APA Presidential Candidate Statements

 

Candidate for APA President-Elect Statements to Questions from Division 31

The Division of State, Provincial and Territorial Psychological Association (Division 31) is committed to providing information to the constituent organizations and individual member about issues important to our membership.  We, therefore, contacted each of the candidates for the position of APA President-elect and invited them to respond to the questions listed below. We asked that they limit their responses to 400 words to allow for the widest distribution though newsletters, listservs, and websites. We invite all to give the widest possible distribution of their responses. The ballot for President-elect will be mailed by APA on October 13. 2006.

The following questions were submitted to the candidates:  

1. What do you perceive as being the issues of greatest concern to SPTA associations and to their memberships?

2. If elected to the APA Presidency, what would you do to address these issues?

3. Describe your activities on the national level which have strengthened or benefited SPTAs.

4. Describe your activities and accomplishments at the state, provincial or territorial level which have strengthened SPTAs.

5. How long have you been a member and what offices have you held in your SPTA?

The candidate’s responses are presented below in alphabetical order.

The five candidates are:
Rosie P Bingham
James H. Bray  
Alan E. Kazdin
Nora Newcomb 
Stephen A. Ragusea

 Candidate Rosie P Bingham

 Issues of greatest concern to SPTA associations revolve around: delivery of quality services; recruitment, retention, support for members; and protection of the profession.

            The doctorate should remain the standard for entry into the profession; therefore, licensure laws are very important.  It is essential that legislators, insurance agencies, and other appropriate bodies understand the standards for competent training and quality care.  For that to happen, SPTA associations must have active and involved members.  So it is important to recruit and retain of a diverse group of members who can be strong advocates with legislative bodies and funding agencies.  SPTA associations need advocates for licensure portability, prescriptive privileges, and reasonable reimbursement for services rendered.

 I will be a strong supporter of groups like CAPP, the National Register, and ABPP that have been working on portability and reciprocity.  I will urge CAPP to continue support of state prescription endeavors.  And I will call on Membership to help states with recruitment and retention.  I will continue to support the diversity efforts of the State Leadership Conference.

  We must implement the recommendations of the Presidential Task Force on Enhancing Diversity within APA.  And we must expand those recommendations to include our colleagues who are practitioners and scientists who feel unwelcome.

               As President of Division 17 I co-founded the National Multicultural Conference and Summit .  We included workshops on how to develop financially sound practices at a Summit that focused on cutting edge multicultural research and practice.  While Chair of the Board for Professional Affairs, we ensured that legislation making its way through APA governance supported state efforts and was practitioner friendly.  I served on the task force that revised the national exam, served on the Ethics Committee and have done state ethics workshops.  I have been a member of various state and local psychological associations for over twenty-five years.  My office memberships have been within divisions and at the national level.  I have encouraged my staff to maintain membership in the state associations.  I have served as a state oral examiner for years.  I am committed to strong state associations because that is where we have our greatest opportunity to include young professionals, practitioners, scientists and diverse individuals of all types and where we can influence our legislators. And it is where we have the greatest opportunity to influence our communities to take care of the least of us in society. 

Candidate James H. Bray  

I thank Division 31 for providing an opportunity to address SPTAs. I became involved in APA through state psychology issues where I "cut my teeth" and gained valuable experience as an APA federal advocacy coordinator and member of the State Leadership Committee. See my website for further information: www.bcm.tmc.edu/familymed/jbray.

 1. What do you perceive as being the issues of greatest concern to SPTA associations and to their memberships?

1. Making a Viable Living.  Our greatest challenge is making a reasonable living through the practice of psychology.  The continued cuts in reimbursement for psychological services and funding cuts for public service undermine our profession and SPTAs.

2. A Culturally Expanded Profession. Addressing the diversity issues within our profession and public we serve.  We need to expand the number of psychologists to reflect the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic nature of our society.

3. Addressing Threats to the Practice of Psychology.  Many states are struggling with threats to scope of practice from other professions and masters level providers. 

4. Dealing with Disgruntled Members and Nonmembers. When I ran for APA President in 2002, I met hundreds of psychologists--many who had concerns about APA and did not feel that APA represented their interests—and in fact many had dropped out. 

2. If elected to the APA Presidency, what would you do to address these issues?

1. Insure that APA makes addressing state psychological association needs a top priority.  Continue to provide financial and staff support to address these issues.

2. Increase the number of psychologists who are culturally and linguistically competent to provide these much needed services.  Expand ethnic minority psychologists participation in our STPAs.

3. Increase our state advocacy to deal with threats to our scope of practice.  As “all politics are local” we need to provide more resources to enhance our state and federal advocacy efforts. 

4. Address the concerns of our disgruntled members and increase our membership.  Attract more members by meeting their needs.   

3. Describe your activities on the national level that have strengthened or benefited SPTAs.
1. I introduced an APA Council agenda item to provide funding for council representatives to attend the February and August Council meetings.  This was passed and will save SPTAs $1000s.  This was the first change in funding for Council Representatives since the 1950s. 

2. Elected member of the State Leadership Organizing Committee (now Committee of State Leaders, 1994-1996).

3. As president of Division of Family Psychology (43) and Treasurer of American Society for Advancement of Pharmacotherapy (Div. 55) supported the creation of state chapters to address family psychology issues and prescriptive authority for psychologists. 

4. As chair of the Rural Health Task Force and Committee, developed advocacy and practice issues to address the needs of rural psychologists and state associations. 

5. Awarded the Karl F. Heiser Presidential Award for Advocacy on Behalf of Professional Psychology, American Psychological Association, August 1994.

6. Federal Advocacy Award, Practice Directorate, American Psychological Association, August 1992.

7. Elected Fellow of Division 31 to recognize my outstanding contributions to SPTAs. 

8. Addressed SPTA issues as a member of the Council of Representatives (2001-2005), Board of Educational Affairs (1996-1998), and CAPP Primary Care Task Force (1995-1996).

4. Describe your activities and accomplishments at the state, provincial or territorial level which have strengthened SPTAs.

1. Chair , Texas PSYPAC, the state political action committee.

2. Oral examiner, Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists.  Consultant to develop and administer the oral psychology exam. 

3. Federal advocacy coordinator for the APA Practice Directorate for Texas (1991-1994).

4. APA Federal Advocacy Coordinator for the Education Directorate Region 6 ( Arkansas , Louisiana , New Mexico , Oklahoma , Texas ), 2001-present.

5. How long have you been a member and what offices have you held in your SPTA?

            I have been a member of the Texas Psychological Association since 1983.  Chair and member Texas PSYPAC, TPA state political action committee. Chair, TPA Committee on Family Psychology. 

Houston Psychological Association. Board of Trustees (1995-96), chair of the Legislative Affairs Committee (83-84; 98-99). Psychologist of the Year, HPA, 1994.  

Candidate Alan E. Kazdin

1. What do you perceive as being the issues of greatest concern to SPTAs and to their memberships?

            Among the issues of greatest concern are:

1. Increased involvement and representation of SPTAs in APA governance;

2. Resources and central support to assist in developing and enacting agenda;

3. Parity of mental and physical health insurance; and

4. Critical service delivery issues including reimbursement for services, portability of licenses, and prescription privileges.

2. If elected to the APA Presidency, what would you do to address these issues?

            I am committed to each of these issues and will work to support the Division issues but also to help concretely with the needs of individual States and Provinces. I will be an activist for SPTAs because the Division represents a broad constituency that can act on a range of issues at the level (State, Provinces) where they are to be addressed and resolved. I will be available personally to help and will to mobilize resources at APA to serve as well.

3. Describe your activities on the national level that have strengthened or benefited SPTAs.

            My research has been with inpatient and outpatient populations, i.e., “real patients” in clinical services, and their needs. My work has shown relations among child deviance, parent mental health, and family interaction and how treatment of the child palpably improves, child, parent, and family functioning. I work with parent violence, single-parent families, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and underrepresented groups and lobby daily for their services. These foci have given my work attention and have underscored the need for improved services at the national level. These are not specifically in behalf of SPTAs, but my interests, work, writings, and heart are closely connected to many issues SPTAs have embraced.

 4. Describe your activities and accomplishments at the state, provincial or territorial levels that have strengthened SPTAs.

            At the state level, I have testified for legislation and worked on committees with legislators for increased services for children and families. I have lobbied for improved treatments and for different, better, and more consistent reimbursement structures for delivery of services. In Connecticut , I have been involved in a statewide evaluation of services delivered to children and families, a project to provide information for delivery of services.  

5. How long have you been a member and what offices have you held in your SPTA.

            At different points in my career I have been a member of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association and now I am a member of the Connecticut Psychological Association. I have not held offices in either.

            I currently chair a large medical school department (400+ faculty and staff) and oversee training (psychology, child psychiatry, social work) and clinical services (inpatient and outpatient), and am directly involved in issues related to managed care, medication and medication trials, and policy for services at the state level. These pertinent experiences will help make me an effective, informed, credible, and vigorous advocate for the Division (please see http://votekazdinapa.yale.edu).

Candidate Nora Newcomb

 Thanks for writing to me about the APA Presidency. APA is a large and complex organization that serves many constituencies. I believe that the staff of APA, headed by a very capable CEO, does a fantastic day-to-day job of monitoring and addressing the concerns of the various groups of psychologists who comprise APA. My aim in running for President is to provide a unifying face and voice for several over-arching issues: relating science to practice and public policy; organizing "big picture" activities that reduce the fragmentation of our discipline; and, delineating appropriate ways to make evidence-based decisions. Because I am committed to this vision, I have decided to concentrate on these themes in my campaign rather than comment on all of the many particular questions that form a part of the ongoing work of this largely well-functioning organization.

Candidate Stephen A. Ragusea

 1. What do you perceive as being the issues of greatest concern to SPTA associations and to their memberships?

No doubt here.  The biggest immediate concerns are reimbursement and managed care issues.  The financial structure of clinical practice has been grievously damaged; clinicians need help. Systems are crumbling.

2. If elected to the APA Presidency, what would you do to address these issues?

We'd better be ready for what comes after managed-care, be it consumer-driven healthcare, single-payer, or some hybrid.  I would guide more of APA's resources to focus on reimbursement issues.   It's the financial basis of psychological practice and it demands more respect and attention.

3. Describe your activities on the national level which have strengthened or benefited SPTAs.

I'd start by reporting that while on APA's Council of Representatives, I served as Chair of the SPTA Caucus and worked with Ron Levant and others to change Council's voting system to give small SPTAs voting power. 

And, over the years, I served on a variety of APA, task forces, committees, etc. and provided APA presentations for SPTAs such as "Structuring Your Association For Maximum Effectiveness".

I have also spoken in Canada and at state associations on various topics including the critical importance of developing Practice-Research Networks for the long-term health of psychology at all levels.  It is my hope that these efforts were useful.

4. Describe your activities and accomplishments at the state, provincial or territorial level which have strengthened SPTAs.

Frankly, I am extraordinarily proud of all the teamwork in which I have engaged for the benefit of the Pennsylvania and Florida Psychological Associations.   In Pennsylvania , I helped preside over the 25-year metamorphosis of an organization that started as a box of records on the president's kitchen table and grew into an efficient and professionally run state association with its own building and eight full time staff.  I am proud to have provided workshops at every PPA convention for 24 years. I am proud to have written scores of articles for association newsletters. . I am proud to have chaired the development of Pennsylvania 's Practice-Research Network, a model for similar efforts all over the country.  And, I am very proud to have received APA's Heiser Award for Advocacy and two major PPA Awards. I think I helped make these organizations better and stronger.

5. How long have you been a member and what offices have you held in your SPTA? 

An APA Fellow of Divison 31 and a Fellow of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, I have been an active member of PPA for 26 years serving as President, Clinical Division President, APA Representative, Chair of the Hospital Practice Committee, Membership Recruitment Committee Chair, and Chair of the Practice-Research Network. 

A member of the Florida Psychological Association for 3 years, I serve on the Board of Directors and as Chair of the Ethics Committee.

For more information please visit:  www.raguseaforapa.com