ACCTA Board Conference Call

February 19, 2007

2:00-3:00 p.m. (CST)

Participants: Sherry Benton, President; Kathlyn Dailey, Secretary; Julie Corkery, Barbara Gilbert, Phil Johnson, Shelly Kerr, Keith Magnus, Stacey Pearson, Terri Rhodes, and Micky Sharma

Conference Speakers and Schedule

Melba Vasquez and Nadine Kaslow have agreed to speak at the ACCTA conference, but both need to speak on Sunday as they are flying in from meetings and training, respectively, and will be returning to those after they speak. Board members voiced concerns over moving the Diversity Scholar presentations to Monday and emphasized the need to be mindful about assigning a buddy/mentor to help the scholars manage possible anxiety prior to their presentations. One suggestion was to have a previous scholar serve as the buddy. A number of different topics/meetings for the afternoon sessions were discussed, but no consensus was reached. There was acknowledgement that we are trying to accomplish a lot at the conference (developing counseling center internship competencies and working toward healing the organization) and that the structure will not be perfect.

It was proposed that Affinity Groups meet in the afternoon as a place to start processing Melba’s talk about the healing process. Although it was agreed that there shouldn’t be directions given as to what the groups would discuss, it might be helpful to have some suggested topics as a place to start. There are a number of different perspectives that are likely to be represented next year at the conference: members who attended last year who were upset over what happened; new members who aren’t aware of what happened; members who thought the process was great; members who are still experiencing pain; and members who find promise in what happened last year. It is the goal of Sherry and the Board that members be able to feel safe at ACCTA and benefit from ideas to help them do their jobs better. There is an awareness of the difficult and conflicted feelings that may have arisen for members at the last conference and there is hope that all members will come back and keep working to make ACCTA better.

Contract with the 2008 International Counseling Psychology Conference

ACCTA is a co-sponsor of this conference and has made a $5,000 donation (as voted upon by members) to the conference. As one of the primary co-sponsors, ACCTA/Sherry (as President) has been asked to sign the hotel contract along with the other co-sponsors. There is a possibility that we will be able to recoup our initial donation, as well as make money off the conference. The previous Counseling Psychology conference in Houston made money and there is a good possibility that attendance will be high at this one since Chicago is a more central location. Alternatively, there is the possibility that we will break even or take on risk. It was agreed by the Board that ACCTA should sign the contract.

Joint Training Conference

The Council of Chairs of Training Councils (CCTC) has proposed a joint conference of training organizations in spring of 2010. The focus of this conference would be on implementing competencies. CCTC would want buy-in from involved organizations to start soon and would want someone from ACCTA, as well as the other organizations, to help in planning the conference. Because ACCTA meets in the fall, this conference would not be proposed as an alternative to our annual conference. It was noted that ACCTA should be represented at this conference, especially if there is going to be discussion of how competencies will be implemented.

CCPTP and New Internships

The Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs (CCPTP) is interested in doing whatever they can to help develop CounselingCenter internship programs. Any ideas can be forwarded to Sherry.

CounselingCenters and the APA Practice Directorate

A letter was written by Don Rosen, Director of the Texas Woman’s UniversityCounselingCenter, to the Practice Directorate questioning what was being done for counseling centers with the special assessment that APA members who practice or supervise have to pay. Several other organizations related to practice in Counseling Centers have now become involved and have requested answers as well. The response from the Practice Directorate indicated that they were instrumental in getting the Garrett Lee Smith Act passed; the Education Directorate has taken exception to this and has asked that the Practice Directorate not take credit for what they did not do. Sherry plans to send questions regarding issues of importance to counseling centers to anyone on the ballot for APA President and to provide that information to ACCTA and the Directors (AUCCCD).

ACCTA Competency Work Groups

A discussion about working on counseling center internship competencies within ACCTA was begun. The goal is to develop a working document which would operationalize recommendations from the Benchmarks document. The ACCTA document would hopefully serve to stimulate ACCTA programs to develop their own competencies specific to their programs; it would be a tool, not a mandate. The document could be housed in the Member Resources of the ACCTA website for use by ACCTA members.

It was proposed that we follow the foundational and functional competencies that have come out of previous conferences and form a work group for each of the competencies. The goal of the working groups would be to create a fleshed-out, operationalized picture of what the competencies look like in a counseling center. It might be a good idea to have members rank order the competencies they want to work on so that some preliminary work can be done prior to the conference (e.g., readings). This discussion will resume during the next board conference call scheduled for March 19, 2007.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Kathlyn Dailey, ACCTA Secretary