Counseling Psychology and Board Certification American Board of

Counseling Psychology and Board Certification

American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) credentials are increasingly recognized by hospitals, courts, licensing jurisdictions, various government agencies, university and educational systems, and other professional organizations. Psychologists with ABPP specialty certification will have distinct career advantages over those without specialty certification. This workgroup will develop short term and long term strategies for impacting counseling psychology’s culture such that; 1) Becoming Board Certified by ABPP in the Specialty of Counseling Psychology will be viewed as the norm, the standard to which all counseling psychologists aspire; 2) all counseling psychology graduate students understand embrace board certification as the “next step” in the evolution of their postdoctoral credentialing process and careers; and 3) that specialty board certification will become as common a credential as licensure. The participation of early, middle, and late career psychologists with valuable experiences and perspectives gleaned from various stages of their careers will substantially enhance achieving the workgroup’s objectives, as will participation of graduate students who can speak to those “here and now” strategies that, if put into place, will impact viewing the attainment of specialty certification as the norm. Eligible group participants will also acquire the knowledge necessary to immediately begin the process of board certification.

Contacts for Next Steps • Ted Stachowiak, Ph. D, Texas A&M University, ted@scs. tamu. edu