From the Practice Directorate

• Practitioners Gain Access to the New Practitioner Portal: www.APAPractice.org
• APA Launches the Road to Resilience Public Education Campaign

Practitioners Gain Access to the New Practitioner Portal: www.APAPractice.org

Since its inception in 2001, the APA Practice Organization has worked to enhance efforts to provide APA practitioner members with timely professional information and products, while furthering the Practice Organization’s advocacy mission on behalf of professional psychology. A central component of this process involves the development of a new practitioner portal, located online www.APAPractice.org. Designed for APA members who pay the Special Assessment, the new portal was unveiled to APA members at the Practice Directorate Town Hall Meeting during the association’s August 2002 Convention and is slated to launch September 25.

The portal offers a gateway to a wide array of information, products, and services that can be accessed easily and tailored to an individual practitioner’s professional needs and interests. The contents reflect the results of extensive ongoing research about what practitioners, state psychological associations, and practice divisions want and need in such an online tool. Several of the portal offerings include: searchable content originating from the Practice Directorate, topical listservs and other means of making connections with professional colleagues, regulatory compliance and practice management tools, daily psychology and health-related news, and advocacy alerts about actions that psychologists can take to support the profession.

Prior to the launch, the portal underwent beta testing and refinement based on feedback from APA members. The portal is a dynamic tool that will continue to evolve as the APA Practice Organization learns more about the types of resources and tools that are helpful to practitioners.

APA Launches the Road to Resilience Public Education Campaign

APA launched The Road to Resilience, the newest of its public education campaign initiatives, on August 29 with the premiere of “Aftermath: The Road to Resilience” on the Discovery Health Channel (DHC). An encore presentation of the documentary is scheduled for September 11.

Co-produced by APA and DHC as part of APA’s ongoing Talk to Someone Who Can Help public education campaign, the one-hour film presents profiles in resilience from people of diverse ages and backgrounds who relate their personal experiences of bouncing back from adversity, including the events of last September 11. The storytelling is put in context by several psychologists who offer viewers information about resilience and ways of enhancing it.

The Road to Resilience project was stimulated by the results of focus groups held during the fall of 2001 after the terrorist attacks. The groups revealed that the events of September 11 seem to have opened a window of opportunity wherein individuals are interested in greater self-discovery and in learning how to enhance their resilience.

The campaign consists of several components, including the documentary and a free brochure entitled “The Road to Resilience.” The brochure addresses some of the signs of resilience and provides steps an individual can take to help build resilience. This publication is available to the public through www.helping.apa.org or by calling (800) 964-2000.

In addition, psychologists in communities throughout the United States and Canada will provide grassroots activities such as forums, workshops and lectures. Any APA member interested in hosting one of these grassroots activities should contact APA’s Campaign Services Bureau at (877) 274-8787, ext. 135 to order a toolkit. Toolkits are available to all APA members and include a discussion guide, the documentary, copies of the brochure and other resources.