Corrections_Today_November_December_2019

Office of Correctional Health

Correctional Health perspectives

Florida Department of Corrections First in the nation to achieve APA accreditation of psychology residency

By Dean Aufderheide, Ph.D. and Thomas Culbreath, Psy.D.

T he Florida Department of Cor- rections (FDC) has become the first correctional system in the United States to have a psychol- ogy post-doctoral residency program accredited by the American Psycho- logical Association (APA). The APA Commission on Accreditation recent- ly made this decision at its meeting in Washington, D.C. The accreditation was granted for a period of 10 years, the maximum allowed by the APA. FDC Secretary Mark Inch said, “Accreditation by the American Psychological Association is a hall- mark accomplishment and will result

doctoral internship program in 2007, still one of only three APA accredited internships in a state prison system in the U.S. Applying lessons learned from starting the internship, we were determined to dream big, structuring the psychology residency to attract the best and brightest candidates and preparing for the rigorous review process by the APA’s Commission on Accreditation. Our goal was to “train and retain” highly competent correctional psychologists. An APA- accredited psychology residency was the next logical step in our vision to create a center of excellence for

in attracting the best and brightest candidates who are interested in pursuing a career in correctional psychology. We are proud of our team who has been involved with the psychology residency program and its success in becoming the first of its kind in the United States.”

All beginnings

The German proverb, “Aller anfang ist schwer” means, “All be- ginnings are difficult.” We certainly learned the meaning of that proverb when we began the department’s

Internship and Psychology

Residency Graduation

Thomas Culbreath/Florida Department of Corrections

76 — November/December 2019 Corrections Today