Mentoring the next generation of early childhood researchers with explicit focus on increasing the diversity of researchers in the field

HARC is working toward developing and implementing more intentional strategies to increase the number of early career scholars from underrepresented groups and to mentor these scholars to provide opportunities for their professional development. Mentoring a next generation of researchers that reflect greater racial and ethnic diversity, lived experiences and academic disciplines also benefits the general home visiting field. Greater diversity among those examining how home visiting programs are designed and implemented promotes health equity and capacity for developing more effective programs. This will generate more appropriate research questions, methods, measures and frameworks to advance program reach, and promote engagement and benefits across cultural contexts.

Achieving greater diversity among early scholars and sustaining their engagement requires the creation of cohorts for support and the ability to sustain their engagement through mentorship. HARC is learning from the examples of established mentoring programs and feedback from our National Advisory Council and DEI Resource Group.

Over the next year, HARC will develop a mentoring program that:

1) creates a pipeline of early career scholars from diverse backgrounds by developing broad collaboration partnerships,

2) encourages relationship building within the cohort,

3) provides quality mentorship opportunities, linkages with funding opportunities and proposal development support, and opportunities for collaboration on studies and authorship,

4) builds a pool of mentors from similar disciplines and shared research interests to provide instrumental and social support.

Opportunities for Early Career Scholars

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