Hello, fellow Div. 31 members. It’s hard to believe we are halfway through 2020 already. Time is going both rapidly and slowly at the same time. PLC happened only three months ago, and shortly thereafter, the country shut down. Most psychologists’ jobs transitioned very quickly in major ways, to telephone and telehealth platforms, including service provision to first responders, nurses, and physicians in virtual support, and for some of our colleagues, jobs were lost as the economy took a significant hit from the COVID-19 global pandemic. Some people lost loved ones who passed due to the disease or other related factors, some people became ill and recovered, and some people were staying at home in a global effort to flatten the curve. We’ve all learned new terms (e.g., “flatten the curve,” “social distancing”) and new things about one another.
In the midst of this pandemic, we are continuing to manifest flexibility and perseverance, which I discussed in my last column about PLC in March. In Div. 31, despite the pandemic, we are continuing to educate ourselves, support practice, and engage in advocacy along with APA Practice. Our biggest advocacy gains, thanks in large part to APA Practice Directorate staff, have been in telehealth and telephone coding, which we hope will be maintained as many of us will continue to provide telehealth even as the country is slowly re-opening to business and socially-distanced socialization. Education, training, and clinical science research is changing as well; not only are we initiating studies examining the impact of the pandemic on our mental health, but we are changing the ways in which we provide education and training, and gather data, and publish important research. Our students, interns, and postdoctoral fellows are learning valuable skills, including telehealth, decision-making during a pandemic, and balancing mental and physical health and wellness, and their training directors and supervisors are learning all this as well.
The August APA convention and council meeting will be virtual. Tyson Bailey, our Div. 31 convention program chair, myself, and our Executive Board will be working over the upcoming weeks with APA and the presenters to develop a plan for Div. 31 symposiums to be presented virtually. The presentations we have in our lineup are fantastic and we don’t want to miss out on learning from our peers. Topics include growing membership in small SPTAs, psychologists’ impact on policy and law, training a workforce in pain management through SPTAs, interjurisdictional telepsych and PSYPACT, advocating for practicing psychologists at the state and federal levels, CPT use and advocacy, a pilot program in graduate leadership development, building resilience post disaster and disaster mitigation, and APA and ASPPB working together on ethics and regulations. The division social hour and award presentation will be virtual also; we are discussing how this will occur in this new overall virtual convention format.
My goals for my presidential year were to engage and encourage early career psychologists in leadership positions within our division, their SPTAs, and within APA; continue to emphasize the importance of diversity within the division, SPTAs, and our work in APA; and to address strategic planning for the division. While I feel comfortable that we are working on the first goal with ECPs, Dinelia Rosa and I hope to re-invigorate diversity efforts in Div. 31 particularly as we progress toward the biannual Diversity Leadership Workshop that will occur before PLC next March 2021. We encourage Div. 31 members to join us in this effort; if you are interested in joining the Div. 31 Diversity Committee, please email Dinelia Rosa to express your interest. Our strategic planning necessarily has taken a backseat during the pandemic, but I hope that later in the year, we can start to engage in a planning process that will become a necessity continuously in an ever-changing process.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, please take care of yourself and your loved ones, even as you take care of your patients, colleagues, and staff. May you and yours be healthy and well.