Professional Development

NLPA Professional Development

The NLPA Student and Professional Development subdivision is designed to recruit, retain, and ultimately assist with the graduation and professional advancement of Latina/o students, faculty, and staff in higher education pursuing the field of psychology. More specifically, the goal is to facilitate: (1) student development and (2) professional development. Student development targets both undergraduate and graduate students in pursuit of educational excellence. The professional development efforts targets academicians and practitioners throughout the entire professional career span (early, mid and late). This division endeavors to:

• Assist APA, higher education institutions, and psychology programs to create an environment that acknowledges, respects and includes the Latina/o culture.

• Establish working relationship with institutions of higher education to develop academic opportunities for Latina/o undergraduates, graduates, and faculty and staff.

• Establish partnerships with local Latina/o communities and agencies to develop internship/employment opportunities for Latina/o students.

• Provide support to Latina/o students and professional in helping them to achieve their highest educational and professional potential.

Specific programming ideas include: developing a coordination events calendar for the association;developing a mentoring program that will provide peer and professional mentorship for Latina/o students and faculty (e.g., sponsoring roundtables at conferences); establishing NLPA chapters across university and college campuses; helping to organize regional 1-day conferences; and developing web sites focusing on graduate programs and scholars who have specialties in Latina/o issues and summer institutes and employment for students; and a Recognition Program for students, professionals and programs. Now is the time to get involved in setting up these program!

Cultural Competency Training for Mental Health Providers

The Communicative and Cultural Competency for Mental Health Providers (CCC-MHP) program at Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU) is supported by a Workforce Training Grant from the Center for Mental Health Service of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The CCC-MHR program is based on these assumption.

1. There is disparity in the quality and availability of mental health services for Spanish-speaking Latina/o clients (DHHS, 2001).

2. To reduce the disparity in services, therapists need better training in providing culturally and linguistically appropriate services.

3. To ensure the delivery of high quality service, languages and cultural proficiency standards for the delivery of mental healthy services to Spanish-speaking Latina/o clients must be established.

4. Valid and reliable measures of language and cultural proficiency in the delivery of mental health services do not currently exist.

The curriculum is offered in three formats: a continuing education workshop, an intensive summer workshop, and online instruction. The curriculum consists of grammar and vocabulary, application, and cultural competence. A professor of Spanish with expertise in the use of Spanish in mental health settings and a professor of psychology who is proficient is Spanish and has expertise in bilingualism will teach the programs.

The following programs will be offered and evaluated: Continuing Education for Mental Health Providers; Summer Workshop for Mental Health Providers; Online Continuing Education for Mental Health Providers; Continuing Education for Practitioners in Public Schools; Summer Workshop for School Psychologists; and Online Continuing Education for School Psychologists.

For more information, contact Joan Biever, Ph.D. (beivj@lake.allusa.edu)