The DEAR Team

The DEAR (Dialectical Engagement in Anti-Racism) Project is an organization founded by three women of color scholar-psychologist-activists: Danyelle Dawson, M.A., Yara Mekawi, PhD, and Natalie Watson-Singleton, PhD. Our work together began almost a decade ago in the context of shared research and clinical interests centered on race and racism, and grew into much larger research, clinical work, and applied collaborations. Our training in both clinical and community psychology informs our approach to all of these endeavors in numerous ways:

• Our community psychology background informs our approach to accurately assessing and critically examining the systems undergirding mechanisms of racism in organizations. Additionally, we design individual level-interventions that are informed by these larger organizational systems.

• Extensive didactic and applied ­­training in clinical psychological interventions based on the principles of acceptance, non-judgmentalness, and value-driven action allows us to design nuanced DEAR interventions using empirically-supported techniques to increase internal motivation and create sustained change at multiple levels.

• Finally, our applied training in psychotherapy equips us with skills to offer deliverables in a way that recognizes and makes space for the intense psychological distress and ineffective beliefs and behaviors that can arise when doing antiracist work, while at the same time centering the needs of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC).