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that. Dr. VandeCreek made a couple of comments about internships. He
did not think that the internship accreditation process would change that
much. Internships are supposed to be broad and provide general training,
although historically they have included tracks in specialty areas. There
is the CoA accredited traditional three a new development in the postdoctoral
area, however, which he thought might be of interest to us. As of January
1, 1997, the CoA can accredit postdoctoral programs and the language there
says "for advanced practice in a substantive traditional and specialty
practice area in professional psychology" (American Psychological Association,
1996). It was Dr. VandeCreek s understanding that the CoA has site visited
three postdoctoral programs but that the CoA had not formally done its
review of the site visit reports. At least one of the site visit reports
was on the October docket for CoA discussion and after that we should know
how well the postdoctoral accreditation process went. There is a single
set of generic guidelines put out by the CoA for postdoctoral accreditation.
Dr. VandeCreek was aware that some of us have been developing an adaptation
of these guidelines for clinical neuropsychology. Since he was not on the
CoA or familiar with the clinical neuropsychology adaptation, he did not
want to comment on the adaptation or how the CoA would view it. Since the
CoA was running three pilot programs through the postdoctoral accreditation
process and would then be revising it as needed, the CoA was not eager
to have a rush of postdoctoral programs applying for accreditation.
Before beginning the discussion of implementation, the responsibilities
of the planning committee in getting the policy statement and the rest
of the proceedings ready for publication were outlined. The planning committee
would, as requested by the delegates, make editorial changes to the policy
statement not involving the substantive content and would work on producing
two figures for the policy statement that demonstrated how knowledge and
skills might be acquired at different levels of training by two individuals.
The proceedings would include such things as the selection of the delegates,
how the conference was designed, the procedures followed, for instance,
as well as breakout group reports and summaries of plenary sessions on
the various questions. The chairs and recorders from each breakout group
would be responsible for writing up their sessions and the planning committee
would summarize the plenary sessions. Dr. Hannay mentioned that the Archives
of Clinical Neuropsychology and The Clinical Neuropsychologist had been
approached about publishing the proceedings but that offers had not yet
been received from them. The American Psychologist was being approached
about publishing articles on the conference and the policy statement. The
planning committee were requesting that copies of the proceedings be made
available at cost since organizations might want to distribute them to
their membership. The planning committee thought that everyone who had
applied to be a delegate should be given a copy of the policy statement
since they had all shown a real interest in the conference and should receive
a report back on the outcome of the conference. A suggestion was made that
an article be written for the Division 40 Newsletter and the editor, Dr.
DeLuca, said that the deadline was November 1, 1997. A similar article
was suggested for the NAN newsletter. It was suggested that the policy
statement be put on various websites, including the NAN and Division 40
websites, Dr. Loring s website from the Medical College of Georgia, the
pediatric website, and INSNET. The possibility of putting the material
on one website and linking it to others was suggested. Dr. Dodrill said
that he would like to feature the Houston Conference in his NAN Presidential
address. It was also suggested that copies of the policy statement be given
to all of the clinical neuropsychology programs listed in TCN and that
an article be written for the Monitor. It was mentioned that press releases
had already been prepared and that the Monitor had already agreed to do
a story. Additional sources recommended for dissemination of the outcome
of the conference included the APS Observer, the Chronicle of Higher Education,
and the American Association of State Psychology Boards. Endorsement by
various neuropsychological organizations was discussed.
The issue of accreditation of doctoral programs that provided
training in clinical neuropsychology but that were not tracks in either
clinical, school, or counseling psychology was again raised. It was reiterated
that the CoA currently had no accreditation standards for such doctoral
programs.
As interim chair of the new Council of Specialties, Dr. Harnsher
was asked to clarify its role. He said that the role of the Council of
Specialties is to interface with the CoA concerning specialty education
and training criteria. The Council as well as the Interorganizational Council
(IOC) for the Accreditation of Postdoctoral Programs in Professional Psychology
believe that the specialties must maintain control and authority over education
and training criteria within their specialty since the CoA has no expertise
with the specialties. The charge to the Council of Specialties is much
broader and has to do with all specialty issues with respect to accreditation
as well as resolving disputes between specialties over the scope of their
specialization. The purpose of the Council of Specialties is to assure
that whatever specialty standards are derived, that they are in conformance
or have parity across the specialties and that the specialties develop
their criteria to a sufficient extent to describe the scope of the specialty
and to make clear its limitations. The CoA is primarily composed of persons
interested in or participating in graduate school education so they are
not well informed about residency programs. There is one person representing
internships.
It was suggested that one way of affecting what is done by the
CoA is through the existing accreditation guidelines. The new guidelines
for accreditation of doctoral, internship, and postdoctoral programs require
that each program specify the model that they operate from, list their
training goals, and outcome measures. Any program applying for accreditation
could include in their description of their model that they followed the
guidelines for training given in the policy statement of the Houston Conference.
They would then list goals and outcome measures that were congruent with
the guidelines and try to make sure that this was the case. Neuropsychologists
would not necessarily be involved in evaluating programs since not many
have gone through the site visitor training, but the programs would be
evaluated informally on the basis of the guidelines. Delegates were strongly
encouraged to undergo APA site visitor training so that they could be selected
by programs that have a neuropsychology emphasis at any level. It was also
recommended that a statement in the proceedings be included indicating
to APA that the delegates think that it is very important for clinical
neuropsychologists to be included in evaluation of their programs.
Endorsement of the policy statement by sponsoring neuropsychology
organizations was suggested as part of the implementation process. It was
felt that when that was accomplished the profession would be in a stronger
position to gain endorsement of such groups, as the Clinical Neuropsychology
Synarchy (CNS), the Council of Specialties, the Council of Graduate Departments
of Psychology, and the CoA.
There was some discussion of what the Council of Specialties
had proposed for the residency accreditation process. The Council had recommended
that the site visitor team consist of three psychologists, two from the
specialty under consideration, and one from another specialty. There would
be a two-stage operation. The first stage would be the site visit in which
the chair would be from the specialty under consideration. The second stage
would be the report and its presentation to the CoA in which case the chair
would be from the other specialty. The Council of Credentialing Organizations
in Professional Psychology (CCOPP) is apparently behind the Council of
Specialties. The CoA is independent of credentialing organizations, as
it should be, and it is not clear what it will decide to do in regard to
specialty accreditation, however. Until it is known exactly what will happen
with respect to specialty accreditation, it was recommended that programs
seeking accreditation at the doctoral and internship level do so within
the specialty areas already recognized by APA at those levels. To do otherwise
might result in students coming from APA-approved programs, which were
not yet recognized by licensing, boards. It was pointed out that state
licensing boards, like the CoA, do not have expertise with specialties.
There was further discussion of whether there would ever be accreditation
of doctoral programs specifically in clinical neuropsychology
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