Introducing Your New Student Representative & a Focus on Student Engagement

By Ayotola Onipede, SCCAP Student Representative

I am honored to join the SCCAP leadership team and introduce myself as the new SCCAP Student Representative for the 2022-2024 term. I received my B.S. in Clinical Psychology from Tufts University. Currently, I am pursuing my PhD in Clinical Psychology at University of California Los Angeles, under the mentorship of Dr. Anna Lau.

Throughout my academic career, my research has been consistently fueled by a desire to center the needs of people who have been pushed to the margins of mental health care, and particularly youth of color. My research interests in addressing mental health concerns of youth of color emerged from my community work as a peer health educator and mentor in schools over the years. I then pursued opportunities to increase my knowledge and experience in this area of research. As an undergraduate, I worked as a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital Community Psychiatry PRIDE on projects that used implementation science and community-based participatory research to facilitate the deployment of evidence-based practices into community mental health settings and schools. I then transitioned to Stanford University’s Eating Disorders Research Program as a post-baccalaureate research coordinator where I managed eating disorder treatment and prevention trials for adolescents and adults. In this role, I also had the unique opportunity to investigate differential responses to treatment and prevention programs as a function of race and ethnicity. As a graduate student at University of California, Los Angeles I have been able to bring together my research experiences and continue my focus on mental health of youth of color. My primary research focus in graduate school is investigating how school-based mental health interventions and implementation strategies can be improved to better recognize and respond to mental health concerns of racially marginalized youth.

SCCAP’s emphasis of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and dissemination of evidence-based practices are well aligned with my own personal research mission. I am thrilled to join such an organization, and contribute to its initiatives. This year I look forward to working with my fellow Student Representative, Natalie Finn, on increasing the visibility of SCCAP and making SCCAP the go-to professional home for students in clinical child and adolescent psychology! We will work with our fantastic committee members to continue to advance mentorship opportunities between undergraduate, graduate, early-and late-stage professionals within SCCAP.

We are also excited to explore strategies related to increasing student membership, with a focus on active engagement. In particular, we would like to increase our reach to undergraduate members and, this year, we plan to compile resources specifically for these members (e.g., resources guiding the graduate school application process). We will also be organizing online panels geared toward graduate student professional development and applying to internship. Lastly, there will be a continued focus on networking opportunities and use of our social media to keep student members connected during these virtual times! As always, we encourage student members to contact their student representatives if they have suggestions or ideas for improving existing initiatives or new programming. We look forward to a productive and enriching year!