This APA Citizen Psychologist Presidential Citation is given to Emily M. Selby-Nelson, PsyD, for her dedication, advocacy and actions to address access, quality of care and quality of life in rural communities.
Along with her volunteer activities within APA on rural health issues as an early career psychologist, Selby-Nelson has also committed herself to raising awareness to the mental health crisis facing rural Americans through frequent public speaking engagements in her community about rural mental health and disparities.
Aside from her daily work in rural primary care to ensure that health and mental health services remain accessible in her rural community, Selby-Nelson extends beyond her day job to provide hands on resources to the community. This was personified during the severe "one hundred year flood" in 2016 when water levels rose above 10 feet devastating the small town of Clendenin, West Virginia. Selby-Nelson worked tirelessly for weeks doing door-to-door house checks, ensuring food and shelter, distributing hygiene and other items during house calls, addressing crises, and participating in community wide disaster relief efforts. She worked vigilantly with her community over the ensuing months to address increasingly worsened barriers to care, such as access to transportation and money for health care.
Given the at-times seamless transition of Selby-Nelson's work in the health center as compared to her role as a citizen psychologist within her community, her nominators wrote, "Let me be clear: Emily's efforts during the flood were not part of her job, but rather reflects her absolute passion for rural West Virginians that made it impossible not to walk through dangerous muddy water in neighborhoods devastated by a 100 year flood, just to be a neighbor… When the community needs her the most, Emily answers the call."