REVISED ABSTRACT: The applicant is requesting five years of funding through the Mentored Career Development Award (K01) program to enhance her methodological and theoretical skills for investigating counseling processes, outcomes, and services for underserved clients. The applicant's research focus has shifted from counselor training to investigation of the counseling services themselves, with the long-term objective to develop conceptually-based, empirically-supported models of mental health services for underserved clients. The support of this award will promote the development of research and theoretical skills necessary to carry out a rigorous research program in this area. The applicant's career development goals over the course of the project include: a) increased ability to use a variety of research methods to investigate counseling processes, outcomes, and services for underserved clients, b) increased understanding of social science and counseling models that can serve as theoretical underpinnings for this research, and c) improved grant writing abilities. These goals will be accomplished through coursework, consultation and mentoring, observation of research labs and studies, and participation in research projects. The research plan for this award is divided into two studies that complement the proposed sequence of training activities. The first project will collect and analyze interview data from underserved clients and providers of mental health services. These data will be used to identify counselor, client, and contextual variables to include in investigations of counseling processes, outcomes, and services. The second study will operationalize and investigate select variables identified in the first study. The applicant is a tenure-track Assistant Professor, and the on-site mentor has a strong record of mentoring ethnic minority academic psychologists. The applicant's institution will provide release time from teaching and committees, laboratory space, and courses to support the applicant's career development and research plans. Seven researchers have agreed to serve as consultants to the project.
