Enhancing counseling services for Black college women attending HBCUs

ABSTRACTBlack women’s college experiences are often compounded with psychological stressors such as race- and gender-related oppression, which may influence psychosocial adjustment. Generally, college students experiencing difficulties with psychosocial adjustment will often access college counseling services to manage their experiences. However, for many Black college women, issues related to mistrust of mental health practitioners, cultural barriers, economic factors, and reliance on friends and family result in their underutilization of professional services. Using an experimental design composed of an intervention group and a non-treatment control group with pretest and posttest measures, this study examined the effectiveness of a psychoeducational group intervention involving 20 undergraduate Black college women. Results revealed that after the 10-week group program, participants decreased their external locus of control significantly compared with members of the control group. The difference remaine...