At its February meeting, the APA Council of Representatives focused much of its action on the training and skills required for psychologists to work in health-delivery settings. In addition, council members discussed translating psychological science into public policy and received a report on the association's finances.
In one of its most far-reaching actions, the council adopted an inter-organizational document that outlines competencies for psychology practice in primary care. The document is the product of a nine-organization work group including APA and three APA divisions, the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers, Council of Clinical Health Psychology Training Programs, Society of Behavioral Medicine, Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and the VA Psychology Training Council.
The competencies document articulates the knowledge and skills health-service psychologists need to practice in primary-care settings. It will serve as a resource for graduate-level psychology education and training programs, students and current practitioners. (See Competenciesopens in new window, PDF, 586KB.)
In a related action, by a nearly unanimous vote, the council voted to approve the Commission on Accreditation's new Standards of Accreditation for Health Service Psychology. The new standards will replace the current Guidelines and Principles for Accreditation and will go into effect for all accredited programs on Jan. 1, 2017. The original Guidelines and Principles for Accreditation were adopted in 1995. The new standards reflect changes in the profession since that time. Look for a full report on the new guidelines in the May Monitor.
A third action concerning professional practice was the adoption of a new policy document, Professional Practice Guidelines: Guidance for Developers and Users. It replaces two earlier documents on practice guidelines from 2002 and 2005. The new policy document provides updated guidance for creating professional practice guidelines and gives current examples of such guidelines.
Translating science into public policy
Council devoted a full day of its two-and-a-half-day meeting to a strategic issue discussion focused on the goal of translating psychological science into public policy. The topic was opened by panel presentations by four council members and APA General Counsel Nathalie Gilfoyle (see Advice for translating science into policy). After the presentations, council members participated in one of three break-out discussions, each focused on a central goal: advocacy, educating the public and translational research.
Council also received a report from APA Treasurer Bonnie Markham, PhD, PsyD, and Chief Financial Officer Archie Turner. They reported to the council that the association's finances are strong despite a small deficit budget this year. Overall, APA is in compliance with all of its debt covenants and continues to benefit from sizable long-term investments. Furthermore, the association's real estate holdings, its headquarters building and a second nearby office building, are fully leased and continue to grow in value.
Other action
In other action, the council:
- Approved a change in the association rules to require boards and committees to have at least one member who is an early career psychologist. Early career psychologists are defined as psychologists within 10 years of earning their doctoral degree. A few boards and committees will be exempted from this rule due to their special requirements for service, such as the Fellows Committee, since members of this group must have attained fellows status, which requires candidates to have 10 years of postdoctorate experience. APA's boards and committees will have until 2017 to fully comply with the new rule.
- Approved plans to implement changes in the association bylaws and rules as per votes taken at the council's August 2014 meeting. The changes are related to the composition and election of the board of directors and are an outgrowth of the Good Governance Project, which was designed to open the board up to direct representation by the general membership. All bylaws changes require a vote of the membership. That vote is expected to take place this fall by mail ballot.
- Approved an addition to APA's Strategic Plan Goal 1(Maximize Organizational Effectiveness): Ensure that APA collects, maintains and manages accessible member and professional data to allow for evidence-based decision-making. In related action, the council also agreed that, in order to ensure transparency and accountability with regard to the use of membership and professional data, APA shall communicate annually to its membership the identities of all non-APA recipients of APA member and professional data. Any individual or group receiving APA member data shall be reported to the council and the membership annually and upon request.
- Approved APA's endorsement of the 2012 San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, which calls for improvements in the ways that the impact of scientific research is measured. In particular, it recommends against reliance on journal-impact factors as measures of the quality of individual research articles or of an individual scientists' contributions.
- Approved a change in the bylaws and association rules to allow one seat on APA's Board of Educational Affairs (BEA) to be held by an APA High School or Community College Teacher Affiliate member. An amendment to the APA bylaws to implement the change to the BEA composition will be sent to the membership for a vote this fall.