Despite some general guidelines, tips, and calls for international engagement, there are no explicit descriptions of competencies for U.S. psychologists engaged in professional work outside of their own country. This article outlines the rationale for developing such competencies needed to engage effectively outside one’s country and proposes broad descriptions of core competencies and specific competencies for teaching, practice, research, and consultation and policy work. This article’s authors are U.S. psychologists and cannot speak from the perspective of psychologists working in other countries; thus, although competencies for engaging internationally may be helpful for psychologists in all countries, this article is explicitly written through the lens of U.S. psychologists and is focused on outlining and describing competencies applicable to U.S. psychologists working internationally ( Altmaier & Hall, 2008 ). Psychologists from other countries may use the framework developed in this article to gauge the extent to which psychology-specific competencies and examples are generalizable to their specific context.

Common discourse throughout the psychological literature suggests that verbally disclosing one’s gay identity to others (i.e., “coming out”) is necessary for positive well-being. However, the relationship between verbal disclosure of one’s sexual orientation and well-being has been primarily explored with White samples, limiting applicability for people of color. For example, Decena (2011) framed gay identity as el sujeto tácito (the unspoken subject), where identity is implied instead of expressed via explicit verbalization, as a way to understand how gay Latino/x men may approach the coming out process in a more culturally congruent manner. The purpose of this study was to extend the idea of el sujeto tácito and qualitatively explore how gay Mexican American men utilize nonverbal gay identity disclosure strategies. Thematic analysis of semistructured interviews with 6 Mexican American gay men yielded 4 themes: (a) nonverbal or contextual disclosure, (b) normalizing same-sex relationships and sexuality, (c) gender(ed) negotiations, and (d) navigating disclosure expectations. Findings highlight nuances in coming out that can expand how psychologists generally conceptualize coming out in research and practice in Mexican American gay men.

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This paper describes a social justice informed, formative evaluation of a community-based intervention program in our community that paired marginalized Latinx youth and Holocaust survivor mentors. This program is a unique effort to address the issues facing this youth population through difficult dialogues and mentorship from a group who has clearly suffered oppression. Using a qualitative, community-based approach, eight program participants were interviewed to explore the aspects of the program that were helpful or challenging among youth mentees and survivor mentors. We reflect on the success of mentorship interventions in promoting bridges of understanding between populations with different combinations of power and privilege. Emergent themes from the evaluation suggest that this community-based mentorship program led to several positive outcomes, including increased openness to diversity, increased empathy, and increased potential meaning-making for mentor survivors, as well as some challenges such as clearer program expectations and program planning issues. Using a lens of Positive Youth Development and social justice, we detail the lessons learned from this mentoring program for future counselors and psychologists interested in program development and evaluation. We also provide reflections on the formative program evaluation process for future community-based researchers and the personal impact of the experience on the students in training. Finally, we reflect on impact validity and the systems level transformative change that can be promoted through community-based programs such as this one.

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