Disrupting the status quo in psychology training: Centering structural competence in accreditation.

Abstract

To be responsive to the growing mental health inequities in our communities, we must move beyond incremental changes to our graduate training to bolder, more transformative changes. Such efforts must move beyond targeting our academic, internship, and postdoctoral programs and instead focus on critiquing our accreditation process. Without transformation of accreditation and other macrostructural dynamics in psychology, our training programs will continue to perpetuate the status quo and limit the ability of graduate trainees to adequately address mental health disparities. The purpose of this article is to call upon regulatory entities, such as the American Psychological Association Commission on Accreditation, to consider shifting training within applied doctoral programs from individual and cultural diversity competencies to a structural competency framework. Redefining this competency using structural perspectives will acknowledge the power, privilege, and oppression inherent within institutions, policies, and structures and better prepare psychology training programs to address the root causes of health inequities. Recommendations for change will be guided by the work of Metzl and Hansen (2014) on structural competencies and focus on the profession-wide and discipline-specific competencies required by the Commission on Accreditation. Barriers to change will also be examined, along with suggestions for resistance and reimagining of the accreditation process and our graduate training. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).