President’s Message

President’s Message

By Yo Jackson, PhD, ABPP

Hi SCCAP members – It’s Yo Jackson here – your 2023 President – so happy to reach out to you in this way. I will start by saying how proud I am to serve as the President of SCCAP. It is my honor to serve and I look forward to another fantastic year. The leadership that Dr. Anna Lau provided us in 2022 was outstanding and I hope to follow in her great example.

My focus for SCCAP in 2023 is impact and innovation. As you will soon see from the conference program for the APA convention, all of the presentations are aimed at what is new in clinical child and adolescent psychology, but what is also important – not just statistically significant. It is critical that we as psychologists think about how and in what ways the work we do has a positive impact either on the body of knowledge in the field or on direct recipients, systems of care and clients. It is not enough to think our work is important, but we must also articulate the ways in which our work is actually impactful.

For example, when treating a client,  are we asking ourselves, “how is what I am doing serving the client?” – and not just “have the referral issues improved?” Ensuring that the clinical work we do is actually teaching or supporting our clients to make real change and live better lives is important. It should not be an ideal, but a goal that we actively work for in every contact. We should be in the business of providing a service so impactful that it lasts a lifetime. 

As researchers, we should also hold ourselves to similarly high standards. We should be innovating our assessments and clearly demonstrating the impact of the science of clinical child and adolescent psychology. We should ask ourselves “Is this research question important with the potential to be impactful?” and not simply rely on the easily available data.

I understand that these clinical and research goals may sound naïve and there are real-world limits that make reaching these goals difficult. But, this is my challenge to you: Do not let what is easy be the goal. Do not let what is hard stop you as professionals from doing the best work for others that you can. Do not just do the work that is straightforward and familiar. Always strive to include innovation and impact into your decision-making either in the lab or with a client. Be the psychologists that change things for the better – work to make our science the best it can be for the larger community of youth and families that need and benefit from what we, and only we, can provide.

You can start today by simply reviewing your practices. Ask yourself if the tools you use, be those for clinic or research, are the very best they can be – not simply the best available.  Are you asking research questions that will really address a problem that needs solving and not simply a gap in the field? One of my least favorite reasons for a given research question is “because it has not been studied before” as this does not suggest we need to know the answer – instead it is important to ask “what difference will the answer to this research question make for the field or others?” If you can answer that question, the work is much more likely to have impact. I too am challenging myself to be more innovative and impactful in my work and I hope you will join me in this journey.