APA Council of Representatives Meeting Summary, February 2011

Doctoral-level members of APA will see their dues reduced next year as a result of action taken by the Council of Representatives at its February meeting. In addition to passing a $40 reduction to the annual full members’ dues, the Council adopted six new or revised guidelines, including a set to guide evaluations in child protection matters, and accepted several presidential task force reports. The Council also established a new task force to create guidelines for psychologists’ use of telepsychology. “I’m very proud of the work of the association as reflected in the actions taken by Council at this meeting,” APA President Melba J. T. Vasquez, PhD, said at the close of the 2 ½-day meeting. “The guidelines and task force reports are now a part of the official APA record and will help psychologists do their jobs and continue to serve the public.”

The reduction in full members’ dues, from the current $287 to $247 beginning in 2012, is part of an overall redesign of the association’s dues schedule as proposed by the Membership Board. The revised schedule moves the association from a dues schedule based on discounts for specific constituency groups to reduced costs for all full members. Early career members will still enjoy reduced dues for their first eight years of membership. This action rescinds a 2011 Council decision to grant a $25 dues discount to APA members who are also members of the Federation for the Advancement of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Neuroscience, the state, provincial and territorial psychological associations and the four national ethnic minority psychological associations. 

The Council also approved in principle changes to the current eligibility requirements for life status members. These changes require amendments to the Association Rules and Bylaws and therefore will be put before a vote of the full membership this fall. 

In Other Actions, the Council Voted to

• Adopt guidelines in the areas of parenting coordination; practice in health care delivery systems; psychological evaluations in child protection matters; assessment of and intervention with people with disabilities; evaluation of dementia and age-­‐ related cognitive change; and psychological practice with lesbian, gay and bisexual clients.

• Allow the publication of diplomate credentials in the APA Membership Directory if the credential is in a specialty or proficiency area that is officially recognized by APA through its Commission for the Recognition of Specialties and Proficiencies in Professional Psychology and meets other criteria as established by the Council’s vote. These criteria include that the credential is offered by a non-profit group and is awarded based on a review and verification of the individual’s training, licensure, ethical conduct status and an assessment of the candidate’s competence in the specialty area by way of an examination.

• Approved the report of the 2010 Presidential Task Force on Advancing Practice. The work of the task force included the launch of PsycLINK* , the APA practice wiki, an online resource for information sharing and collaboration amongst psychologists. 

• Approved the report of the 2010 Presidential Task Force on Caregiving. The work of the task force included the creation of a Web-based resources “briefcase” for psychologists and members of the public on care-giving issues. Visit the Caregiving Web-based briefcase.

• Adopted as APA policy the Principles for Quality Undergraduate Education in Psychology. These principles replace an earlier version and are an outgrowth the 2008 APA National Conference on Undergraduate Education in Psychology. The guidelines articulate a set of learning goals and outcomes that should be attained by all psychology majors.

• Received the Report of the BEA Task Force on Classroom Violence Directed Against K-­12 Teachers.

• Adopted a resolution affirming APA’s recognition of the importance of the psychological aspects of the way humans relate to the environment and supporting psychologists’ involvement in research, education and community interventions in improving public understanding of global climate change impacts and ways in which psychology can help mitigate those impacts.

• Approved a new Division 43 journal, The Family Psychologist.

• Enlarged the Committee on Early Career Psychologists from six to seven
  members.

• Approved the 2011 association budget, including operating expenses of $106,857,300 and forecasted revenue of $106,877,300.

• A proposal to provide seats on the Council for representatives for the four ethnic minority psychological associations was postponed to be raised before the Council at its August 2011 meeting. Three of the four associations are now represented on the Council by appointed non-voting delegates; ABPsi (The Association of Black Psychologists) is represented by a non-voting Observer to Council.

*Editor's Note: PsycLINK is no longer available for APA use. It went out of production in September 2015.