Educational Affairs Committee

Chair: Rebecca Resnik, Psy.D. [Contact]

Mission or Role of Committee: To provide high quality continuing education to psychologists and other mental health care providers that is consistent with the requirements of the American Psychological Association and Maryland State Board of Examiners.

Accomplishments this Past Year: This year was a challenging year in terms of meeting our financial projections. We find that we are competing increasingly with CE providers who emphasize convenience over quality, and particularly those who are able to offer online CE. We believe this has made MPA's offerings less attractive to younger professionals who are managing considerable debt and/or raising young children. Though our committee continues to work towards increasing membership and reaching out to younger psychologists, we have learned that we must continue to offer CE that is attractive to our base clientâ€”psychologists with over 20 years experience. This past year the Educational Affairs Committee offered 177.5 CE credits, served 1,447 attendees at the time this report was submitted.

Current Initiatives: Our current initiatives are twofold. First, our committee has the standing goal of increasing revenue and attracting as many attendees as possible to our events. We strive to balance this objective with our commitment to improving psychologists' abilities to work with diverse populations, collaborate with other professionals in different fields, and find ways to apply their expertise in new contexts. We also see our CE events as a primary source of outreach to the community of potential members.

With respect to operationalizing these goals, our objectives for next year include:

1. Offering alternative format CE, including webinars
2. Continuing to offer "Practice Builder" CEs in the context of events with broad appeal (e.g. Convention, Ethics CEs, Multicultural day)
3. Use data to inform our decision making process (revenue reports, feedback forms, MPA survey)
4. Re-examine the current CE offering schedule, particularly the Ocean City Institute and Spring "stand alones," to determine if these offerings continue to meet membership's needs
5. Monitoring new trends in CE requirements, particularly with regards to changes proposed by Boards of Examiners across the country
6. Explore extended CE programs to develop new competencies in our MPA psychologists, such as forensic work with divorced families

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