and implemented(Anderson, 1987). In addition, this intervention sought to open up a dia-logue amongst the instructors in which they could listen to and supporteach other in their efforts to improve their performance.

The consultants discussed with the consultees the problem area iden-tified and explained the logistics of the reflecting team intervention.After the consultees agreed to this intervention, the consulting teammodeled a reflecting conversation while the consultees observed in si-lence behind a one-way mirror. Then, the consultees were invited tohave their own conversation about their educational experiences andbackground. These conversations made evident how the instructors en-acted the legacy of the role models and values they had growing up. Ahigh demand for academic excellence in a product-driven manner, anemphasis on competition and hierarchy, and a lack of regard for processand emotions were salient in their stories. The reflecting team offered aspace for the consultees to listen to each other in an emphatic mannerand for a dialogue about suggestions for change.



The Training Process:Development of Critical Consciousness

Each of the consultant trainees developed critical consciousness indif-ferent areas in this process. For B.B., a Filipino male trainee, a challengeemerged when facing familial and cultural values regarding humility andthe value that mainstream American culture places on self-image and ex-pertise. Looking back at his own experience as a consultant in training,he found himself as an uncertain novice at the beginning of the consulta-tion project (Meyers, 2002). In spite of his training and experience withsocial services, he found himself unsure of his skills and his personaland professional identity when providing consultation services. In hisfield notes he recalled having an ever-present awareness of the fact thathe was a student dealing with agency administrators and that he was apart of an ethnic-minority group providing consultation services to menof European descent in a position of power.

The consultation literature hypothesizes that learning, developing,and applying consultation skills addresses the uncertainty that is perva-sive in being a beginning consultant in training (Meyers, 2002). How-ever, Ben Bunyi felt that learning these skills was only a small part ofgaining confidence and becoming an expert. For him the key to his ownprocess of moving from an uncertain beginning consultant in trainingtowards becoming a non-threatening expert involved examining hissocial location, its intersection with the consultees’ social location andthe impact of this interaction in the consultation process. This examina-tion occurred in the context of supervision and team meetings. He dis-covered that one of the barriers preventing him from moving towards anon-threatening-expert stance was a familial cultural message regard-ing humility. He was raised in the Philippines for twelve years and, af-ter migrating to the United States, his paternal Filipino grandparentsraised him. Both grandparents migrated to the United States as adults. Inhis family and cultural background, humility is considered a virtue andany bold proclamation of expertise is generally frowned upon. In addi-tion, he grew up with a dominant cultural message about how a personconducts himself or herself as a guest in someone else’s house. Humil-ity is very important when conducting oneself in someone’s home, it isaccompanied by deference to the homeowners and respect for theirspace and their property. In his experience of immigration, this domi-nant cultural message regarding how one conducts oneself as a guestbecame the dominant story in how Filipinos, specifically his family oforigin, conducted themselves as immigrants in the United States. He



remembered that he could almost hear a tape of his grandmother’s voiceemphasizing humility, deference to Americans of European descent,and respect for their space. This cultural norm was exacerbated by anunderlying message embedded in American society in which immi-grants and their children–even if those children were born in the UnitedStates–are outsiders. Thus, trying to become a non-threatening expert inthis context placed him in a conundrum.

He embarked on a quest to challenge his family’s values leading to in-ternalized oppression. He re-discovered the meaning of the Manghihilotor Filipino healer. The Manghihilot were revered in communities and of-ten came to people’s homes to provide both physical and emotional heal-ing. Since he had been healed by several of them before, he rememberedhow they were able to balance exerting the power given to them in rever-ence of their experience and respecting the rights and wishes of those theyhealed. He drew a parallel between being a consultant and a Manghihilot,both are asked to utilize knowledge, skills, and experience to “fix” prob-lems and are asked to do so in the domain of other people’s spaces.

The Training Process: Development of Accountability

A second consultant in training, Ryann Townson (R.T.) was invitedto join the project because of her good therapeutic skills, experienceas an African American female working with African and AfricanAmericans, and knowledge of historical trauma. Her initial experiencewas as follows:

I experienced several red flags with the AjA Staff that indicatedtheir discomfort with me as a consultant in training. As a partici-pant observer in this project, I had to observe the consultees’ inter-actions among themselves, with program participants, and withmyself as a consultee. I participated in staff meetings, classroomsettings, and workshops. My immediate goal was to assess the cli-mate and culture of the organization and to create an observationalanalysis encapsulated within the existing sociopolitical context ofthe organization. However, I found myself hardly acknowledgedby the staff which included the following patterned behaviors: themale staff forgetting my name, failing to ask me questions di-rectly, not being informed when meeting times and events werechanged and/or canceled, and ignoring my suggestions altogether.It was in these interpersonal interactions I found myself shuttingdown and feeling frustrated.



This consultant in training’s anxiety created a sense of paralysis,self-doubt, and criticism in her. In her view, she experienced a disso-nance between having had successful experiences as a clinician andfeeling positive about her identity and feeling insecure about her clini-cal skills and doubting whether her racial identity was an issue in thisproject. She found a way to make sense of her experience in severalways. She referred to authors who have discussed these issues to under-stand them, brought up her concerns to the consulting team, continuedher work with the project, and decided to articulate her experience toshare it with larger audiences. She struggled to uncover ways to bringvoice to the intersection of race and gender experiences. Many timesshe wondered if the behaviors and interactions that she experiencedwere accurate, if issues of social location overtly and covertly played arole in the consultees’ attitudes toward her. She pondered how ethnicity,gender, and class constructs can be used as areas of change for consulteesand consultants.

Throughout this time a process that helped B.B. move from noviceto expert involved holding himself accountable for his work beyond theresponsibilities expected from a student. For him accountability meantundertaking the uncomfortable process of examining power differen-tials in the consultation system, recognizing and accepting his privilegein this system, and taking responsibility for addressing any negative im-pact that this privilege may have had. For example, after reflecting onhis overall experience with the consultation process as well as thechanges that occurred when R.T. joined the project, he realized that inthis situation, his ethnicity and gender gave him a certain privilege overhis consultant-in-training partner (R.T.). In this particular context, itwas easy to relate to other males and their response of acceptance to-ward him was obvious. In addition, there was another Asian immigrantin the team and recent histories of migration were valuable in the cultureof this organization. These dynamics may reflect larger mainstreamAmerican societal norms where male privilege is pervasive and Asians,Filipinos included, tend to be falsely construed as the model minorityand often contrasted against other communities of color, specifically theAfrican American community.

The impact of his privilege on the consulting team was as follows:While both consultants in training were observing different classrooms,the consultees would often approach him with questions regarding situ-ations which R.T. directly observed, they would strike up casual con-versation with him but not with her, and they would not be as opento her feedback. He also observed that the consultees had different



reactions to the same feedback depending upon whether the feedbackwas provided by him or R.T.

Recognizing, accepting this dynamic, and ensuring a change in theconsultant’s system evolved in supervision. The next phase involvedhis becoming an active participant in deconstructing the privilege pro-vided by his ethnicity and gender by referring consultees to R.T. whentheir questions dealt with issues that she had directly observed or hadbeen involved in, emphasizing R.T.’s expertise and deferring to it whenappropriate. In addition, this process impacted his comfort with being“the” leader. For him, this was a particular male assumption about hav-ing to be in control and in the spotlight. He acknowledged that it wasdifficult for him to step back and not to try to lead activities, dominateconversations, and share the decision-making process. Nevertheless, herelinquished control to support R.T. and to contribute to changing thebalance in the consulting team.

The Training Process: Development of Empowerment

Conceptualizing effective mentorship and training in multiculturalconsultation requires that training and practice be guided by two funda-mental premises: (1) The consideration that the concepts and conceptualframeworks that one uses are embedded in messages about who and whatis important (Patton, 1990), and (2) human development evolves withinthe context of our social roles, which are organized and bounded withinthe class, gender, ethnic, and cultural structure of our society (Almeida,2002). It is critical that mentorship and training analyze and investigatehow these roles permeate the totality of human experience. For R.T.,articulating her critical consciousness about ethnic and gender issueswith accountability and empowerment required four processes: (1) Val-idating her identity and her experience, (2) examining familial experi-ences in larger society, (3) connecting with diverse societal narratives,and (4) strategizing responses to race, gender, and power dynamics inthe project.

First, she compared and contrasted her experience with the consulteeeswith her experience in larger society. The political context of her expe-rience with the consultees was not different from her experience withinthe larger society (i.e., which is to be ignored, silenced, perceived lessthan, and dismissed altogether). She had to remind herself that her expe-rience was not unique and that what she experienced was not just abouther skills but racism. In addition, she established conversations with theconsulting team to receive validation and support.



Second, utilizing social location issues as a guide for assessment andintervention required that trainees recognize and take into account theconsultees’ social location. This involves gaining an understanding ofwhere the consultees and their clientele come from and consideringmultiple dimensions of their personhood. An example, R.T. observedthat when one of the consultees brought a new laptop to the class-room, the students showed curiosity. They wanted to touch it and use it.One of the students asked the consultee what was its cost. The consulteewas rendered speechless for a moment. He then said that it was very ex-pensive and changed the topic. The student said that he wanted to saveand buy one but the consultee did not continue the conversation. InR.T.’s eyes, there were better options to handle this interaction with thestudent. However, she hypothesized that the consultee’s cutting off ofthe student had to do with his lack of comfort with talking openly aboutmoney with someone for whom this kind of laptop is out of reach.

Strategizing conversations, interventions, and working together torespond to race, gender, and power dynamics was a critical aspect ofmentorship that required a positioning and a presentation of ideas thatchallenged the consultants’ privilege in a collaborative manner. Theconsultants devised several strategies to deal with these issues. Onemethod of strategizing was to value R.T.’s personal, professional, andeducational status by putting her at the center in consultation meetings.The other two members deferred to her in the implementation ofstrategies designed by the team.

A Reflecting Team was implemented as a training technique to facili-tate new information and multiple understandings of R.T.’s experienceswith the consultees and its impact in their work with refugee children.In a part of a consultation session, a reflecting team was structured toallow conversations around the impact of ethnicity and gender in theconsultees’ work. R.T. had a chance to discuss with one of the consulteesthe impact of ethnicity on the refugee children while the rest of theconsultees and consultants observed. R.T. brought up themes related togrowing up in America in marginalized context due to ethnic and classlocations, shared her own experience in school settings and compared itwith the struggles that the refugee children suffered. She pointed at themeaning of differences as she and the consultant from the non-gov-ernmental organization openly talked about how different were theirschool-related experiences.

Finally, moving from to a position of empowerment involved R.T.’sdeveloping of her own voice in this political context. In her experience,mentorship and training in consultation must examine and challenge



issues of power, privilege, and injustice as it shapes interpersonal inter-actions and relationships. Open dialogue in supervision enabled her tofeel heard and respected. She recalled:

It was within the context of the mentor and trainee relationship inwhich I first learned to develop my voice because skill develop-ment incorporated an environment, which privileged issues ofrace, gender, and class. Developing my voice in a political contextmeant gaining the opportunity to challenge these issues in a directbut respectful manner.

Gaining empowerment implies that one feels a sense of power. Intraining, I was encouraged to struggle with complex issues, multi-faceted with race, gender, and class constructs. I received en-couragement from the SDSU consulting team and found myselfstrengthened as I gained increasing awareness of how my own cul-tural and familial experiences have shaped who I am as a clinician.

Furthermore, when the consulting team expanded their conversationswith professional audiences, her development continued. She foundthat these presentations made sense as a way to engage in dialogue andexpand the number of witnesses in the process. She recalled:

Discussing my experience with larger audiences in professionalpresentations, I wanted to find one small way to encourage train-ees newly entering the field who might be discouraged by some oftheir experiences in educational settings. I also aspired to reach theprofessors specializing and teaching consultation as well as othermental health professionals. The witnessing of other professionalsdedicated to cultural issues, I believe that empowerment restswithin me and that what I have to share is my journey.

Changes Incorporated by the Consultees

One way to describe some of the changes implemented by the con-sulting organization is by using the systemic concepts of first- and sec-ond-order change (Bateson, 1972). First-order change refers to changesthat left unaltered the fundamental underlying organization of the con-sultees. An example of this kind of change was reflected in their requestfor specific didactic training on traumatic stress dynamics in children andbeginning an understanding of the impact of trauma on the children’s



cognitive and emotional functioning. Second-order change refers tochanges that altered the fundamental organization of the organization.The incorporation of a woman as part of the training and administrationstaff and the active recruitment of girls into the program changed the di-rection of the organization by incorporating awareness of gender issues.Furthermore, they developed a youth council and invited young womenof color to be members. Unfortunately, they were willing to makechanges around gender issues but were unwilling to look at ethnicityand ethnic privilege. Finally, the consulting team was later hired to con-duct workshops on developing interpersonal skills.

CONCLUSION

This case study illustrated key diversity aspects in the consultants-in-training mentoring process. By addressing two dimensions of diver-sity (gender and ethnicity) as intersecting in the consultant team and asinteracting between consultants and consultees, issues of privilege andmarginalization were dealt within the particular consultation’s powerdynamics. Furthermore, by placing critical consciousness, accountabil-ity, and empowerment at the center of the mentoring process, the con-sultants in training worked through gender and ethnicity issues in thecontext of current sociopolitical realities. This mentoring process priv-ileged the consultants’ in training acknowledgement of their origins,community identity, and their development of critical consciousnessabout the ways in which their social location afforded and constrainedthem. They became aware of how their lives and those with whom theyinteract are governed by reciprocity.

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doi:10.1300/J085v18n01_05



interweaving ethnicity and gender in consultation

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