[Commpsych] REMINDER: APS | 2022 Board of Directors election voting and AGM online next Friday, 18 November

[Heather Gridley]

Dear colleagues

As those of you who are APS members would be aware, it's APS election time again, and a number of you have asked me for my views - this year we have:

     *   Two candidates for General Director of the APS Division of Colleges (excluding those who are members of the APS College of Clinical Psychologists and no other APS College) – to serve to the 2024 annual general meeting (casual vacancy):
Karina Streatfield - current chair of the College of Counselling Psychologists (and also a member of the Clinical College) WA
Fiona Martin - College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists - NSW
General Director of the APS Division of Psychological Research, Education and Training (DPRET) – to serve to the 2025 annual general meeting
Monica Thielking - Swinburne University
Philip Kavanagh - University of Canberra
  *   If you are eligible to vote in either of these categories, you should have received a unique URL from Vero Voting. To lodge your vote, click that URL and follow the on-screen instructions to register your vote. The APS system is optional preferential, so you only need to number the squares of your preferred candidate(s), and not the whole list.  And if you don't think you know the APS candidates well enough to make an informed choice, read their statements and videotaped answers to member questions online. Or just ask me...

Of the two DPRET (academic) candidates, I voted #1 for Monica, whom I came to know when she worked on the APS Psychologists in Schools project before taking up her current appointment at Swinburne. Although she is a counselling psychologist, much of her work has been with schools, and she was also a founding member of the APS Interest Group on Psychology & Homelessness. She has been closely involved with the Australian Indigenous Psychology Education Project (AIPEP), as you can see in her candidate statement, which is outstanding.
I don't know the other candidate for that position, and he seems to be primarily associated with clinical psychology, which for me is a big NO as far as the academic position is concerned, because there is very little scope for non-clinical, non-practitioner input into the Board and the APS at large - a huge pendulum swing from the 'old days' of the APS - a balance would be nice!  However his statement is pretty strong and I'd probably prefer to see both of these candidates on the Board than either of the other two, but it doesn't work that way. So I voted him #2.
Of the two College candidates, I voted for Katrina, although I wasn't terribly impressed by her statement 🙁, and I'd prefer to have someone in this position who isn't also a member of the Clinical College, since they have their own designated position. But as the current Chair of the Counselling College, Katrina is following in the steps of incoming APS President Catriona Davis McCabe, effectively taking her place via the casual vacancy created by her move to the presidency. I think it's a good thing to see a build-up of the practitioner component of the Board that is not primarily clinical, for reasons of much-needed diversity.
I did not put a mark on the second square for this position, even though it might have been good to see an Ed and Dev psychologist on the Board. Fiona Martin was the Federal (Liberal) Member for Reid in NSW until the May election. Others might consider it an advantage to have someone with close contacts in Parliament (albeit to the Opposition) on the APS Board, but I feel very uncomfortable about that, and I can't say I was impressed by her performance in office, apart from crossing the floor on the issue of discrimination against LGBTQI students in religious schools. She didn't do the same for asylum seekers in offshore detention, as one of three health professionals who supported the then Government's repeal of the Medevac legislation. And her 2022 campaign was notable for her confusion of her Labor opponent with another Asian candidate. Her APS campaign video fails to address the three member questions that were put to all candidates:
A: What is the role of psychology and the APS in tackling climate change?
B. What you do see as the top three challenges and top three opportunities for the APS in the next three years?
C. The APS is a forward facing, inclusive and diverse organisation that embraces change. What do you see as the Board of Directors’ contribution in this?
Finally, it's important to note that the AGM will be held online next week, on Friday 18 November at 5.30pm AEDT, so you can join and vote online. And if you can't attend the AGM but want to vote on any motions, you will need to give your proxy to someone attending by Tuesday afternoon, 15/11. I'm planning to attend and I'm happy to take your proxy - click here for details https://psychology.org.au/about-us/our-governance/annual-general-meetings/2022-annual-general-meeting

Feel free to ask me privately for more info on any of the above.

Best regards

Heather

(Apologies for any cross-postings)


Heather Gridley OAM FAPS

Honorary Fellow

College of Health and Biomedicine

Victoria University

Melbourne, Australia

E: heather.gridley at vu.edu.au<mailto:heather.gridley at vu.edu.au>

Ph: +61 419113731



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