Canadian Council of

Professional Psychology

Programs

Conseil canadien des

programmes de psychologie

professionnelle

Inside this issue

President’s Message....................2

CCPPP Pre-Convention Workshop and AGM Information

....................................................3

CCTC Report ...............................4

Student Rep Report .....................5

Interview Dates 2018-2019 .........6

Member Program Updates ..........7

2018 Dues & Updates...……………..8

2017-2018 Executive

Dr. Brent Hayman-Abello Dr. Cathy Costigan Dr. Sara Hagstrom

President Past President President Elect

London Health Sciences Centre University of Victoria Northern Ontario Psychology

Brent.haymanabello@lhsc.on.ca costigan@uvic.ca Internship Consortium

hagstros@tbh.net

Dr. Susan Jerrott Ms. Julie Wershler

Treasurer Student Representative

IWK Community Mental Health University of New Brunswick

Bedford/Sackville Cobequid Health Centre ccpppstudentmember@gmail.com

susan.jerrott@iwk.nshealth.ca

Dr. Rupal Bonli Dr. Julie Gosselin Dr. Kerri Ritchie

Member at Large Member at Large CCPPP Representative on

Saskatchewan Health Authority Memorial University CPA Board of Directors

Rupal.Bonli@saskhealthauthority.ca jgosselin@mun.ca Department of Psychology

The Ottawa Hospital

Kritchie@toh.on.ca

May 2018

President’s Message

It has been a very interesting year – in general, and as CCPPP President. In this report I would like to highlight some items that we will discuss at our upcoming AGM and Town Hall, as well as some others that will be expanded on in this newsletter. Among the positive events, two new residency programs joined CCPPP this year: the newly amalgamated Halifax Clini-cal Psychology Residency Program, and the Ottawa Institute of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Included in this new-sletter are updates from two of our academic member programs – The University of Calgary Counselling Psychology and Memorial University. It is exciting to see how strong training opportunities for Canadian Psychology continue to thrive. We also have an update from the CCPPP Student Representative Julie Wershler on her initiatives over the past year and some suggestions for the future. There were also some terrible, sudden tragedies affecting large groups of Canadians with the bus accident in Hum-boldt, Saskatchewan and van attack Toronto, Ontario. Our deepest sympathies go out to the victims of those inci-dents, their families and their friends. We saw an incredible outpouring of support and aid for those affected by the tragedies from so many people including emergency responders, bystanders and citizens both near and far, as well as quick and widespread Psychological support and assistance by many of our colleagues. We cannot thank them enough. Some other events of the past year that are discussed in this newsletter include APPIC’s response to the dilemma sur-rounding the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS) programs – who want to separate themselves from APA but still participate in the APPIC Match. When the US Veterans Association decided PCSAS pro-grams would be accepted for their internships, it placed APPIC in the difficult position of potentially losing approxima-tely one-third of US internship placements. This will be reviewed in more detail in the Council of Chairs of Training Councils (CCTC) liaison report. We are on the verge of a very different CPA convention this year, embedded within the larger International Congress of Applied Psychology (ICAP). This will allow a broader range of topics and speakers with (not surprisingly) a much more international focus in some presentations. The CCPPP will hold its traditional pre-convention workshop on June 25th, with valuable information on Program Evaluation and Quality Improvement by Drs. Susan Farrell, Ian Nicholson, Ada Sinacore, and Stewart Madon. This will be followed by the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Town Hall. Several other issues arose this year that will be discussed in the AGM and Town Hall. The CPA Board has proposed several changes to their structure and bylaws, including how Designated Seats will be treated. We will go over what the CCPPP membership would most like to see in the CPA Board, including our organization’s role and/or input there. Another item for review is the two-step universal residency/internship interview notification and booking process. We received some helpful and positive feedback from our surveys of programs and graduate students (a summary of the survey information is presented later in this newsletter), and we will discuss at the AGM whether to continue, modify or drop this new procedure. Also to be reviewed is a proposal for CCPPP to better support graduate students, including financial support. The CCPPP Executive will suggest offering five $100 prizes for students in CCPPP Member programs to help with Match interview travel expenses (selected in lottery fashion). In addition, members have raised the issue of recommended total practicum hours on the AAPI. One argument is that the 2007 CCPPP Guiding Principles (suggesting 1000 total hours total should be sufficient) are outdated and should be raised to better reflect typical current applicants. On the other hand, it has also been suggested that this number is already too high – that seeking higher hour counts slows academic (dissertation) progress – and perhaps a maximum limit or cap is preferable. With our diverse group of academic and residency training leaders this may lead to an ‘interesting’ discussion as well.

2

CCPPP Pre-Convention Workshop and AGM Information

Still another topic will be the ongoing issue of international students and residency/internship training. Although crossing the border may remain uncertain, there seems to be more positive outcomes in terms of international students in Canadian programs being able to take Canadian-based residency/internship positions. And finally, at the AGM we will elect new Executive members. The call for nominations went out a few weeks before this newsletter but only Student Representatives were nominated. We will be holding an online election for that, but the Secretary and President-Elect positions will be filled at the AGM. I want to thank the other CCPPP Executive members for all their amazing work this year, particularly as we shared Secretary duties after Dr. Kerri Ritchie moved into the CPA Board Representative position (and extra thanks to her for still helping us through the website and listerv issues on top of her Board role). Many thanks to Julie Wershler, our outgoing Student Representative. Her insightful contributions and hard work throughout the year and reaching out via our student Facebook page were greatly appreciated. Additional thanks also to our outgoing Past President Dr. Cathy Costigan for all her activities in the various Presidency-roles, and to our incoming President Dr. Sara Hagstrom whose enthusiasm is matched only by her dedication to improving Psychology training in mul-tiple ways. We are all very lucky to have her move into this role. Dr. Brent Hayman-Abello, C. Psych.

3

Date: Monday June 25th, 2018 (in room 513 C & D on Level 5)

Topic of Workshop: “A Deeper Look Into Programme Evaluation And Quality Improvement: Why Programme Eval-

uation And Quality Improvement Matter To The Vitality And Success Of Your Programmes And Internships”

Presenters: Dr. Susan Farrell, Dr. Ian R. Nicholson, Dr. Ada Sinacore, and Dr. Stewart Madon.

Brief overview: Discussion of accreditation standards, Programme Evaluation and Quality Improvement with the

aim of helping training directors from both doctoral and internship programmes use their programme evaluation

and quality improvement to help advocate in our ever changing landscape of programme viability in a fiscally tight

and competitive climate.

Timeline:

815-830am: Arrive, grab your coffee and breakfast items and settle

830-1015am: Part one of the workshop

1015-10:30: Break

10:30-12: Part two of the workshop

12-1pm: Lunch

1-2pm: Ian - update on EPPP-2, licensure changes

2-330pm: AGM

330-345: Settle in - grab wine for town hall

345-515pm: Town Hall

Please contact Dr. Sara Hagstrom (hagstros@tbh.net) or Dr. Brent Hayman-Abello (Brent.HaymanAbello@lhsc.on.ca) if you have any questions.

President’s Message (cont.)

New Edition of ‘Match Made on Earth’

A new edition of the ‘Match

Made on Earth: A Guide To

Navigating the Psychology

Internship Application Pro-

cess’ is now available on the

CCPPP website.

A link to the document is

available on the website

main page and on the stu-

dent’s resources page.

The Council of Chairs of Training Councils (CCTC) provides a forum for the communication and sharing of resources and information among profes-sional Psychology training associations (doctoral/academic, internship/residency and postdoctoral programs). As one of its 13 board members, the CCPPP participates in its biannual meetings held at the APA offices in Wash-ington each spring and fall. Some of the key items from the spring 2018 meeting are summarized here. First, there was discussion of APPIC’s recently proposed changes to the Doc-toral Program Associates policy – namely to allow programs accredited by the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS) to partici-pate in the APPIC Match. PCSAS consists of a group of doctoral programs following a Clinical-Science training model, as opposed to the Scientist-Practitioner model favoured by APA. APPIC decided that participation in the APPIC Match and/or Post-Match Vacancy Service will still require doc-toral programs be accredited (or have a site visit scheduled), but now ac-creditation would be acceptable from APA, CPA, or a body approved by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – currently only PCSAS. At the 2017 CCPPP AGM, I described the difficulties APPIC was facing because PCSAS programs wanted their students to participate in the APPIC Match, but AP-PIC felt the PCSAS accreditation standards at the time were not equivalent to APA or CPA. Complications arose in 2016 when the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) decided PCSAS-accredited programs were acceptable for hiring Psy-chologists, which meant all VA sites were required to accept internship ap-plications from students in those programs. As this conflicted with APPIC's requirement that academic programs be APA- or CPA-accredited, it would have forced VA programs to pull out of the Match – taking away approxi-mately 1/3 of US internships. This dilemma for US academic programs and APPIC was made more complicated in 2017 as the VA began exploring the possibility of holding their own, separate match. APPIC felt a two-match system would be very negative for students and programs, so they pro-posed to allow doctoral programs accredited by APA, CPA, or ones ap-proved by the VA (i.e., PCSAS) to participate in the Match. At the spring 2018 CCTC meeting, CCTC representatives largely felt this was the best pos-sible solution at this time and expressed support for APPIC’s plan. Currently, all PCSAS programs are APA-accredited (with the exception of McGill which is CPA-accredited). The CCTC plans to make efforts to include PCSAS in fu-ture meetings, and work towards finding shared values (e.g., competency, quality of training). There was also discussion of the EPPP Parts 1 and 2. This was primarily sur-rounding the APA Graduate Students group (APAGS) seeking support from CCTC in allowing Part 1 to be taken during graduate training, and ideally to obtain financial support/assistance from their academic programs to do so. Some CCTC members expressed concern that taking the EPPP Part 1 during graduate school might interfere with dissertation progress, and also that this may result in some internship programs beginning to expect comple-tion of Part 1 as part of their application requirements. The issue of finan-cial support from academic programs to assist students in taking Part 1 was briefly discussed, but no specific decisions were made by the CCTC repre-sentatives.

Council of Chairs of Training Councils Report

4

Available CCPPP student resources

One of the challenges in engaging

students in CCPPP is that we have

no way of reaching students di-

rectly. Resources currently availa-

ble for students and ways to con-

nect with CCPPP are:

The CCPPP website

(www.ccppp.ca) has a section with

resources for students. There is a

lot of advice and resources about

the internship application process,

including sample interview ques-

tions.

Students can contact the student

representative at studentmem-

ber@ccppp.ca

The student representative manag-

es the CCPPP Students in Profes-

sional Psychology page on Face-

book (https://www.facebook.com/

ccpppstudent). Updates relevant

to student training and tips for the

internship application process are

posted here.

In addition, we intend to distrib-

ute a survey asking students for

ideas in how CCPPP can better

support their needs. We will be

looking to academic DCTs to dis-

tribute the survey to your stu-

dents and encouraging them to

complete it!

Council of Chairs of Training Councils Re-port (cont.)

The CCTC continues to see diversity as an important topic as well. There were conversations on the CCTC advocating for supporting diversity itself and attend-ing to it in psychology training (e.g., training sensitivity/knowledge, promoting more diversity of students attending graduate school for psychology). There was also discussion on the CCTC helping advocate for rights of people in healthcare, specifically opposing some healthcare providers who refused (or plan to refuse) to provide service to some people based on religious reasons. Finally, CCTC is continuing plans for a large conference in fall 2020, with the location still to be determined. Organizers are envisioning a smaller more fo-cused group of attendees compared to the last such event in 2010, with the aim of working towards developing various training guidelines. At this time the CCTC hoping to focus on six to eight themes that could be used as starting points such, as Social Justice, workforce/employment issues, competencies and evaluation just to name a few. CCPPP is a full voting member of the CCTC and your representatives will contin-ue to maintain these strong ties to the larger North American professional psy-chology training community. The next meeting is scheduled for Fall 2018. Dr. Brent Hayman-Abello, C. Psych.

5

Increasing Student Engagement in CCPPP

As the CCPPP student representative, one of my primary focuses has been to increase student engagement. In my experience, many students are not aware of CCPPP and its purpose, or how engagement with CCPPP can benefit them. The student representative role involves representing the needs and views of professional psychology trainees across Canada. I bring student training con-cerns and issues to the attention of the executive, and can also answer student questions about training, particularly in regards to the predoctoral internship process. The executive has been discussing potential ways of making students more aware of CCPPP, which include:

A student CCPPP listserv where updates can be provided by the student representative, students can ask questions, and there can be discus-sion among students on training issues that affect them

Creation of student bursaries to support costs of the internship application process.

There are also ways that you can support student engagement in CCPPP in your own program. Forwarding emails from CCPPP (particularly if you highlight what might be relevant for students), making students aware of the role of CCPPP early in their graduate education (e.g., by putting information about it in gra-duate orientation packages), and encouraging students to visit the website and “Like” the Facebook page are avenues for more students to take advantage of the resources and expertise that CCPPP has to offer! Ms. Julie Wershler, CCPPP Student Representative

For several years the CCPPP has recommended that member programs use a Universal Notification Day for internship/residency interviews (the first Friday in December). At the 2017 AGM we agreed to trial a new process: continue to offer interviews on the first Friday in December, but wait to arrange interviews until the following Monday. This would give ap-plicants time to learn of all interview offers and then have the weekend to plan out their schedules, travel plans and costs, and so on. Final interview arrangements might take a few days after the ‘universal arrangement day,’ but the intent was to try and reduce at least some of the stress surrounding this experience. Following both phases of the APPIC Match, CCPPP set up online surveys for feedback on this new process for academic pro-gram Directors of Clinical Training, internship/residency site Training Directors, and for students (we asked academic DCTs to pass on the survey links to their students). The links were sent out via the CCPPP listserv, and of our membership at the time (40 Academic and 45 Residency/Internship), we had responses from 53% (n=24) of residency programs and 12.5% n=(5) of the academic, as well as 19 student responses. Of the academic programs, 3/5 indicated it seemed helpful and 100% said it should be used again. For the residency/internship respondents, 58% said it was more helpful than the old process but some (3 programs) found it less so (the re-mainder indicated no difference or were unsure). Of those that commented, some challenges mentioned were that the change made their booking process a bit more challenging (e.g., felt the need to offer more interview options which made their planning a bit more complicated, having all responses come in at once made it more difficult to treat them on a first-come-first-served basis). Others, though, mentioned that this new process made their bookings easier and faster as there was less back-and-forth for booking or re-arranging interviews. For the question of whether CCPPP should use this process again, the overwhelming majority (92%) said “yes.” Comments were largely quite positive and indicated that it went well. The one comment against was still supportive – saying that although it made more work for their programme, they would recommend continuing the process if it benefited students. The student response, although small compared to the total number of applicants this year (169 according to APPIC), was very supportive. All said this process should be used again, and nearly all (17/19) rated the experience “slightly positive” or “very positive” (one neutral, one slightly negative). Several comments referred to this procedure making it easy to plan schedules, decide which sites could be visited versus have a remote interview (telephone/Skype), and how it seemed much less stressful than if offers/dates came in randomly and needed to be booked right away. We will discuss this further with the CCPPP membership at the next AGM in June, and decide to keep, modify, or drop the Universal Two-Step Notification process. Based on the survey data we received, it seems to have been positive for nearly all involved, and respondents would like to see it continue. Suggestions for improvement were mostly around ensuring all resi-dency/internship sites participate in this process and respected the dates, asking programmes to include dates/times of available interviews in the Friday notification (rather than when applicants contact them on Monday), and considering a Frequently Asked Questions document. One question posed by student respondents, for example, was what to do if a site contacted them before the Universal Notification Day (an applicant might worry they were breaking some rule, but also feel they needed to respond/book). This can also be discussed at the AGM. If the CCPPP Membership follows this two-step notification and booking process again, the dates for 2018 (i.e., for the 2019 Match) would be Friday December 7 for interview notification and Monday December 10 for interview booking. As a final reminder, at the 2017 AGM the CCPPP Membership agreed to the following dates for booking interviews in 2019:

East/Atlantic January 2 – 16 Central (Ontario, except Thunder Bay) January 9 – 23 West (Thunder Bay and Western Provinces) January 16 – 30

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Two-Step Residency/Internship Interview Notification Survey

Member Program Update:

Psy.D. Program at

Memorial University of

Newfoundland (MUN)

In May 2018, we were very

happy to receive confirmation

of our CPA-accreditation sta-

tus for a 5-year term (2017-

2022).

The accreditation of the

Psy.D. program at MUN has

been a longstanding priority

and we are proud to have met

national standards for training

in Professional Psychology.

We are also very happy as this

is the first Canadian Psy.D.

program to receive CPA ac-

creditation at a university that

did not already have an ac-

credited Ph.D. program in

Clinical Psychology. It is also

the first professional training

program in Clinical Psychology

to ever receive national ac-

creditation in the province of

Newfoundland and Labrador.

Dr. Julie Gosselin, R.Psych.

Member Program Update: Educational Stud-ies in Counselling Psychology (U. Calgary)

Over the past three years, the faculty members in the counselling psychology

program at the University of Calgary have re-visited our mission statement and

decided to orient our training toward a social justice philosophy. Being one of

only five CPA-accredited programs in counselling psychology in the country, we

are very excited about this unique development!

To begin the process of bringing our mission statement to life, several steps

have been taken, including the development of a social justice definition (see

below) as well as a revision of our adjudication criteria so as to admit an increas-

ing diverse body of students who value social justice training in counselling psy-

chology. Of course, these steps only represent the beginning of our efforts…

Next steps include program changes as well as funding applications to evaluate

the implementation of this new training philosophy.

Implementing social justice ideas and values into our program has been a

lengthy and at time arduous process; however, we are very proud of the work

that we have done, the hard conversations we have had, and the cohesion that

has developed among us as a result of our collective efforts. We look forward to

seeing how all of our ideas translate more concretely into our program in the

upcoming years…

Social Justice Definition: Social justice can be understood as a professional

commitment, an action-oriented process, and a desired goal. The process entails

investigating and dismantling inequities related to age, race, ethnicity, gender,

sexual / affectional orientation, language, (dis)ability, religion, spirituality, indig-

enous ancestry, nationality, status in country, social class, accessibility, physicali-

ty, and their intersections.

This action-oriented process requires critical, reflective, ongoing, community-

driven multidisciplinary research, which addresses issues of inequity, power,

privilege, and oppression, and includes traditional and indigenous ways of know-

ing, with the aim of challenging unjust policies and systems. The goal then is the

full and equitable engagement of all groups within society.

Social justice efforts can be demonstrated in several ways, including a focus on

a) specific topics of study that have not traditionally been prioritized in counsel-

ling psychology (e.g., ableism, ageism, heterosexism, racism, sexism, weightism,

etc.); b) research approaches that prioritize the voices and experiences of un-

derrepresented communities (e.g., feminist epistemologies, indigenous ways of

knowing, etc.); c) work and advocacy with specific groups who typically have

reduced access to care and services (e.g., at-risk youth, newcomers, individuals

from marginalized social classes, etc.); d) scholarly work that contributes to so-

cial and systemic change (e.g., discriminatory practices, organizational policies,

etc.); to name but a few examples.

Anusha Kassan, PhD

* This definition was co-created by Arthur, Cairns, Fellner, Kassan, Mendaglio, Robertson,

Russell-Mayhew, Strong, Wada, and Zwiers on September 15th, 2017; with the influence

of the following sources: Fouad & Prince, 2011; Kassan, 2016; Kennedy & Arthur, 2014;

Lewis, Ratts, Paladino, & Toporek, 2011; Sinacore & Ginsberg, 2015; Stewart, 2014. 7

To date, 69 programs have updated their information on the website/directory and paid their dues. Thank you to

everyone for your diligence in getting this done so quickly.

Two programs have updated, but we have not received cheques at this time (these programs have been

emailed). Another 15 programs have not yet completed a yearly update, nor paid their dues. If you have not yet

logged into the website to update and pay, we ask you to do this at this time.

Anyone having any difficulty remembering their password, having website issues, or needing help in any way can

contact our treasurer Susan Jerrott at susan.jerrott@iwk.nshealth.ca - we would like to have all of our 2018 pay-

ments and membership updates completed in time for our financial update at the AGM in late June.

2018 Dues and Updates