Tag Archives: APA

Be the First Student Voting Member on this Professional Practice Committee

CAPP, the Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice is the main governance group over the Practice Directorate and the management of the APA Practice Organization, a 501(c)(6) organization that advocates on behalf of professional psychology. APAGS has typically appointed a liaison to attend CAPP meetings as a student representative. However, some structural changes were made to CAPP that will begin in January 2015, including the opportunity for APAGS to elect a graduate student member to serve and vote on CAPP.

This is an exciting opportunity for students interested in advocacy at the federal level, and this is the first time ever that an APAGS member has been invited to be a member of CAPP. This opportunity is to serve as a full member of CAPP, with voting privileges.

Responsibilities for serving on CAPP include the following:

  • Attendance at 3-4 business meetings per year, typically held at the APA building in DC or in a hotel in DC. Room, board, and ground transportation will be funded. Meetings are typically Friday/Saturday.
  • Attendance at State Leadership Conference, a 4 day conference in March, culminating with visits to your state’s Congressional delegation to advocate on professional issues in psychology.
  • Participation on the CAPP listserv, where business discussions occur between meetings.
  • Participation on conference calls that are scheduled on an as-needed basis.
  • Preference is for a two year term on CAPP. Term would begin January 2015.

Eligibility

  • Requirements for applicants:
    • Must be currently enrolled in a doctoral program in clinical, counseling, school, or combined/integrated psychology (a program that will allow the student to be eligible for a license in psychology).
    • Must graduate no sooner than May 2015.
  • Preferences for applicants:
    • Applicants from APA accredited doctoral programs.
    • Experience with advocacy in psychology (through APAGS Advocacy Coordinating Team, State/Provincial/Territorial Psychological Association, APA Division, or other group).
    • Interested in promoting professional issues in psychology.
    • Experience in leadership in psychology organizations.
    • Ability to speak comfortably/confidently among groups of mid- and late-career professionals.

Application Process

  • Please provide the following information in one file (Word document or a PDF):
    • Cover letter expressing interest in the position, eligibility and qualifications for the position, leadership experience, ability to commit to the responsibilities, your student status (when you anticipate graduating), and any other information you feel is important (750 words maximum).
    • Condensed two page curriculum vita, highlighting goodness of fit for this position.
  • Submit your application to Jessica Andrade, jandrade@apa.org.
  • Deadline for applications is NOON eastern standard time, October 22, 2014.

Selection Process

  • A group of 5 members of the APAGS Committee will review applications and provide up to three applications to the full APAGS Committee to vote on.
  • The 9 members of the APAGS Committee will elect one of the applicants at its Fall Business Meeting, October 31-November 2.
  • Notification of decisions will occur on or before November 7, 2014.

 

A few members of the committee formerly known as CLGBTC strike a pose at APA's 2014 Convention in DC, from left: Natalie Alizaga, Nick Grant, and Julia Benjamin.

What’s in a Name? An Inclusive Name for an Inclusive Committee

A few members of the committee formerly known as CLGBTC strike a pose at APA's 2014 Convention in DC, from left: Natalie Alizaga, Nick Grant, and Julia Benjamin.

A few members of the committee formerly known as CLGBTC strike a pose at APA’s 2014 Convention in DC, from left: Natalie Alizaga, Nick Grant, and Julia Benjamin. (Source: the author).

The APAGS Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Concerns disagrees with Juliet’s assertion in Romeo and Juliet that “a rose by any name would smell as sweet.” Research indicates names do have the power to affect the way we perceive and interact with reality and the way we see ourselves and those around us.

Our committee believes in the importance of names—which is why we changed ours.

  • Our name started as the “Task Force on Sexual Minority Concerns,” which then changed to the “Committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns.”
  • In 2001, we became the “Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Concerns.”
  • Over the past few years, the committee has become aware that individuals are increasingly using labels beyond “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual” and “transgender” to describe themselves. We contemplated incorporating additional specific identities to our name, but felt the “alphabet soup” created by the acronym used to represent those identities would be increasingly unwieldy and confusing.
  • After much discussion regarding how to shift our committee name to represent the diversity of our student members, we decided to change our name in September 2014 to the “Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity.”

This mirrors what’s happening outside of APAGS. Some groups have begun shifting away from adding more letters to their acronyms and toward using more inclusive phrases like “Gender and Sexual Diversity.” This can be seen elsewhere in APA; in March 2014, APA Division 44 (Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues) launched a new quarterly peer-reviewed publication titled Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity.

When we introduced the idea of our own name change to the full APAGS committee, it was unanimously and enthusiastically approved. Thus, as the new Chair of this committee, I am very excited to present to you the “Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity!”

I am very excited to present to you the Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity!

Since its foundation 22 years ago, this group has worked to support graduate students who identify within the spectrum of sexual orientation and gender diversity by advocating for their concerns and providing educational, personal, and professional development opportunities. That hasn’t changed, but our name has.

Our website will show our new name soon, but we wanted to let you all know even quicker! Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in getting involved with the committee or if there are ways we can support you in your graduate training. We are here for you.

Fun with data: Internship Stipends, cost of living, and practicum hours

Many graduate students in clinical, counseling and school psychology programs are preparing applications to internship positions across the country this fall. The internship component has been a requirement to earn a doctoral degree in these programs for decades. And every year the American Psychological Association’s Commission on Accreditation (CoA) collects data on students in accredited doctoral and internship programs.

Let’s have some fun with those data!

The first chart shows the mean and standard deviation of stipends from APA accredited internships from 1998 to 2012. Click the chart to magnify it:

Intern Stipends

Since 1998, the mean stipend for clinical, counseling, and school psychology interns has increased steadily. In fact, the stipends one standard deviation below the mean have increased by almost $5,000. (Source.)

While internship stipends have generally been increasing, do they cover the cost of living? My second chart presents the percent change in the median internship stipend and the percent change in the consumer price index (CPI) from year to year:

Stipends vs CPI

As you can see, the percent change in median stipend amount is greater than the percent change in CPI for some years but not others. It seems that although many stipends cover the cost of living, the percent change in stipend amounts is not always in pace with this marker of inflation (source). The good news? The 1998 mean intern stipend, adjusted for inflation, still beats the amount one would expect to earn in adjusted dollars for 2012 by nearly $1,500.

The percent change in stipend amounts is not always in pace with this marker of inflation.

Beyond stipends, I decided to look at the trends in practicum hours reported by internship applicants. In particular, I wondered if the internship crisis was leading to greater accumulation of hours by students who desire to appear more competitive. This third chart shows practicum hours of applicants from 2006 to 2012, broken into supervision and assessment/intervention categories:

Practicum Hours

It appears that the trends in supervision and in assessment/intervention hours are similar between the APA mean (blue) and APPIC median (red) hours. If we look at the most recent data, it appears that median hours are increasing over time. Students applied to internships with 18% more intervention/assessment hours in the eight years between 2006 and 2013.

It appears that median hours are increasing over time.

(Sources: Mean practicum hours are reported by APA, though public release of data in this area ceased in 2010. Median hours are reported by the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers, or APPIC. It is important to note that APA accredits some doctoral and internship programs, almost all of which send students through the APPIC national match. APPIC data report students from accredited and unaccredited doctoral programs vying for accredited and unaccredited internships.)

Any thoughts on the data I presented? Are you surprised by the trends? Do any possible interpretations come to mind? I welcome you to comment on this post!

APAGS on the Road! California: 9/20 and 9/21

APAGS is coming to California in one week to offer a half-day workshop for students and recent psychology graduates.

In sponsorship with the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards and The Trust,  we will present sessions to help students and recent grads grapple topics such as:

  • Building a private practice — identifying different types of private practice, discerning what types of practice you might envision for yourself and developing a plan to start that practice.
  • Loan forgiveness — brief overviews of the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program, Federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and NIH Loan Repayment Program.
  • Psychological services in the digital age — applying key ethical principles to evaluate risks, benefits and appropriateness of using electronic communication and social media in professional practice.
  • Preparing for the EPPP — best practices for studying for the licensure exam.

Advance registration is $15 before Sept. 15, 2014. On-site registration is available for $20. Follow these links to register:

See you in California!

Spreading Awareness and Taking Action on the Internship Crisis

IMG_6735This spring, a group of APAGS members recorded a short video about the real struggles that doctoral students are facing as a result of the imbalance between internship applicants and positions — and how these struggles inform the field we care so deeply about. We hope that you can use this video as a tool to spread awareness of the internship crisis and catalyze solutions to ending it. Please watch it here:

When you click the link at the end of the video — http://on.apa.org/internshipcrisis — you are brought to a page with a number of awareness, advocacy, and action steps. The video shows that we have a large stake in the issue. The list of steps reveals that we have the skills and ability to do something about it!

APAGS intends for this video to be a stepping stone on the way to solving the internship crisis. Please share it amongst your friends, colleagues, and faculty. What did you think? What action will you take? Leave your comments on our blog.

Editor’s note: Todd Avellar is a doctoral student studying Counseling Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and was a Member at Large on the APAGS Committee through August 2014. Applications for APAGS subcommittee members are being accepted through 9/10/14.