I’m at the National Multicultural Conference and Summit 2013 (NMCS 2013) in Houston, TX. Besides being a terrific conference in and of itself, there are exciting things happening here for the Hogg Foundation. Last evening on the pre-conference day, we held the third annual meeting of the Texas Psychology Internships Initiative. This was an especially exciting meeting for us, as it was the first to include interns associated with programs that the foundation is funding. The purpose of the meeting was to create an opportunity for sharing and networking for the training staff and interns, and to support the programs’ efforts in pursing accreditation. A big thanks to the American Psychological Association Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation for conducting a self-study workshop for our internship programs.

In addition to exciting activity in the area of our mental health workforce efforts, there are also three recipients of our Mental Health Research Grants for Tenure Track Assistant Professors presenting at the conference. Dr. Lizette Ojeda (Texas A&M University), who received the grant in 2012, is presenting on “The Gendered and Racialized Lives of Latino/a Individuals.” Dr. Ashley Bulter, another 2012 grant recipient, is co-leading a roundtable conversation on “Integrating Diversity into Psychology Practice and Training in a Pediatric Medical Setting.” Dr. Ezequiel Peña (Our Lady of the Lake University) is a 2011 award recipient and is presenting on “Psychotherapy, Supervision, and Training in U.S. Heritage Languages: Spanish, Mandarin/Cantonese, and Arabic” and “Love & Marriage in a Global Context: LGBTQ Immigrants in Bi-national Relationships.”

The Hogg Foundation has long valued cultural competency in the delivery of mental health services so we are very pleased to have a strong presence at the NMCS 2013!