Ep. 12: Public Service Psychologists in Atypical Jobs

In this episode, we interview Dr. Femina Varghese, Associate Editor of our division's journal Psychological Services about the special series on public service psychologists serving in atypical jobs. Psychological Services is the official journal of APA Div. 18. Division members and their colleagues are strongly encouraged to submit articles for review and to invite their institutions to subscribe to the improved quarterly Psychological Services Journal. Psychological Services encourages submissions of papers that focus on psychotherapy outcome studies, evaluations of clinical programs, and public policy analyses. The Journal also publishes literature reviews that make a contribution to service delivery in public service settings, as well as unique model program descriptions for psychological service programs. Analyses of policy issues related to the delivery of Psychological Services in organized care settings are also considered. The Psychological Services Editorial Board understands that psychologists in public sector settings receive little in return for the effort involved in developing and publishing scholarly manuscripts. Tenure and or promotion are generally not linked to a history of successful publications, and little or no work time is allotted towards research for most clinicians in such settings. As a result, many public sector psychologists have not honed the skills often thought necessary to achieve success in a "publish or perish" environment. Nevertheless, practitioner/scholar remains the ideal for many clinicians working in public service settings. Psychologists working in these settings often have rich resources, either in the form of program development or direct clinical service provision, upon which to base publications. It is, therefore, the commitment of the new Psychological Services editorial team, while maintaining the highest standards of scholarship, to work closely with authors for whom the realm of academic publication is unfamiliar in order to ensure appropriate dissemination of the valuable work performed by public sector psychologists.