Josette V. Banks, Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist with over 30 years of consulting, teaching, and clinical experience. Her work has focused on cultural responsivity, racial disparities in mental health care, trauma,... and group interventions in mental health, educational and community settings.
Throughout her career Dr. Banks has developed, consulted on, and provided cultural responsiveness trainings for multiple nonprofit organizations. She has taught specialized graduate level courses in cultural responsivity, group therapy and crisis interventions. She has conducted research and trainings to address racial disparities in special education placement and in disciplinary actions. Her work in trauma has included researching the differential effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on children. As the Assistant Director of a university- based psychological services clinic and developed training for and provided supervision to graduate level clinical trainees with a focus on cultural humility and responsivity in research, service, and interventions.
At present she is a researcher for a Southern California Youth Organizing Initiative with the LMU Participatory Action Research Center. This work is focused on developing strong young activists and leaders to improve equity in social, educational, economic, legal, and environmental justice for African American, Asian American, Native American, LatinX and LGBTQ+ communities. Dr. Banks is also a senior designer, trainer, and supervisor for the South Los Angeles Healing Circles Project as part of a larger Violence Reduction Initiative. This work focuses on community self-healing in the face of racialized inequities and violence. Dr. Banks is a lead author of a report on Black Child Suicide to the Congressional Black Caucus exploring the disparity in rates, research, and intervention for the increasingly disproportionate number of suicides for African American children.
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