In Brief
At APA's 2005 Annual Convention, O'Neal Walker, PhD, and Chris McGlaughlin of the Bureau of Health Professions shared guidelines on tapping graduate psychology education funding to be awarded for 2006 through the bureau's Division of Medicine and Dentistry.
This year, the division continues to fund 27 institutions at $4.5 million to train health-service providers to work with underserved populations. Average stipends are approximately $9,900 for psychology doctoral students and $34,000 for psychology postdoctoral trainees.
In September 2006, a new three-year grant cycle will begin, with approximately $1.3 million to be awarded for geropsychology education. To meet basic requirements, psychology training programs must:
Address the interrelatedness of behavior and health.
Train health-service psychologists to integrate behavioral health with primary-care and physical health services.
Increase access to behavioral health services to older adults in underserved areas.
Provide training for health-service psychologists along with at least one other health profession.
According to program officer McGlaughlin, the new application guide will be released in early 2006 and applications will be reviewed in the spring and summer. Watch www.hrsa.gov/grants//preview/default.htm for more information on applying for the bureau's Graduate Psychology Education Program, housed in the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
At the same session, Jennifer Burks of the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) and Marcia Starbecker from the Allied Health, Chiropractic, Geriatrics and Rural Health division--both part of the Bureau of Health Professions--discussed loan-repayment programs and rural interdisciplinary training grants available to psychologists, also for work with underserved populations. Applications for up to $50,000 in loan repayment through NHSC are due the last Friday in March, and the awards will be made by Sept. 30. More information is available at nhsc.bhpr.hrsa.gov. For more information on training grants to support practice in rural communities, see bhpr.hrsa.gov/interdisciplinary/rural.html.
--J. DAW HOLLOWAY
