Simulated Conversation Training for Mental Healthcare Providers to Improve Care for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Individuals

Phase I: Eligible participants (n=20) will be recruited to participate in a feasibility evaluation of the client intake module to be developed. Participants will complete pre- and post-intervention knowledge assessment outcome measures. The gain score, defined as the difference between the pre-training and post-training score, will be calculated for each participant. Each participant will spend up to 2 hours interacting with the intervention. Additionally, an implementation focus group (n=6) of administrators, educators, and key decision-makers will be conducted to assess the feasibility of implementing the proposed training suite in their programs. Phase II: During Phase II, participants (n=100) will complete in two standardized patient encounters pre- and post-intervention to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed training suite. Participants assigned to the intervention group will receive 10 hours of training with the product and will be asked to complete a Training Experience Questionnaire after their post-intervention standardized patient encounter. Control group participants will receive the APA guidelines for Psychological Practice with Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People for review. Control group participants will submit their notes taken while reviewing the guidelines. It is expected that the intervention group will show increased knowledge, skill, awareness, and cultural competency when working with the target population as measured by the Standardized Patient encounters as rated on a Standardized Patient Checklist. Additionally, the team anticipates the experimental group participants will rate the training suite as easy to use, relevant, and realistic.