Distinguished Career Award for Practice & Training Recipient: Dean Coffey, PsyD, MS

Distinguished Career Award for Practice and Training Recipient: Dean Coffey, PsyD, MS

The SCCAP Distinguished Career Award for Practice and Training recognizes a clinical child and adolescent practitioner who has made a significant and enduring impact on promoting awareness, accessibility, and/or implementation of evidence-based mental health services for youth. This recognition highlights the outstanding clinical service of currently practicing clinicians who take scientifically derived clinical knowledge and promote, provide, or share it on a broader scale, particularly with members of diverse, vulnerable, or underserved groups.

SCCAP is pleased to announce that Dean Coffey, PsyD, MS, is the 2026 winner of the Distinguished Career Award. Dr. Coffey has made a significant impact on children and families through his work to increase awareness, accessibility, and dissemination of the evidence-based Incredible Years program. Dr. Coffey completed his PsyD in the APA-accredited Clinical Psychology program at George Fox University. He completed his APA-accredited internship and a postdoctoral fellowship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He also holds an MS in Clinical, Biomedical, and Translational Investigations from USC. He currently is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California. Over his 20 years of experience since obtaining his PsyD, Dr. Coffey has worked in many roles (e.g., clinical psychologist, peer coach, supervisor, mentor, and program area leader) in the community behavioral health clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. 

In terms of promoting awareness and accessibility of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) for all youth and families, Dr. Coffey has amassed an exemplary record of outreach with pediatric clinics and underserved communities to further SCCAP’s mission of both improving the quality of pediatric therapeutic interventions and making this quality care available to all children and families. He is well-versed in the specific challenges that inner city and predominantly Latino communities face. His EBT clinical practice has included a wide variety of diverse young children and their families. He has ensured that these children have access to the evidence-based Incredible Years program to improve the behavior of children with conduct problems and give caregivers the skills and confidence to build positive relationships with their children and overcome barriers to help change their children’s behavior. 

Dr. Coffey has demonstrated a strong commitment to disseminating EBTs to other practicing clinicians in his community. He is the Child & Family Area Lead at CHLA, where he provides supervision to a large team of providers implementing EBTs to children aged 6-12 years old and their families. Furthermore, his research has examined the impact of implementing Incredible Years on pediatric health service utilization in pediatric behavioral health clinics. Dr. Coffey has consistently promoted the dissemination of evidence-based practices, and worked to increase knowledge about the expertise, scope, diversity and practice of clinical child and adolescent psychologists.

In sum, we applaud Dr. Coffey for the substantial impact he has made on youth, families, behavioral health clinicians, and pediatric behavioral health clinics serving underserved youth and families. SCCAP heartily congratulates Dr. Coffey on his achievement and receipt of this prestigious award!