State Advocacy

The APA Practice Organization works with its 60 affiliated state, provincial and territorial associations (SPTAs) on a broad range of issues affecting the professional practice of psychology. Many of the concerns of practicing psychologists fall under the jurisdiction of state legislatures and public and private health systems administrators but reflect trends affecting psychologists nationwide. A strong partnership among the Practice Organization and its SPTA affiliates ensures that psychologists will be able to practice to the full extent of their training in all jurisdictions.

State Advocacy Initiatives

State Legislation

Every year state legislatures introduce literally tens of thousands of bills dealing with health service delivery and funding. The Practice Organization supports state associations in their work on bills that deal with access to psychological services, such as parity and prescriptive authority, and with psychology practice issues, such as mobility and hospital privileges.

Sequence of Training Leading to Licensure

As the practice of psychology has evolved, so have the quality and quantity of supervised hours accumulated by psychology graduate students prior to their internship year. Psychologists across the country have been successful in changing their state’s licensure laws to allow psychologists to receive their license upon completion of the doctoral degree by counting pre-internship supervised hours. Please view the State Psychology Licensure Toolkit, produced by the APA Office on Early Career Psychologists, for details on which states are on the list, and how you can participate in advocacy in your own state.

Related Resources

Monitor Article — "Building a leadership culture"
Monitor Article — "Success on the state level"
Directory of Affiliated State, Provincial and Territorial Psychological Associations