2022 VP Education & Training Candidate Statements

Jioni A. Lewis, Ph.D.

2022 SCP Vice President for Education & Training Statement on APA Ballot

Question: How would your skills and vision help you to contribute to and lead SCP’s efforts to uproot anti-Black racism in SCP and beyond?

As a Black counseling psychologist, I bring my passion and commitment to social justice, equity, and inclusion to my research, teaching, training, mentoring, and service. My work is grounded in Black feminist and intersectionality frameworks, which is rooted in social justice and liberation. I plan to apply my expertise in Black psychology, liberation psychology, and radical healing, to help uproot anti-Black racism in SCP and the field of counseling psychology.

If elected, some of my goals to uproot anti-Black racism will be to: (1) identify and dismantle structural barriers for Black students to enter counseling psychology training programs, (2) infuse Black psychology, liberation psychology, and radical healing into training programs, (3) increase social justice advocacy skills training in graduate programs, (4) strengthen the pipeline to increase the number of Black counseling psychology graduates into faculty positions, and (5) eliminate barriers for Black counseling psychology graduates to obtain professional licensure. As a member of the Division 17 Everyday Reparations Working Group, we have worked to increase critical consciousness about the impact of systemic racism in the field, and the importance of reparations due to historical and ongoing harms caused by racism. I look forward to continuing to brainstorm ways that we can incorporate a reparations framework into our work to uproot anti-Black racism in the field of counseling psychology.

My broader goals as VP for Education and Training will build on current SCP President Amy Reynolds’ presidential initiatives and work to transform the counseling psychology curriculum to center social justice and liberation. Although there has been an increased commitment to social justice in our field for the past 15 years, we need to shift the field beyond a commitment to social justice and move towards action. Training programs need to infuse social justice advocacy training throughout the curriculum. Counseling psychologists need to gain skills to engage in systems-level advocacy efforts, public policy work, and public psychology (e.g., writing op-eds, policy briefs). Counseling psychologists are well positioned to lead the field in these efforts, and we need to provide more concrete steps on how to infuse advocacy skills into our training programs. I am ready to collectively work together to envision a more socially just future for SCP and the field. 

Laurie “Lali” McCubbin, Ph.D.

2022 SCP Vice President for Education & Training Statement on APA Ballot

Question: How would your skills and vision help you to contribute to and lead SCP’s efforts to uproot anti-Black racism in SCP and beyond?

It is an honor to be nominated for SCP Vice President for Education and Training. The counseling psychology field is at a critical time for education and training as we engage in decolonizing and liberating our curriculum and training, while simultaneously dismantling systemic racism and oppression in higher education and our society. At the heart of these endeavors is the need to uproot anti-Black racism in SCP and that includes our education and training systems. The reality is the majority of counseling psychology programs are housed in predominantly white institutions and saturated in notions of white supremacy. This saturation not only affects our curriculum and what is taught but how this knowledge shapes the diagnoses and treatment of our BIPOC and LGBTQ communities. The process of uprooting white supremacy and anti-Black racism in education is critical not only to meet the needs of our respective communities but also to heal from historical and current atrocities caused by anti-Black racism.

First, to uproot anti-black racism is to challenge and decenter western ideology and white supremacy within our educational systems from policies and curriculum to admissions and retention. Second, we need to support educational endeavors including critical race theory that involve preserving and documenting stories, testimonials, knowledge, and scientific production of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) scholars. Our educational systems are currently facing legislation against critical race theory in efforts to alter, erase and ban Black history and race-based scholarship. Third, with the strong foundation and momentum created by our past presidents and our membership, we are ready to implement educational and training changes in alignment with our values and vision towards liberation. Fourth, we need to critically evaluate where our programs are in becoming anti-racist spaces for education and training.

My vision is kokua (help) and mālama pono (to protect what is right). This means to collectively work together to uproot anti-Blackness in our educational systems; to decenter notions of whiteness and acknowledge white supremacy in our educational systems; to come together to build, center and protect BIPOC knowledge systems, theories, and scholarship; and lastly to critically examine our respective programs and evaluate our next steps to towards becoming anti-racist educational programs within our respective institutions.

I have had several leadership roles within the Society of Counseling Psychology that prepared me for this position.  I have had several leadership roles in Division 17 including Chair of the section on Ethnic and Racial Diversity (SERD), Chair of Section Chairs, Director of the Member Interface Board, and most recently as President/Past President of Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs (CCPTP). In the four years of serving on CCPTP and seven years as Director of Training,  I have seen the breadth and depth that is needed for training and education from learning about the Standards of Accreditation and consulting with other training directors about their self-study materials to recognizing the scope of training working with the Council of Chairs of Training Councils (CCTC) on the task force focusing on decolonizing and liberating the curriculum across clinical, counseling, and school psychology programs and examining the undergraduate and graduate education, internship experiences, and postdoctoral training. Also serving as past Chair of the APA’s Children, Youth and Families Committee and a Diversity Delegate for the Kentucky Psychological Association has taught me the possibilities for activism and advocacy and the local and national government levels. In these capacities including experiences working on presidential initiatives and current involvement with CCTC Social Responsiveness and dedicated service as Training Director, I would be thrilled and humbled to serve as VP of Education and Training for SCP.