The Society of Consulting Psychology

I became involved with SCP in 2000 when I was encouraged to make a presentation at the upcoming Mid-Winter Conference. I have been hooked ever since. It does not seem like a long time ago, but the Society has certainly grown since then. Even more importantly it has maintained the feel of an easily accessible community. Though we are arguably no longer the “best kept secret”, we have and hope to sustain a sense of community that allows relative newcomers and long standing supporters to feel valued as members and contributors. Our challenge is to do this even as we grow.

I am blessed, honored, privileged and excited to serve as President this year. I have already benefited from the line of Presidents who preceded me. I am equally inspired and humbled by the responsibility of passing the gavel on to the line of Presidents and other leaders who will follow. I am particularly grateful for having the opportunity to learn from Stewart Cooper as I sat in the President-Elect chair and offered suggestions. I am also excited and comforted knowing that Steve Kincaid now sits in that chair offering thoughtful suggestions as I take on more responsibilities for making decisions. We are working purposefully to reaffirm our overall mission, to assure that we have a clear longer term strategy for our success, to focus on short term objectives that meet the needs of our members, the psychology community and the broader organization community. We are committed to making sound decisions that will sustain us over time. Can we expect anything less of ourselves than the excellence we strive to facilitate in our clients? Read More

As a candidate for this role, I proposed a focus on planning for our future by building on our past, increasing collaboration with colleagues and clients, and continuing to build our community. Those remain our focus for this year. At the Executive Retreat in September, we began a process to reaffirm our mission and to assure that we have the most effective structure, processes and programs in place to assure that we are successful.

We are still one of the few APA divisions that have increased their membership. We do not take that growth for granted and know we have to be clear about what we offer and intentional about attracting and retaining current members, prospective members and diverse members. We also know that we must continue to develop and manage the financial resources needed to support our success. We are not only financially sound, but also enjoy a healthy reserve!

If you are already familiar with SCP, you will not see many changes to what we have offered and accomplished over the past few years. Hopefully, more of you will know more about what we are doing because we will do a better job of communicating it. You should also expect a noticeable raise in quality in the things you have already enjoyed as high quality. The Consulting Psychologist Newsletter will be even better. The Distance Learning offerings will be even better. The Consulting Psychology Journal will be even better. The Mid-Winter Conference will be even better. Trust me however that nothing we do will be as excellent as if can be without your input and support. Grow with us. We will grow with you.

Greg Pennington, Ph.D.
President