Article archive / December 1, 2013
Originally published: . Volume 5, No. 4. Source pages: 2.
The Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, the Louisiana School Psychological Association, and the Louisiana Psychological Association are working together in an open, collaborative manner, not to restrict trade, but to try and increase the supply of psychological services to the citizens of Louisiana, maintain quality, and benefit our community members, all at the same time.
While a few wrinkles had to be ironed out along the way by reasonable people, those in psychology put together a solution to benefit both sides and the public, and didn’t shoot each other in the foot while doing it. Are things changing a little?
Kudos to the Executive Director of the psychology board, who, after getting raked over the coals by the poorly designed (not by her) effort in 2012 to bring behavior analysts under the psychology board, seems to be exceeding expectations. She seems to have dotted every possible i and crossed every t when it comes to taking the time and effort to facilitate the communication and engage people in the problem-solving.
Led by Dr. Rita Culross, members of School Special Task Force also deserve our gratitude for thoughtful work. I appreciate Dr. Steven Welsh for taking the initiative to step up and bring ideas to the board, despite a climate that historically has not always been conducive to openness. I also heard that Dr. Jesse Lambert and Dr. Chavez Phelps did an excellent job to help the effort along. I think everyone in the room deserves our appreciation for this one.
So now we actually have a possible win-win solution and we resisted falling back on old, worn-out, win-lose, scarcity models that have hamstrung those in our community for decades. (Maybe LPA and LAMP ought to give this method a try?)
It is a stunning and a shameful fact that the Task Force brought to our attention: The current ratio of licensed school psychologists to Louisiana school children is 1 to 10,000.
If the licensed psychologists have been trying to protect their turf, they overshot the mark by thousands of miles.
I’ve asked LPA President John Fanning why LPA seems to put all its effort into restricting supply and not a nickel’s worth of effort into increasing demand, and I hope there will be an answer to that someday in the future.
For now, if this new credential turns out to be eventually approved, Licensed School Psychology Specialists will automatically be increasing demand for both themselves and the licensed psychologists. Hallelujah. Win-win.
Merry Christmas!
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.