Sandy's Perspective on Improving Children's Mental Health through the Science and Practice o
We have a children’s mental health crisis in this country, and we need all of psychology to help address it. The fact that we have watched daily as families have routinely been separated at our southern border reflects a major gap between psychology’s scientifically-based understanding of child adjustment and the development of effective, culturally-responsive public policy. Question 1. What do you see as the most pressing issues affecting children’s mental health? From my
Sandy's Commitment to Advancing Science
Question: How will you advance science if elected? As candidate for APA President, I am committed to fortifying and advancing psychology as a science, as the foundation for knowledge, action and practice. There are several approaches I want to pursue with the support and help of our science community: Advance psychological science as both basic and applied science. The scope of our scientific work is under-recognized and misunderstood. Applied psychological science, in p
Question 3: How do you think APA should address the scientific process of developing, updating and
Sandy’s Response: We should, as a discipline and profession, take a significant role in developing and updating clinical guidelines, based on our best science, and establishing psychology as a meaningful part of interprofessional, evidence-based healthcare. We must also be diverse and inclusive scientifically if we want guidelines to be maximally helpful and effective for the public. For example, we can encourage use of mathematical optimization models with multiple variable
Question 1: What is the single greatest challenge or opportunity facing the discipline of psychology
Sandy’s Response: Our ability to clearly define for the public the multiple roles of psychologists and psychology’s societal contributions—locally, nationally, globally—is key to our future. We need to build broad public support for our science, health and other applied psychology services. Why? An informed public becomes the psychologically-minded society of tomorrow--what is good for that informed public will be good for psychology. Psychology can embrace disciplinary and
