The Citizen Psychologist Curriculum-Preparing psychologists for public service: The 2018 American Psychological Association Presidential Initiative.

This article describes a curriculum developed as part of the American Psychological Association President Jessica Henderson Daniel's, 2018 Presidential Initiative-The Citizen Psychologist. The curriculum is designed to prepare the next generation of Citizen Psychologists to provide the broadest sense of service as leaders in their communities and in public service psychology. The curriculum prepares the learner to bring psychological knowledge, science, and expertise to bear on existing challenges to improve community well-being locally, nationally, and globally. This includes addressing the services needs of various vulnerable populations such as veterans, prisoners, the seriously mentally ill, those with substance abuse problems, children, and older adults. Competency-based curricula are presented in a series of modules, each dedicated to a level of education and training from high school through lifelong learning. Each module presents learning outcomes, activities, and resources designed to develop level-specific competencies. Steps for implementation and recommendations at the local and national level are provided. Implications of incorporating the Citizen Psychologist curriculum in education and training programs are discussed including encouraging students to explore volunteer and career opportunities in public service psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Development of clinical practice guidelines.

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are intended to improve mental, behavioral, and physical health by promoting clinical practices that are based on the best available evidence. The American Psychological Association (APA) is committed to generating patient-focused CPGs that are scientifically sound, clinically useful, and informative for psychologists, other health professionals, training programs, policy makers, and the public. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2011 standards for generating CPGs represent current best practices in the field. These standards involve multidisciplinary guideline development panels charged with generating recommendations based on comprehensive systematic reviews of the evidence. The IOM standards will guide the APA as it generates CPGs that can be used to inform the general public and the practice community regarding the benefits and harms of various treatment options. CPG recommendations are advisory rather than compulsory. When used appropriately, high-quality guidelines can facilitate shared decision making and identify gaps in knowledge.

Critical incident stress management and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner: preliminary inquiry.

In critical incidents that involve loss of life, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (ME) is an integral part of the response team. It is the ME who determines the cause of death, explains the circumstances to family survivors, and releases the remains in a timely fashion. In the conduct of the ME's work, addressing the psychological needs of acutely grieving family survivors is important (Kaplan & Sadock, 1998). The importance of this support is becoming increasingly apparent both in supporting surviving family members and for ME staff in assisting families of deceased persons (Coburn, Borges, Knake, & Harper, 2000). Additionally, the work of the medical examiner is often highly stressful to the ME staff as well (Murphy, 2000). The ME staff is continuously exposed to stressful incidents and must interact with traumatized family members. This paper outlines a unique Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) programmatic effort between Boston University School of Medicine's Center for Multicultural Mental Health and the office of the ME in Massachusetts to enhance the skills cf ME staff in working with family survivors of victims of sudden deaths (i.e., sudden accidents or suspicious deaths) and to address the emotional needs of ME staff themselves. Preliminary anecdotal findings and directions for future experimental inquiry are presented.