Fellow members of AVAPL,
This past month began my service to our organization as
President. I want to take a moment to introduce my goals
for this year and to recall the wonderful year our organization
just concluded. Let me begin by recognizing the
outstanding contributions of Mark Hinterthuer and June Malone.
At the recent APA Convention in San Diego, June matriculated to
Past-President and Mark made his exit from the Executive
Committee. As the keel and the rudder of our AVAPL Executive
Committee this year, Mark and June guided us in responding to
the Michaud Bill and led us strongly through a fundamental
challenge to our VA Psychology Leadership Conference.
Thanks largely to the efforts of these two leaders, our
Leadership Conference continues on firmer footing than ever, and
our collaborative relationship with APA was enhanced.
The Michaud Bill, intended to help fund APA’s Graduate
Psychology Education (GPE) Program, suggested that funds to
benefit GPE may be transferred directly from VA. While the
language in the Bill never actually compelled VA to transfer
these funds, we were very concerned that if funds were
transferred from VA to GPE to train psychologists, that funds
committed to VA Psychology Education might be reduced
accordingly. AVAPL worked diligently to convey our opposition
to the language in the bill. While we supported an increase in
appropriations to GPE by Congress, we opposed this money coming
from VA funds. As one result of our advocacy, we formed a
useful and important collaborative relationship with the APA
Education Directorate. Fortunately, while the Bill was not
enacted with the VA transfer language, GPE still realized a
healthy boost in funding.
Although few knew, the future of our VA Psychology Leadership
Conference hung in the balance earlier this year. Since the
early years of our Conference, we have enjoyed and benefited
from very strong support from APA. Both in the form of
logistical support for the implementation of the Conference
itself and in financially guaranteeing the Conference, APA has
been an invaluable partner. This year APA was not in a position
to support the Conference as in years past. As the Conference
Committee (APA, APA Division 18, and AVAPL) considered options,
AVAPL stepped in to offer to financially support the conference.
I am proud to say that we had a hugely successful Conference
this year. With the largest attendance ever, a new location,
and an outstanding array of presenters, we exceeded our greatest
expectations for the Conference and ended up “in the black”.
I am excited about my year of service as your President and
about working with the leaders you have chosen as your Executive
Committee. My hope is that this will be a year we will again
have a Leadership Conference that will exceed expectations and
that we will continue to find ways to empower each other through
our organization. I have a few goals for this year.
First, I’d like to expand membership in AVAPL and the benefits
available to members. We will make a concerted effort to reach
psychologists from systems without existing connections to AVAPL
as many new psychologists have joined VA who are unaware of our
organization. I want to invigorate and update our tradition of
mentorship. To that end I plan to develop a Leadership and
Mentoring Committee which will be tasked with facilitating
mentorship relationships and creating a basic leadership
training element to be offered at our Leadership Conference.
Second, I’d like to redirect efforts previously aimed at
publishing a newsletter toward making updates to our AVAPL
website. My goal is to make the website a primary portal for
communication and information. Psychologists are presently
empowered by our Email List, our Leadership Conference, and our
conference calls. I want to add our website to this list.
Third, I hope to disseminate information to psychologists
enumerating the status of the implementation of Hybrid Title 38
for Psychologists and elucidating the pro’s and con’s of
“straight 38” for our profession. Presently, little data on the
implementation of Hybrid 38 is available. While many VA
psychologist leaders have experienced well deserved promotions,
there continue to be a number of VA psychologists who are
assigned leadership responsibilities who complain they are not
considered for promotion as appropriate by the General
Qualification Standards. While some have looked to the
possibility of Psychology becoming a “straight 38” profession as
a potential solution to problems of pay and promotion, most of
us know too little about the ramifications of such a change to
evaluate the wisdom of advocating for it.
Lastly, I hope to entice many of you to participate more
actively in this organization by expanding opportunities to
participate directly in leadership by serving on committees or
otherwise assisting our efforts. Please contact me if you have
an interest in working with us to enhance leadership and
mentoring, membership in AVAPL, advocacy education, basic
education and training for VA psychology leaders, or if you have
an article you’d like to contribute to our website.
Sincerely,
George W. Shorter, Ph.D.
President, AVAPL
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