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DSW Showcase Student Presentation

Mikayla McDowell

MSW

Cultural Responsiveness: Enhancing Social Work Education to Effectively Meet the Mental Health Needs of African American Youth

Concentration -

  • Wednesday, April 30, 2025 -
  • 10:30 am
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Abstract

This presentation will address how advancing social work education can improve the many mental health challenges that African American youth are currently facing. This presentation will highlight several factors that contribute to the current increase in mental health issues faced by this population, as well as improvements and additions that can be made to social work education to better prepare social workers to work with diverse populations. Some of the factors contributing to this mental health crisis that will be discussed include racial disparities, cultural stigmas, socioeconomic disparities, and provider bias. The objective of this presentation is to give participants a clear understanding of why this issue is occurring and why social work education needs to be enhanced. The presentation includes clear steps for the enhancements that should be implemented to meet this population’s mental health needs. This presentation will also include evaluation measures that social work educators can use to assess the results of the enhancements added to social work education.

Biography

Mikayla McDowell is currently a school social worker at Elizabeth Elementary and a Doctor of Social Work candidate at the University of Kentucky. Before becoming a student at the University of Kentucky, McDowell completed her Bachelor of Social Work degree at Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina and her Master of Social Work degree at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. McDowell graduated Magna Cum Laude from both institutions. Since becoming a social worker, McDowell has held several positions in diverse settings. Those roles include school-based, community-based, and policy advocacy roles. With several years of working with at-risk youth, McDowell has developed a deep interest in researching the mental health of black youth. Her research has a strong focus on identifying culturally responsive strategies to incorporate into social work education to improve the mental health of this population. As a doctoral candidate at the University of Kentucky, she has taken for a topic Cultural Responsiveness: Enhancing Social Work Education to Effectively Meet the Mental Health Needs of Black Youth.