The Education and Training Committee reported that a full public comment was submitted to the APAGS-BEA Work Group on Graduate Student Rights by the Division 44 Subcommittee on Higher Ed Accreditation & Policy, which was reviewed and approved by the EC. Although this document is “non-binding,” it will be noticed by the APA Commission on Accreditation, thus it is important and has greater implications for future graduate training policies. Please contact Joshua Wolff for details on the document.
The Membership Committee recently added two new members. Will Gibson, PhD, is a longtime Division 44 member and maintains a practice in the Seattle, Washington, region. He joins as a co-chair with Stephen Forssell, PhD. Nathan Ferguson is new to APA and Division 44. He is a senior at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, expecting to graduate this December with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Social Sciences. He joins the committee with boundless youthful vigor and enthusiasm.
The committee is planning the initiation of our lapsed member campaign to bring past members back into the fold. Messaging will be responsive to concerns identified in the recent survey of current and former division members. Lapsed members will be reminded of the perks of division membership, including mentorship, and access to an active Listserv that imparts critical information about our community including job postings. The Listserv is also a place where one can promote study recruitment, find/offer referrals, pass on news of interest, share CE and other professional opportunities, and more. Membership in Division 44 also demonstrates to colleagues and clients that you are actively committed to serving our community.
We can use your help with the campaign. If you are interested in re-joining Division 44 after lapsed membership, or know someone who might be, please email Steve, Willson or Nathan. They will reach out personally to help them reconnect.
The Public Policy Committee (PPC) has been working with Ron Schlittler, assistant director for the sexual orientation and gender identity portfolio at APA, on an ongoing project highlighting resources for grassroots and state-level advocacy on LGBTQ+ issues. The website includes advocacy resources for a variety of topics that have been the subject of legal and policy proposals across the country: banning sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts, criminalizing gender affirmative care with minors, religious exemption efforts, transgender exclusion in sports, universal design for all-gender restrooms, and LGBTQ+ inclusive curricula in schools.
As part of this collaboration, we will be hosting an APA webinar Psychology and LGBT+ State Level Advocacy 2022. The recorded webinar will provide an overview of the advocacy resources and will include panelists who are currently engaging in state-level LGBTQ+ advocacy as well as a representative from the Human Rights Campaign. Additional information and registration information can be found online. We are hopeful that this webinar and resources are helpful in supporting psychologists interested in state-level advocacy.
The PPC has been working on another collaborative project with representatives from APA’s Division 18 (Psychologists in Public Service, Veterans Affairs section) and APA’s Division 19 (Society for Military Psychology) to develop a joint statement. This statement applauds the January 13, 2022, decision by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide veterans with the option of identifying as transgender or non-binary in their VA medical records.
Katy Trotta, PhD, has recently joined the PPC as co-chair this winter. She started engaging in advocacy and public policy work while in her masters program at The George Washington University and was able to intern for the White House in the Office of National Drug Control Policy under the Obama administration. She also worked for a policy focused non-profit, the National Association for Addiction Professional (NAADAC), when she lived in the DC area. She continued her work during her doctorate studying partly in a gender and sexual identity clinic as well as engaging in research regarding LGBTQ individuals and their families. She is a California native and currently works for The Department of State Hospitals on the central coast of California engaging in forensic and clinical work where she works on LGBTQ policy on the Statewide LBGTQ workgroup for all state hospitals and is especially focused on the rights, clinical work, and policies regarding transgender patients at her hospital and hospitals statewide as co-chair of the Transgender Treatment Advisory Committee at her hospital. Katy also has a small part-time private practice engaging in therapy, assessment, and consulting as well as several other contract opportunities she loves.
She loves staying busy and engaging in many different opportunities. When not working, Katy is spending time with her husband Andrew, baby boy Lachlan, and their three cats. She especially loves spending time drinking and learning about wine, traveling, all things Disney and Disneyland, and going to the beach. Katy is ready and eager to get to work on the PPC and looks forward to being more involved in Division 44.
–Katy Trotta and Kim Skerven, committee co-chairs
The Science Committee works to promote psychological scholarship focused on sexual orientation and gender diversity, as well as to support psychologists and graduate students who are involved in such scholarship. We invite folks to be on the lookout for events coming up this Spring sponsored by the committee; check the Division 44 Listserv:
- April 9: Queering research careers: A panel featuring LGBTQ+ researchers engaged in various professional roles
- April 22: Queering networking: An opportunity to meet and connect with others interested in and/or conducting LGBTQ+ research
The Science Committee will also be sponsoring a symposium at APA 2022: “So you want to do LGBTQ+ research? A skill building session for researchers from novice to expert.” This session will provide skills and training in measurement and culturally competent LGBTQ+ research for those seeking to enter this realm of inquiry and anyone wanting to update their knowledge base.
We continue to seek out BIPOC, trans and nonbinary, graduate student, and post-doc/ECP (and intersections thereof) representation on the Science Committee. If interested, please contact the committee co-chairs, Cindy Veldhuis and Kevin Delucio.