About the Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging

We strive to ensure diverse and inclusive representation of our department in our center membership, where all trainees, research assistants, support and administrative staff, junior and senior clinical and research faculty (MD, PhD, and LICSW) can thrive to their fullest potential.

Goals of the Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging

The Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging has four main goals to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging at Mass General.

Recruitment and retention of diverse trainees, faculty and staff

Trainee Recruitment

Our center advocates for diversity in trainee recruitment and encourages underrepresented minority applicants to join our adult and child psychiatry residency and psychology internship programs through:

Cross-collaboration with the Harvard Medical School Visiting Clerkship program, Mass General Center for Diversity and Inclusion, and program directors at Mass General/McLean Psychiatry departments and Mass General psychology program directors
Inclusion of interested trainees as affiliates of the center and program directors as members of the center.

Faculty and Staff Recruitment and Retention

Members are committed to supporting the department’s efforts to recruit and nurture underrepresented minority junior and senior staff by offering outreach, mentorship and support to potential candidates and current staff members.

Diversity education for staff members

Members actively participate in a wide range of activities to promote awareness of topics such as cultural humility, health equity, anti-racism, microaggressions, and microaffirmations. We emphasize the relationship these can have in all aspects of patient interactions and how these encounters may be influenced by cultural differences like age, gender, race, religion, size, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic differences.

Education of our members, the Psychiatry Department, the Mass General clinical and administrative staff, and the wider community about diversity-related topics is accomplished through:

Invited lecture series at monthly meeting for members
Faculty retreats for members
Frances Bonner MD Grand Rounds & award celebration
Spring Diversity Speaker Series
Blum Learning Center Brown Bag Lunches for the Mass General community
Diversity Dialogue Workshops for groups in the Mass General community
Bias at the Bedside (BATB) upstander workshops
Publishing articles and books on diversity issues

Trainee education, supervision and mentorship

Our members provide Mass General psychology and psychiatry trainees education to encourage clinical excellence on diversity-related concepts as they apply to the clinician-patient encounter. Center members lead and participate in:

Lectures on diversity issues in both the psychology and psychiatry trainee core didactics series
Supervision and mentorship of psychology and psychiatry trainees

Promotion of patient-centered activities

The long-term goals of our center include understanding the diversity of the psychiatric patient population at Mass General and developing strategies to ensure that psychiatric patients of all backgrounds feel welcome at Mass General.