At its spring 2022 program review meeting, the Commission on Accreditation (CoA) workgroups reviewed several policies that have been put forward for public comment or notice, as well as been adopted with a decision date in the future.
Per the Accreditation Operating Procedures (AOP) (§1.3), an accredited program may request to voluntarily withdraw from accredited status at any time by advising the CoA in writing in advance of the requested withdrawal date.
Implementing Regulation (IR) D.4-11 was created to provide APA-accredited programs with clarification regarding AOP-compliant withdrawal procedures for programs who wish to withdraw from accreditation, including those programs which may continue to operate. This IR was provided to the public in the winter of 2021–22 and comments were reviewed by the CoA at their spring meeting. A decision was made to modify the IR and provide it to the public for a second round of comment. Comments will be received for a 30-day period; starting on May 26, 2022 and ending on June 25, 2022.
The AOP §3.2.3 addresses CoA’s action regarding complaints, including those against site visitors. The CoA has modified this section of the AOP, to provide specific actions it may take if complaints are received regarding site visitor behavior.
IR D.8-4 addresses the procedures following denial or revocation of accreditation and denial of a site visit by the CoA. This IR has been modified by, adding updated language from the US Department of Education. The changes include language from Section 602.26(d) of the criteria for the recognition of accrediting agencies that: “…requires the institution or program to disclose the decision to current prospective students within seven days of receipt…”. This IR has been approved by the CoA and is being provided to the public for a 30-day period of notice.
IR C-26 I and C-22 P address “Accredited, on Contingency” status for internship and postdoctoral residency programs, respectively. The revisions to these IRs describe the data submission process to move from contingent to full accreditation, including the number of years of proximal and distal data that are needed for submission. These IRs are approved for 60 days of public comment that will be available in the summer of 2022.
Revisions to Section C IRs for Master’s Accreditation have been approved by CoA for public comment. Some of these IRs are out for a first round of comment and others for a second round of comment. Most IR modifications address telesupervision, having made changes to best fit master’s programs. These IRs have been approved for 90 days of public comment and will be available in the summer of 2022.
IR D-4.7(b) has also been revised to include a change in the threshold criteria for the proportion of doctoral students in clinical and counseling psychology programs who have been placed in an internship program that is accredited by an agency recognized by the US Department of Education or the Canadian Psychological Association. The proposed change in the threshold in the IR is that at least 75% of students are accepted into an accredited internship. The proportions will be calculated using 3-year averages. Using this proportion will identify those programs whose placement rates are at or less than the lowest 5% of all accredited clinical and counseling doctoral programs on the indicator. Like the other threshold indicators, if a program does not meet the criterion, the data will be further examined, and the program could be asked to respond to questions regarding its compliance with accreditation standards.
IRs C-8 D Profession-Wide Competencies and C-9 P Postdoctoral Residency Level 3 — Specialty Competencies for clinical neuropsychology, geropsychology, and group psychology and psychotherapy as well as police and public safety psychology completed a round of public comment on December 11, 2021. These IRs were approved by the CoA to become effective on January 1, 2023. Copies of these IRs are currently available in the Section C booklet (PDF, 877KB).