Multicultural social justice group psychotherapy training: Curriculum development and pilot.

The present study described the implementation and pilot evaluation of a curriculum that sought to more successfully address client presenting concerns and group dynamics that emerged from sociopolitical oppression and inequity. Applied psychology competencies, social justice pedagogy, and a content analysis of 9 graduate-level group psychotherapy syllabi informed the course curriculum development. To advance trainees' multicultural social justice competencies in group therapy, several learning assessments were employed to target multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills as well as advocacy, empowerment, and social change. Assessments of learning included self-evaluations, self-reflective journals, reading reactions, seminar discussions, a group curriculum development paper and presentation, and intergroup dialogues. A pilot implementation and evaluation is described. Participants were doctoral students in applied psychology. Participants' social justice beliefs, attitudes toward social justice actions, and multicultural competencies were evaluated prior to and at the conclusion of the pilot. Further, participants' written self-evaluations were examined to assess progress toward learning objectives. Participants' multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills significantly increased after course completion. Participants' written evaluations indicated that they made progress toward each of the learning objectives. Implications for research as well as for transferability to graduate coursework are described.