PCOM School of Professional Psychology Continuing Education Program Goals
The overall goal of PCOM’s School of Professional & Applied Psychology (SPAP) CE Program
is to offer high quality professionally-oriented and relevant, empirically-based continuing
education seminars and certificate programs that (a) are constructed upon a foundation
of doctoral-level training for psychologists; (b) are specifically related to psychological
practice, science and education; (c) are specifically designed for psychologists to
enhance their current knowledge base and to acquire new skills in order to ultimately
improve psychological practice in the community; (d) are created to help psychologists
maintain, develop, and increase competencies and keep abreast of important new developments
in the field; (e) are developed to reinforce and enhance critical knowledge, skills,
and attitudes that promote competent clinical practice and enhance services to the
public; and, finally, (f) are offered with the intent of supporting the profession
of psychology as a whole. More specifically, the objectives are as follows:
- to enhance and improve the competencies of psychologists in ways that are critically
related to their professional work, roles, and functions;
- to help psychologists acquire and develop cutting-edge skills and knowledge about
emerging issues and technologies, tools, and methods that are necessary to develop,
maintain and enhance professional competence and enhance the quality of professional
services to the public;
- to enhance and improve the competencies of psychologists in working with clients from
individually and culturally diverse populations, especially the underserved;
- to bolster the skills of critical inquiry and analysis, and to foster the application
of objective and balanced professional decision-making that characterizes “best practices”
of empirically-based practitioner-scholars;
- to promote increased awareness, acknowledgment, and recognition of one’s own specific
life-long learning needs;
- to promote and enhance the profession of psychology by emphasizing clinical science
as a human practice endeavor and clinical practice as a human science endeavor; and,
- to promote increased awareness of the parameters of ethical decision-making and professional
practice of psychology.
The PCOM School of Professional and Applied Psychology's continuing education programming
is a not-for-profit enterprise. We primarily provide continuing education as a public
service to psychologists and psychology trainees/students affiliated with our university
and the greater Philadelphia community.