The Elephant in the Room-Certification

Dear Colleagues,

A fellow candidate for office has noted the appearance of “the elephant in the room”, notably certification, on our election list. As a Candidate for President-Elect my ideas are undoubtedly of interest to some of you so let’s have a conversation on this subject.

In truth I don’t believe that certification itself is the major issue. I believe there are two more fundamental matters that are at the basis of our organization’s dissension, a development which has alienated many of our members and must be addressed and solved. First is the exclusionary link between certification and TA status and second is the conflict between central regulation of many of our activities versus greater local autonomy. Quite frankly, I don’t believe that we can effectively address our myriad other needs such as outreach, practice development etc. until we get this briar patch out of the way. I want to bring us out of our stasis and I also want to recapture the attention and energies of our alienated, disenfranchised members.

My position on this is quite clear and it has been consistent for a number of years. I have also frequently posted my positions on these lists We simply need to find more and flexible pathways to TA status and we also need to move towards greater degrees of local autonomy within our institutes as opposed to the imposition of rules and regulations by a national body.

These issues are affecting us deeply, not only by producing organizational dissent but also by contributing in a major way to the turning off of many members to our national organization. I also agree with the supposition that these limitations on local autonomy are directly contributing to difficulties in candidate recruitment with resultant decline in organization morale as well as, ultimately, erosion in our membership and our financial base.

One possible solution which I strongly support is to vest control over the role of certification on TA decisions within our institutes. We can accomplish this with local option. While not a panacea, it would in my view significantly lessen tensions to the point where all of us could work together far more effectively. With local option in place some institutes would have an immediate increase in the number of new TAs and candidates.

Some cautions have recently been raised about this approach but I don’t see the substance behind the cautions. I’m not aware that it would in any way jeopardize our IPA standing. The Regional Agreement has become outdated since the IPA long ago agreed to accept non APsaA training programs.

Additionally IPA criteria for TAs are quite flexible and IPA has no such thing as certification let alone an exclusionary link to TA status. Indeed I believe local option could make our functioning more similar to that of IPA. While it t is true that decision making would move into local institutes it is also true that many are already yearning for this opportunity rather than fearing it.

It is also worth remembering that a robust 57% of our members supported this approach two years ago. I would however agree that we shouldn’t push for putting this before our membership unless we are reasonably well assured that it could pass with a 2/3 vote. I will strongly support this approach if I am elected.

While I have your attention I’d like to let you know about two additions to my webpage (www.wrprocci.org or http://warrenprocci.blogspot.com). The first, for these of you who might have some interest in my personal history, is a biographical statement. The second is an explicit statement of just what exactly will be my areas of priority if elected. Prominent among them are the two issues mentioned above. I will, of course, discuss these priorities in greater detail over the next several weeks. As always please feel free to contact me directly (wrprocci@sbcglobal.net or 626-793-7957)

Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect of APsaA