Candidates for APA President
What are your top three priorities for APA and how do you plan to achieve these?
Define "psychology" not only as a health profession, but among primary health-care professions. How: Use existing APA foundations to launch public policy initiatives and public education campaigns making "psychology" and "primary care" synonymous.
Advance APA's agenda using the central decision-making power of public sector systems. How: With psychologists and psychological organizations identified with public sector psychology, target entry points to support specific agenda.
Reach fundamental agreement on a mission statement for the education and training of future psychologists. How: Secure resources to establish among the education and training communities ongoing dialogue which is future-oriented, yet detail-bound.
How can APA maintain and extend mutual support and collaboration between science and practice?
Continuing large initiatives (e.g., Academic Enhancement Initiative, Public Education Campaign, Violence Prevention) can help to achieve this, but a substantial contribution could result if APA were to act as broker, facilitating discussions among small pods of researchers and practitioners at a community level, and promoting a network of pods via the Internet where similar topics emerged. Incorporating graduate and undergraduate students would teach a culture of collaboration. Initial meetings could serve as "team building," with a focus on shared community concerns. One would hope that what develops is quite durable, leading to mutual support and collaboration with little intervention by APA!
