[Commpsych] Urgent - save the Comm Psych Masters at Vic Uni - we need your help

[Heather Gridley]

Dear community psychology colleagues, students, fellow travellers and friends


Apologies for spamming you, but we need your urgent support to help us save Australia’s last Community Psychology Masters degree.



Last week we were shocked to learn that Victoria University proposes to close the 30-year old Master of Applied Psychology (Community Psychology) at the end of 2024. The proposed decision is open for consultation until Monday 16 October at 5pm (yes, an ominous sign!).



As this is the only course of its type in Australia, there are fundamentally different implications for abandoning this course compared to closing other psychology courses that students can complete elsewhere. The cessation of this course places in jeopardy:



  *   The careers of Australian community psychologists, including many VU graduates, because their chosen field’s Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) status as one of 9 endorsed areas of psychological practice will likely be lost
  *   The diversity of Australian psychological practice and its capacity to comprehensively address some of the most serious pressures and mental health challenges across the Australian population (e.g., mental health impacts associated with racism, gender-based violence, misinformation and community polarisation, climate change and related disasters, social isolation and loneliness, community responses to pandemics, collective trauma and social injustice)
  *   Victoria University’s local, national, and international reputation in psychology and as a champion of higher education in Melbourne’s West.

Support letters are welcome by next Monday. A paragraph or two will be fine, especially if you have first-hand experience of the VU Masters as a student, graduate, supervisor, employer, colleague....  For context, I’ve attached some of the international responses that are flowing in.


The VU PhD students have also set up a petition on Change.org<https://www.change.org/p/stop-closure-of-the-only-master-of-community-psychology-in-aus?utm_content=cl_sharecopy_37682663_en-AU%3A8&recruiter=164561249&recruited_by_id=f8a46653-b130-48e1-88a3-94de42a311b8&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=share_for_starters_page&share_bandit_exp=initial-37682663-en-AU>. that they'd love you to sign and share.



Please send letters to:



Jessica Town

Senior Advisor, Strategic Projects

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Higher Education, Victoria University

E: jessica.town at vu.edu.au<mailto:jessica.town at vu.edu.au>


And cc the Vice-Chancellor, Adam.Shoemaker at vu.edu.au and the Chancellor, Steve Bracks at gov.sec at vu.edu.au


Please note the consultation closes on 16 October at 5pm.



Please pass the word onto others.



Many thanks for your support.



Best regards,


Heather


Heather Gridley OAM FAPS


(Disclaimer: As many of you know, I coordinated and taught in this program for many years, and more recently have provided placement supervision to its students and professional supervision to its graduates. But I am no longer employed by the University so I share this SOS as a community and counselling psychologist with a long-standing and profound respect for the special position, values and contributions of Victoria University in Melbourne's West for more than a century via its 'parent' post-secondary education institutions, and for the commitment of Psychology staff in maintaining this unique 'niche' program against the neoliberal tide.)

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