One of the things I have been doing in my retirement is learning Yiddish. It is a very colorful language, derived from many cultures and reflective of many challenges through history. The title of this column is an old Yiddish proverb which fits well on many levels this year. My column will focus on the importance of state, provincial and territorial psychological associations (SPTAs) to psychology and to APA and moreover the importance of getting actively involved and making your voice heard. Because our role as Division 31 is a limited one I focus on this, but I am not unaware of the other crucial issues facing our country and that even if the proverb read “world” instead of “country,” grandma’s lack of activity would still be an issue.
As I think of the most important things to covey to SPTAs at this time, I am reminded that the importance of the SPTA voice at APA is both crucial to and never guaranteed at APA. Often when we say this, people at APA get nervous that we are diminishing the importance of APA and the substantial work they do. This is definitely not true. For those of you who don’t know me, I have the somewhat unique perspective of someone who has served APA as a member of multiple governance groups including the Board of Directors as well as a staff person in the Practice Directorate as the associate executive director of Governance Operations and of the Center for Psychology and Health. On the state level I was also an elected leader (president), then a staff person as the director of professional affairs and the executive director of the Massachusetts Psychological Association (MPA). I began with both APA and MPA as a student member and stayed until now as a retired member of both. I have this perspective of role and history which helps me appreciate that the strength of both voices (SPTA and APA) makes for the best positioning of psychology.
There are important things happening which I want you to know about and to hopefully lend your voice and participation. I also want to preface this list with a piece of advice I have learned from my many years as an advocate:
When opposing an issue, don’t just voice your concerns, but listen to the concerns of the group making the proposal and try to also provide some suggestions of how they can answer their concerns while still addressing your needs.
This gives credence to your feedback and prevents you from having to come back with another round of opposition with no suggestion for solution. I will illustrate by giving several issues which are active today where you can lend your voice and activity.
Representation on Council
This issue was widely shared with you when the original Policy and Planning Board (P&P) reorganization was presented to the Council of Representatives (COR). Your overwhelming response to this proposal which would eliminate SPTA and divisional seats on council has led to P&P rethinking the plan. Congratulations - that’s what your voice could do, but this is not over so please be vigilant when more feedback comes to you about this issue.
Listening Sessions on Doctoral Competencies in Health Service Psychology
The Board of Professional Affairs cordially invites you to a listening session to provide feedback to the BEA/BPA Task Force on Doctoral Competencies in Health Service Psychology (HSP). This task force was appointed jointly by the Board of Professional Affairs (BPA) and the Board of Educational Affairs (BEA) to update the existing competencies for those graduating with a doctoral degree in HSP. The task force has identified three questions for which it seeks broad feedback so as to guide its work. During this listening session, attendees will be asked to provide feedback to the following questions posed by the task force:
- We will be grounding the competencies in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) principles. How would you suggest we might best do that?
- What makes the doctoral degree in HSP distinctive from master’s degree in HSP and other mental health service fields?
- Thinking about the future of HSP, what should we be preparing psychologists to be able to do?
Second Listening Session: April 28, 2022 1-2pm ET
The first listening session took place on April 12.
These listening sessions are very important since they allo9w you to provide feedback to the groups proposing policy at an early stage before they submit the final proposal for ratification. Please consider giving your feedback
Future of the Practice Leadership Conference
Jared Skillings, PhD, has called for a look at PLC to vision this important conference into the future. As this has been the single most important conference for SPTAs, Division 31 has been invited to the work group and as this process moves along you will be hearing from us as we describe the thinking and ask for feedback from you. Please respond.
Boards and Committees nominations
All APA boards and committees add members through the nomination process. Sometimes notifications are posted to Listserves but not often. Do not wait for a posting. If you are interested in a particular board or committee, reach out to the APA person staffing it to make sure you are told about the slates they are looking to fill for that group. Many important boards and committees have no, or limited voices of SPTAs and this can have implications for policies set which impact SPTAs in areas such as practice, continuing education, training and education, licensure and others. We need your participation.
Here is an example of a current notice bounced to our Listserve:
"The APA Ethics Committee is seeking nominations for the following slate: Psychologist with expertise at the intersection of ethics and culture, equity, diversity, and inclusion; and/or a psychologist with expertise in sexual misconduct and boundary issues, and/or interpersonal violence, and traumatic stress for a three-year period beginning in January of 2023."
Division 31 Strategic Planning
We have an outdated strategic plan and lots of work to do effectively. We need to plan for the future. I reached out to Division 13 (Consulting Psychology) to get help with this project and Judith Blanton, PhD, responded by putting together a group of four consulting psychologists to help us. Our small steering committee includes voices from our leadership including the diversity committee and early career psychologist (ECP) voice. As we go through this process, we will be reaching out to you for your input. Please let us know what you most need from the division and how you feel we can be most effective in representing your needs to APA and beyond.
Membership and Activity
At the risk of sounding like Uncle Sam, we need you and we need your colleagues. Like other groups at APA, we have an aging membership and a dearth of students and ECPs and mid-career members of SPTA leadership. We also need to increase diversity of our members at all levels. I am asking each one of you to reach out to your SPTA leadership to encourage them to join and become active in Division 31. We are the division that launched the careers of many APA leaders and leaders in other divisions. We created a path to fellowship at APA that recognized state level advocacy and activity to add to the existing paths of research and publications. Most importantly, I am a firm believer that more traditional psychology needs to give and allow room to the newer and broader voices and be able to listen to and value those who will be on the front lines of the future.
I end with another Yiddish proverb:
“Once it was the parents who taught their children to talk: now the children teach their parents to keep quiet” (or better, to listen.)