Responses to Specialty Criteria: Specialty Guidance

Criterion

Questions, Tips, Guidance

Criterion I. Administrative Organization

Questions:
Can you describe the national organization(s) that support(s) the organized development of your specialty?

Can you describe the infrastructure, staff, and operational capacities of these organization(s) for assessing a) effectiveness, b) quality improvement, and c) provider evaluation and identification for the public?

How often do the organizations meet?

What documents already exist that describe the taxonomy of the specialty and the processes through which the education and training guidelines are developed, monitored, and modified?

Recommendations:
Create a list of administrative activities conducted by the proposed specialty including such things as officers, voting procedures, calendar of meetings, paid staff (if any),  membership requirements, membership applications and assessment procedures, budget, expenses, media presence and monitoring, etc.

Create a calendar of joint meetings between your specialty and other relevant groups.

Describe any specialty obligations in education and training that specialists must fulfill on a regular basis.

Criterion II. Public Need for Specialty Practice

Questions:
What are the specific public needs that your specialty fulfills?

How does this differ from other specialties?

What procedures does your specialty utilize to assess changes in public needs?

Recommendations:
Include peer-reviewed references to substantiate your responses. 

Utilize case examples when appropriate to illustrate the public need for your specialty and how that need is currently being met.

Criterion III. Diversity

Questions:
How does your specialty ensure diversity is incorporated in the following areas: 

i.) specialty-specific scientific and theoretical knowledge;
ii.) preparation for practice;
iii.) education and training;
iv.) continuing education and professional development; and,
v.) evaluation of effectiveness.

What processes are in place for assessment and continued development of such knowledge?

Does your specialty have a council/committee on diversity?

In what way does your specialty implement a diversity council/committee into training, research, and practice?

Recommendations:
Describe how your specialty prepares psychologists for practice with people from diverse cultural and individual backgrounds (e.g., through coursework, supervised practice, continued professional development) and how achievement of competence is demonstrated.

Describe how your specialty has evolved to meet emergent needs and changing demographics in training, research, and practice (e.g., through research, needs assessment, market surveys).

Describe how cultural diversity and individual differences will be addressed in each of the criteria.

Strongly consider reviewing APA’s Multicultural Guidelines: An Ecological Approach to Context, Identity, and Intersectionality (American Psychological Association, 2017), and describing how your specialty integrates the guidance in training and practice.

Criterion IV. Distinctiveness

Questions:
How do you justify that you are appropriate for specialty status with unique education and training requirements (as illustrated in your taxonomy)?

Recommendations:
Consider including in the petition case examples that highlight your distinctiveness and illustrate how your specialty is the only group that is targeted to the problems and populations that your group addresses.

Criterion V. Advanced Scientific and Theoretical Preparation

Questions:
How do you provide adequate specialty training in didactics as well as supervised clinical experience?

How do you document the scientific and theoretical preparation of the faculty and supervisors in your specialty?

Recommendations:
Focus on the specialty’s scientific and theoretical preparation and clearly delineate if any education and/or training is applicable to other existing specialties.

Document relevant and current theories, psychologists, journals, etc. in your specialty.

Describe the paradigm shifts that have led to this new specialty.

What emergent scientific research and findings are available, if any, within the specialty?

Criterion VI. Advanced Preparation in the Parameters of Practice

Questions:
What are the knowledge areas and clinical skills central to the specialty? How do they differ from the knowledge areas and clinical skills of other specialties?

What are the distinguishing education, training, and/or professional experiences that are central to the specialty as described in the taxonomy? How do these differ from the education, training, and/or professional experiences of the existing specialties?

What populations are targeted and how does the proposed specialty embrace meeting the needs of diverse populations? Is this any different than other existing specialties?

How do the approaches, methods, techniques, and interventions of the specialty differ from other existing specialties?

Recommendations:
Describe how the training sites are adapting to the supervision and service delivery needs of the proposed specialty.

Describe how the specialty will reach a diverse group of targeted consumers.

Describe the problems that would ensue if consumers did not have access to this specialty.

Criterion VII. Structures and Models of Education and Training in the Specialty

Questions:
At what level(s) of education do(es) the specialty education and training take place?

Has the specialty prepared its taxonomy?

Recommendations:
Ensure that the specialty taxonomy has the support/endorsement of the various organizations involved with the education, training, and practice of the specialty.

Describe curricula and the relevant and current literature in the education and training programs for the specialty.

How is education and training in the specialty distinct from education and training in other specialties?

Criterion VIII. Continuing Professional Development and Continuing Education

Questions:
What organizations carry out continuing education (CE) and/or continuing professional development (CPD) for the specialty?

What is the data related to CE and CPD (e.g., how many people attend these workshops, what is the frequency and location of these offerings)?

What are the mechanisms for quality assurance in relation to CE/CPD?

What are requirements for maintaining specialty recognition status?

Recommendations:
Present CE session outlines, slides and/or curricula for several programs in the specialty.

Show how learning is evaluated in these programs (e.g., post-tests for homestudy or asynchronous programming).

Criterion IX. Effectiveness

Questions:
What is the best available evidence and research that demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed specialty on specific problems and/or populations consistent with the APA 2005 Policy on Evidence Based Practice?

Do you have research consistent with the above criteria on the efficacy of the specialty's services for problems that are typically confronted and addressed by the specialty?

Do you have research consistent with the above criteria that demonstrate the efficacy of the specialty's services when delivered in the settings or organizational arrangements where the specialty is practiced?

Recommendations:
Try to map the environments/settings where research was conducted with environments/settings where the services are actually delivered.

Discuss the problems that are most commonly treated, as well as the type of problems that could potentially be addressed in the future.

Criterion X. Quality Improvement

Questions:
What is the range of metrics used to assess quality in research, training, and supervised experience in the specialty?

How do you describe the range of methodologies used, the breadth of practice settings, the diversity of populations served, and the number of researchers currently in the field?

What types of CE will be most useful to your group and what will be the requirements for maintaining expertise in the specialty?

Has the recent literature and research shaped changes in the field so that the specialty practice clearly is not a specialized subspecialty of an existing specialty?

How will you assess the differential needs and responses to treatment of the diverse populations that you serve?

How were the first training programs started and what is the process for deciding where and how to develop new training programs?

Recommendations:
Identify and describe areas where you think your quality improvement has been strongest and areas where you need to strengthen quality improvement.

Criterion XI. Guidelines for Specialty Service Delivery

Questions:
What literature supports the effectiveness of the specialty?

What practice guidelines has the specialty promulgated?

Are there APA clinical or practice guidelines that are specific to this specialty?

Recommendations:
Provide relevant, foundational, and current literature.

Develop specific practice or clinical guidelines for the specialty.

Show how these practice or clinical guidelines are used in practice.

Describe the process by which your specialty is seeking formal recognition of any practice guidelines.

Criterion XII. Provider Identification and Evaluation

Questions:
How does the proposed specialty assess the applicant’s training, licensure, and ethical conduct status?

How do you conduct the specialty exam?

What are your criteria for evaluating specialty competence during the exam?

How will you educate the public and the profession about practitioners who are identified as specialists?

How will the public be able to identify your specialists?

How will you assess how many psychologists are practicing in the proposed specialty?

How will you develop a formalized specialist board certification process?

Recommendations:
All potential members of the specialty should be monitored for an active license and an ethical conduct status that is devoid of probational status, license restrictions, etc. Describe your mechanism for monitoring such activity via the National Register, APA, ASPPB, etc.