Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (encompassing Pediatric Psychology) has been recognized by the Council of Specialties in Professional Psychology and the Commission for the Recognition of Specialties and Proficiencies in Professional Psychology (CRSPPP) since 1998.  The specialty (“synarchy”) of Clinical Child Psychology is comprised of APA Divisions 53 (the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology) and 54 (the Society of Pediatric Psychology), and the American Board of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (ABCCAP).

 

Despite the recognition of the specialty area, and despite the articulation of specific training and educational guidelines (e.g., Roberts et al., 1998), Clinical Child and Pediatric Psychology has lacked a training council. The emergence of training councils in Health Psychology and Geropsychology suggested that a training council dedicated towards education in an established specialty area offers an important benefit not only to constituent members of the specialty, but also to the training community more broadly.  Thus, in 2013, Michael Roberts and Mitch Prinstein requested funds from APA Divisions 53 and 54 to host a brief interest meeting about the formation of a new training council focused on educational issues in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, and Pediatric Psychology.

 

With funds provided by Division 53 and Division 54 to pay for meeting expenses, Roberts and Prinstein hosted an initial interest meeting at CUDCP (January, 2014).   At the interest meeting, there was unanimous and enthusiastic support for a training council that would include programs representing the doctoral, doctoral internship, and postdoctoral fellowship levels of training in clinical child and pediatric psychology.  Roberts and Prinstein organized subsequent interest meetings at the Society of Pediatric Psychology Annual Conference (SPPAC), APPIC, the APA Convention, the National Conference in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, and ABCT.  These meetings were useful for gauging interest in the formation of a new training council, discussing logistics, and developing preliminary agenda items.

 

A number of possible agenda items emerged from these meetings, including

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• the development of training guidelines in clinical child and pediatric psychology

• advocacy for child/pediatric training issues within broader training policies (e.g., accreditation, licensure, etc)

• sharing of resources among training directors

• cross-talk between trainers at different stages of the training pipeline to ensure continuity in training

• discussion of future directions in the field and necessary revisions to training

• helping share resources to allow more sites to develop clinical child/pediatric training, etc.

• discussing adherence to accreditation guidelines within the context of clinical child and pediatric training

• reviewing training competencies for clinical supervision skills in clinical child and pediatric psychology practice

• discussing research training curricula at each stage of the educational pipeline

• sharing and collaborating on course syllabi or online didactic presentations

• discussing how integrated care changes training needs at each stage of training; and

• developing and sharing behaviorally anchored ratings scales to measure trainee competencies (readiness for internship, etc).

 

In all six interest meetings, attendees reaffirmed their unanimous commitment to, and interest in a training council.  As a result of these meetings and the enthusiasm of the training programs, Roberts and Prinstein developed a listserv for interested programs to further discuss the new training council, to review possible criteria and costs for membership, and to propose possible meeting locations/times.  To date, the listserv includes representatives from over 120 training programs.

 

In December 2014, Roberts and Prinstein invited Sharon Berry, Ric Steele, and Brian Chu to form a steering committee that would help to move the training council forward.  This committee was charged with the following tasks:

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• draft bylaws, and disseminate to interested members for review and comment

• create a membership application procedure

• petition potential sponsors for funds to legally incorporate the group

• once incorporated, review applications and “accept” first members, collect dues

• develop a set of possible member working groups to advance agenda

• and dissolve the steering committee to so members could elect a board of directors for the training council that will organize an initial meeting of the training council board and its members

 

The CCaPPTC is a training council that includes members representing the doctoral, doctoral internship, and postdoctoral fellowship levels of training in clinical child and pediatric psychology. This website is evidence of the progress of the emerging training council.  With iterative input from a number of doctoral, internship, and postdoctoral training programs, the steering committee has successfully developed bylaws, incorporated the Clinical Child and Pediatric Psychology Training Council (CCaPPTC) as a non-profit advocacy corporation [501(c)(3)], and developed an application procedure, accepted a growing number of initial members into the Training Council. CCaPPTC’s purpose is to promote the advancement of graduate and postgraduate education and training within the fields of clinical child and pediatric psychology. Over the past year, the CCaPPTC has appointed members to represent the council on APA committees, such as the Council of Chairs of Training Councils and the Postdoctoral Competency Task Force. Developing training guidelines in clinical child and pediatric psychology continues to be an important initiative of one of the subcommittees. The CCaPPTC is also working on hosting a training conference in clinical child and pediatric psychology.