About Us
Our vision
In recognition of the lack of diversity and inclusivity within the wider profession of clinical psychology and clinical psychology training, in 2019, the University of Bath Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programme launched a pilot mentor scheme.
The scheme sought to identify aspiring clinical psychologists from Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds and aimed to provide the necessary support and mentoring from both qualified clinical psychologists and current trainees to support them in applying for and gaining a place on clinical psychology training. To do this each aspiring clinical psychologist was paired with 2 mentors; a qualified clinical psychologist within the region and a trainee clinical psychologist undertaking their clinical training at the University of Bath.
Feedback from mentors and mentees was very positive, and we have since been building on the success of the pilot scheme and working to implement feedback from both mentees and mentors to improve and further develop our mentoring scheme and our offering.
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A note about our scheme name:
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We recognise the diversity of individual identities and lived experiences, and we recognise that ‘Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic’ (BAME) is an imperfect term. It does not fully capture the racial, cultural, and ethnic identities of people that experience structural and systematic inequality.
It is currently the most widely used term embedded within social policy documentation, which has been of use in framing the collective experience of racism and inequality. We acknowledge that ethnicity should be self-identified and chosen by each individual for themselves. We recognise the importance of being explicit about the context, reason and limitations of using any collective term to group populations together (DaCosta et al., 2021).
Our aim is to name our mentor scheme as mentees prefer it to be named, thus extensive consultation with mentees has been conducted, and will continue to be. We acknowledge that it is particularly problematic when the acronym in turned into a noun, and we recognise
the importance of rectifying this by counteracting this.
Meet the team
Dr Josie Millar
Lead of the Mentor Scheme | Clinical Psychologist | Lecturer | Research Tutor
Email: BAME@bath.ac.uk
Twitter: @Josiefam
Dr Josie Millar
Josie Millar is a Clinical Psychologist and lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. Josie works on the Doctorate of Clinical Psychology Training programme as a research and clinical tutor.
Since 2020 Josie has been leading the Mentoring scheme for aspiring clinical psychologists from Black, Asian and Ethnic (BAME) minority backgrounds.
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Josie is passionate about supporting this important scheme, due to the distinct lack of diversity within the profession of clinical psychology, both historic and present.
She is committed to wanting to diversify the field, and believes that having an ethnically diverse and representative workforce is crucial in addressing the significant health inequalities that BAME individuals face. Josie is delighted to be the co-organiser of the scheme with her colleague Afsana Faheem.
Dr Afsana Faheem
Afsana Faheem is a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, teaching predominately on the MSc Applied Clinical Psychology programme. Afsana’s teaching tends to focus on working with diversity and cultural competence. Afsana is the co-organiser of the mentor scheme which was developed for aspiring clinical psychologist from ethnic minority backgrounds at University of Bath. Given the inherent underrepresentation of people from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds in clinical psychology, Afsana has supported the scheme from its initial launch in 2019.
Afsana also hosts the What About Us Podcast with Dr Kate Cooper which was developed to diversify the clinical psychology profession and to be more inclusive by hearing the experiences of a diverse range of clinical practitioners. Afsana has a special interest in working with people from disadvantaged and diverse ethnic minority communities. Her past work experience includes community mental health outreach, counselling, and mentorship for students from disadvantaged and ethnically diverse backgrounds aspiring to get into further and higher education.
Dr Afsana Faheem
Co-Organiser of the Mentor Scheme | Lecturer
Email: BAME@bath.ac.uk
Twitter: @DrAfsanaFaheem
Our impact
To date, we’ve successfully paired over 135 mentees with trainee mentors and qualified mentors on our mentor scheme. Our mentors are from diverse clinical backgrounds and offer invaluable advice and support to our mentees during the programme.
20
Mentees in
2019/2020
23
Mentees in
2020/2021
46
Mentees in
2021/2022
135
Mentees
To Date
46
Mentees in
2022/2023
With the support of our mentors, our mentees have successfully got into a number of clinical related training programmes and positions.
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This includes the DClin training course, as Assistant Psychologists, Research Assistants, and Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs) working for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT).
15+
Mentees who have been employed as an Assistant Psychologist
10+
Mentees who have been accepted onto a Clinical Psychology Training Programme
15+
University of Bath 'Recognising
Excellence Award' Winners
2022
Testimonials
“As a mentor, I gained so many skills in terms of developing supervision skills and developing relationships with supervisees. We also talked a lot about diversity… and that was great to learn about from (my mentee)”
(Trainee Mentor)
“I found the scheme really helpful in supporting me with my next steps as an MSc psychology student. My mentor laid out potential options (psychology related) that I could pursue after the course with my mentor encouraging/supporting me with my applications. I really believe the scheme was achieving what it set out to do - to encourage diversity within psychology”
(Mentee)
