Final President’s Message for 2022
It was my privilege and honor to serve as President of the Council of Specialties (CoS) of Professional Psychology in 2022. The primary activities of the CoS this past year were to continue implementation of the Taxonomy Initiative and to engage in collaborative discussions to identify strategies that can be used across specialty councils to promote specialty training and practice.
With regard to the Taxonomy Initiative, we made excellent progress with 13 out of 15 specialty taxonomies approved by the end of 2022. In addition, the Taxonomy Action and Consultant Team (TACT) was formed with goals to educate programs on taxonomies and encourage their use. A dissemination and utilization plan was developed by the TACT and shared with all specialty councils. Primary objectives were for each specialty council to identify one to two champions who will work with selected programs on adoption and adaptation of the taxonomy language to describe their programs. Identification of specialty champions was achieved by all specialties at the annual board meeting in November 2022. An online taxonomy tool was created by Dave Cox with the aid of Rob Davis to help programs adopt the Taxonomy language. A big thanks to all members of the TACT in 2022, Victor Molinari, Ron Rozensky, Rick Seime, Adeirdre Stribling Riley, Breeda McGrath, Cathi Grus, Toni Minniti, and Kristen Knight-Griffin, and to Scott Sperling and Lesley Lutes for ad hoc consultation.
With regard to discussions about how to promote specialty training and practice, eight specialty councils provided brief overviews of the membership groups comprising their councils, current goals and projects, challenges and successes, and strategies used to promote their specialties. These presentations generated fruitful discussions about the benefits of specialty training and how to disseminate this information to all levels of trainees. I look forward to continued work toward promotion of specialty training/practice under the leadership of 2023 President Victor Molinari and the rest of the CoS Executive Committee: President-Elect Carlen Henington, Secretary Danielle Rynczak, Treasurer Michele Rusin, and myself as Past President.
My best to all in 2023!
Robin C. Hilsabeck, PhD, ABPP
President, Council of Specialties of Professional Psychology in 2022