Gary W. Harper, Program Director
(773) 325-2056 phone
gharper@wppost.depaul.edu e-mail
(773) 325-2057 fax

For application materials contact:
Lucinda Rapp
(773) 325-7887 phone
lrapp@wppost.depaul.edu e-mail
(773) 325-7888 fax

The Clinical-Community Psychology Program at DePaul

Our program trains students to be innovative designers of interventions, collaborators, practioners, and evaluators. Students get the opportunity to translate their interests in community systems and prevention into the professional skills needed to advance theory and practice in community psychology. Rather than emphasizing treatment, training focuses on health promotion, empowerment, and prevention, with a diverse array of populations. The program emphasizes community, school, and workplace - based interventions, applied research, training and consultation.

As students acquire basic clinical skills, they receive specialized training in a range of community concepts and methods such as consultation, program design and evaluation, empowerment, social support, personal and community competence - building interventions, and health promotion. Underserved urban populations, adolescents, adults, and others "at risk" for negative physical and mental health outcomes due to environmental and lifestyle factors are of special interest to faculty and students. To gain skills in these areas, students develop ties to the ethnically and socioeconomically diverse communities of Chicago through practica, fieldwork experiences, and other community projects. Students are prepared for this work through courses and supervision that address the role of culture, race, gender, sexual orientation, and other aspects of human diversity on human behavior.

Our program attends to multiple issues of human diversity in its faculty, students, and the surrounding community. The five core faculty in the clinical - community Program are diverse in terms of gender (2 female), race/ethnicity (2 African - American) and sexual orientation (1 LGBT). Students interact with other faculty throughout the psychology department and university, and these faculty are also diverse across these dimensions. An effort is made to recruit and retain students of color both into the Community - Clinical program and the psychology department in general. Of the 32 students admitted to the community - clinical program over the past seven years, 59% have been White, 16% African - American, 16% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 9% Latino/a. The research interests of our faculty and students are primarily focused on underserved populations, including low - income urban African - American and Latino/a youth and adults, lesbian/gay/bisexual people, and individuals with chronic illness. Many of the faculty are involved in local and national efforts to recognize the needs of these diverse populations.

The communities within which our students work are primarily urban, but are ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. Students are exposed to people from diverse backgrounds beginning in their first year of training, when they participate in a community project and a clinical practicum through our community mental health center that primarily serves low - income individuals from ethnic - minority communities. In the subsequent years students complete a research, community fieldwork experience and additional practica, often at community agencies and facilities that service individuals that represent the range of human diversity.