The Council met virtually on February 26 and 27, 2021. APA introduced a new meeting platform: Remo. Here is a brief summary of what occurred:
President Jennifer Kelly discussed her presidential initiative focusing on eliminating health disparities. She also discussed APA’s focus on incorporating efforts promote Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) throughout the association and how the association will work to eliminate racism.
Most of Saturday’s session was devoted to the debate on the Standards of Accreditation for Health Service Psychology: Master’s Programs. The document was created by the Committee on Accreditation. As the COA is approved by the United States Department of Education as an accrediting agency, it is semi-independent of APA. Council could only approve or disapprove the document or refer it back to COA. Proponents of this item view it as a step towards standardizing masters’ education in health service psychology. They desire for the association to endorse the establishment of two tiers of independent practice. Other members expressed concern that the document lacked specificity. Their concerns focused on the lack of clarity of the competencies included in the document. Beyond the specific document many members expressed concern that the document does not help to differentiate the competencies of people with master’s degrees and doctoral psychologists, and that this would have implications for the practice of psychology at the doctoral level in the future. From my experience as a regulator, I am concerned that if APA endorses master’s licensing without clearing differentiating the competencies of master’s practitioners and psychologists that the differentiation in regulation could disappear. The document was approved.
The agenda included several external policies addressing social justice issues that have been developed and approved through boards and committees. On Saturday, council approved with nearly unanimous support:
- Resolution on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts
- Resolution on Gender Identity Change Efforts
Sunday began with comment from President Kelly and a report from new Chief Diversity Officer Maysa Akbar discussing her plans. Council then discussed APA’s Statement on Racism. This document is intended to be the first in a series of statements articulating APA’s external policy on racism. It passed overwhelmingly.
Treasurer Jean Carter gave a short summary of APA’s financial status. APA is seeking to have a balanced budget this year. Last year APA had a budget with a significant deficit. The deficit was not as large as expected mostly due to savings from canceled travel and meetings. The Council then had a presentation on the efforts of a group of council members (led by Robin McLeod, Lisa Grossman, June Feder, Fred Wertz, and myself) to engage council to become active in developing and addressing external facing APA policies that are supposed to be the purview of council. In short, since the passage of the Good Governance Project in 2013, council has become marginalized and has with a few exceptions been rubber stamping policies initiated and created elsewhere in the association. In 2019 our group addressed our concerns with then President David and President-Elect Shullman. In 2020 CLT created the Council Effectiveness Workgroup (CEWG). That group reviewed information generated by council in a table discussion about the functioning of the council and developed recommendations to address the issues identified in their analysis. CLT took control of that report and sought to implement recommendations it perceived to be useful while suppressing a recommendation they did not like (to reconsider the membership and role of CLT). Our group sought to have council have open discussion of the issues and to engage council members to address them. We organized a group of 25 council members to send a letter expressing our intentions to our fellow council members. After some negotiations CLT agreed to have an hour discussion at council. We negotiated a program for that discussion that included an invitation to council members to join workgroups that will be formed and led by the members of the CEWG to work on implementing the recommendation of the CEWG Report and to come to the August council meeting with recommendations for implementation. Six-six of the 182 members of council have volunteered to participate. To facilitate the work of these group and to involve all interested council members our group is also offering informal Virtual Caucus meetings to council members.
The session ended with discussion and passage of:
- Number 14 Human rights task force. Some members complained that the document was too vague.
- Number 6 Guidelines for Evidence Based Practice. This document is an improvement over the clinical practice guidelines APA has been submitting for approval over recent years. It is more inclusive of psychological science and the diverse ways psychologists work.