Welcome to the NCSPP Web Site!

Hello, and welcome to the official Website of the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology (NCSPP).

The NCSPP web pages provide archival and contemporary information about the many things that NCSPP does as an organization. The site is designed to help delegates as well as students and faculty members, delegates of other training councils, health care and educational organizations to locate information about the NCSPP and its eighty affiliated member programs. We are sure that you will find relevant information about the many things that the NCSPP has done and is planning in order to advance psychology training and address human concerns. As a brief history, the NCSPP was incorporated in 1986. Since then the NCSPP has provided a clear voice that advocates for competency-based graduate practitioner training.

The NCSPP competency-based model of training is a dynamic and evolving educational approach that successfully responds to societal need and shifts in educational priorities. NCSPP is proud to have championed competency based training and sees itself playing an even larger role in how the field prepares psychologists for future roles as healers and change agents for diverse communities. We are proud to note that our affiliated programs train over fifty percent of the clinical psychologists in the United States.

In the past year, NCSPP began and completed a comprehensive review and revision of its seven Core Competencies. That review and revision resulted in the establishment of training outcomes at successive levels of professional training which are called “Developmental Achievement Levels (DALs)”. NCSPP is excited to advance this part of its educational agenda. The DALs will allow the NCSPP organization and its affiliated programs to better operationalize, research, assess, implement and evaluate its model of competency training.

In addition to the Core Competencies, the NCSPP also pays close attention to two other foundational values, i.e.,“Social Responsibility” and “Diversity”. In this regard the NCSPP has rightly decided for the upcoming year to also review and advance its multicultural diversity agenda. During my year as President, with the use of the Mid-Winter Conference as an educational and training event for delegates, the NCSPP delegates will be presented with state-of-the-art diversity knowledge and skills. This information will then be used to frame an updated agenda of our organization in relation to all aspects of professional psychology education and training. Specifically, my vision for this conference is that it will impact teaching, research, practice and administration, on behalf of the future of practitioner training, via the identification and application of an Emerging Competency called “Integrative Diversity”. Attendant to this focus is the reality that identity is socially constructed, that people and identity are complex, and that psychology training must become more competent with complex multicultural and relational dynamics.

Relational complexity and globalization are undeniable realities that are already evident in the diversity of student and faculty at our home institutions. These realities are also evident in the expansion of NCSPP programs which currently offer training programs in several other countries, including Canada, China, Japan, and Mexico.

Along with the emergent and core competencies mentioned above the NCSPP deliberates and takes action on bread and butter issues in the profession, such as mentoring young psychologists, the internship “bottleneck”, and other pipeline issues which are high on the list of national concerns.

Again, welcome to NCSPP!

James Dobbins, Ph.D., ABPP
NCSPP President
Professor and Director of Postdoctoral Training
Ellis Institute
Wright State University
9 N. Edwin C. Moses
Dayton, Ohio 45402-6837
937-775-4300; 937-775-4323
james.dobbins@wright.edu

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We are constantly updating and improving this web site. Please use contact links or e-mail to my address at james.dobbins@wright.edu to provide information about things that you like or would like to see done differently as reflected on these pages.

NCSPP's Mission and Purpose

     NCSPP was developed as an organization through which leaders in the field of professional psychology education could exchange information and develop ideas on how to enhance the quality and development of their programs. Today, information gathering, exchange, and dissemination remain central to NCSPP's mission.
     NCSPP, through its representatives, works to develop standards for professional psychology education. The group provides consultation to new and existing programs of professional psychology, and maintains liaisons with other individuals and organizations involved in psychology education. Representatives of NCSPP are instrumental in monitoring and influencing public policy with regard to professional psychology education.
     NCSPP also strives to foster research that will help lead to solutions to human problems. The development of methods of quality assurance for programs of professional psychology, based upon empirical evaluation, is another priority.
     Finally, NCSPP engages in other activities that are relevant to the advancement of professional psychology education. The organization has taken a leadership role in increasing psychology's attention to racial and ethnic diversity and gender issues, and has worked hard to integrate these priorities with issues of curriculum, supervised field experience, organizational characteristics, and public and social policy.

Kathi Borden, Ph.D., Antioch New England Graduate School
Philip D. Farber, Ph.D., Florida Institute of Technology

To learn more about NCSPP's history and
training model, please click here.

For more information about NCSPP, please contact:

Jeannie Beaff
National Council of Schools and Programs
of Professional Psychology
919 W. Marshall Ave.
Phoenix, AZ 85013
Phone: (602) 284-6219
E-mail: ncspp@cox.net

 

 

Web design by Lynn H. Collins