Psychology Ph.D. reaccredited
JOHNSON CITY -- East Tennessee State University’s doctoral program in clinical psychology has been reaccredited for the maximum of 10 years by the American Psychological Association (APA) Commission on Accreditation (CoA).
APA accreditation recognizes the quality of training provided by the program and indicates compliance with the Standards of Accreditation in Health Service Psychology.
ETSU’s clinical psychology program admitted its first students in 2007 and received its initial five-year accreditation in 2012, according to Dr. Wallace Dixon, professor and chair of the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences.
During that time, the accreditation requirements were changed from “guidelines” to more stringent “standards” resembling medical competencies, and the length of time a program could retain accreditation was increased from seven to 10 years.
In addition, the terminology used for licensed practitioners in the field changed from professional psychology to health service psychology. APA accreditation protects both the public by ensuring the competency of practitioners and students by ensuring the quality of their academic and clinical training, according to Dixon and Dr Jill Stinson, associate professor and director of clinical training in the Department of Psychology.
Stinson led the reaccreditation effort for the department, which included a narrative self-study reviewed by the CoA followed by a site visit by a team of visitors who met with faculty, students and clinical supervisors. The site visit team prepared a report that was reviewed by the CoA, which made the final decision on reaccreditation.
“The site team was very, very positive and spoke highly of the program,” Stinson said. "So we hoped for and were delighted to receive the full 10 years."
Dixon said that the “gold standard” of a clinical psychology program is the number of students who get internships following graduation, and 100 percent of ETSU’s graduates over the past five years have matched with internships. In addition, 100 percent of ETSU’s graduates who are eligible to receive licensure have achieved licensure in the field.
Since its inception, 27 Ph.D.s have graduated from ETSU’s clinical program.
“The very first students we admitted graduated after we were accredited, so every student we’ve graduated came from an accredited program,” Dixon said.
The ETSU program also boasts its own stand-alone mental health clinic on campus, which provides hands-on training for doctoral candidates as well as care for the community.
“Our Behavioral Health and Wellness Clinic is unique in terms of its existence as a doctoral training clinic in that we are licensed by the state of Tennessee as a mental health agency, which, from what I understand, is very rare for a training clinic,” Stinson said. “We are the only one in the state. As a result of that, we have contracts to accept Medicaid from several different TennCare vendors, which allows us to serve the surrounding community and people who might otherwise not have reliable access to mental health care for adults, children and families.
“Our training has a mission-specific model devoted to training psychologists to work in rural regions, but also to work within the context of integrated primary care and other integrated health care settings,” Stinson continued, adding that program faculty are excited about the possibility of expanding training options through the recent Ballad Health merger. “Our students receive about 12 hours of additional training in the interprofessional medical health care model, and they also do training in family medicine, pediatrics and a variety of different primary care areas within the region.”