Education & Standards Committee Update

Education & Standards Committee Update

By Tara Peris, PhD
Member-at-Large: Education and Standards

The SCCAP Education and Standards Committee has been hard at work this year on a variety of projects designed to benefit our members and our discipline. Two of our largest projects have involved collaborating with other organizations in the development of training standards for clinical child and adolescent psychology. For the first of these, committee member Shawn Jones, PhD, MPH, has served as our representative to the Clinical Child/Adolescent and Pediatric Psychology Training Council’s (CCaPPTC) Diversity Workgroup. Together, this group has surveyed programs nationwide about training in principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion; they are now in the process of analyzing mixed methods data.  For the second collaboration, committee members Sunny Bai, PhD, MPH and Meghan Miller, PhD, have served on the Steering Committee for Training Guidelines in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology that was established under the oversight of CCaPPTC.  Participating organizations, including SCCAP, APA Division 54, and ABCCAP have all sent representative members to collaborate in creating a process for development of training guidelines that are applicable across stages of professional development and which specify necessary training components/competencies to function as a doctoral-level clinical child or pediatric psychologist. A proposed plan for the development of training guidelines has been developed and a call for interested folks to join the Training Guidelines Task Force recently went out over the listserv.

Separate from these activities, the Education & Standards Committee has maintained its focus on continuing education for SCCAP members and for the community at large.  In partnership with John Guerry, committee members Meghan Miller, PhD, and Cate DeCarlo Santiago, PhD reviewed parent-facing materials on our effectivechildtherapy.org website and made much-needed suggestions for updates.  This is a great resource for parents seeking mental health treatment for their children. Our website, SCCAP53.org, contains links to keynote speeches and treatment training videos developed in partnership with FIU Center for Children and Families.  Together, these features are designed to help you get the most out of your SCCAP membership.