Jade Logan, Ph.D., ABPP, assistant professor of psychology and director of CHC’s Internship Consortium in the School of Graduate Studies' Department of Professional Psychology, and current student Janeyshka Ortiz '24, were part of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association (PPA) team recently awarded the APA Division 31 SPTA Diversity Award. The award recognizes the organization’s focus on implementing a comprehensive 9-point plan supporting DEI initiatives over the past five years. Logan, who has served as the inaugural Officer for Diversity and Inclusion for the PPA since 2021, accelerated the DEI efforts within the organization stating, “we want to be a state organization where our climate fosters diversity and inclusion in all endeavors.”
The PPA is a professional association for psychologists in Pennsylvania, serving the needs of psychologists in independent practice, schools, business organizations, hospitals, private and government agencies, and academia. PPA serves as the third-largest state association affiliated with the American Psychological Association.
“The creation of my position is not just representation but represents a change in the holistic system of thinking, breathing, and interacting with folks that shows we are culturally humble space.” says Logan.
One of the initiatives the PPA was recognized for in the SPTA Diversity Award was a four-part continuing education series on intersectionality. Also, each quarterly issue of the Pennsylvania Psychologist has featured DEI content, in addition to the new diversity column. At least 11 workshops and keynotes on diversity issues were included in the 2022 annual convention. PPA added five special interest groups supporting segments of their membership: ECP Consultation and Peer Support, Empowering ECPs as Leaders, Outreach and Advocacy for International Students, Late Career Psychologists, and LGBTQIA+ Community.
Logan leads many of the training and workshops on cultural humility and allyship with the organization’s members, including leads on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee. In addition, DEI issues have been at the heart of recent PPA presidential platforms and have received focused time in each meeting of the board of directors. In addition, PPA identified and removed barriers to membership that might especially impact BIPOC and early career psychologist (ECP).
“We have opened memberships for graduate and undergraduate students, both free, to encourage them to join PPA," says Logan. "Those groups in PPA are significantly more diverse than our membership as a whole. We have decreased the cost of membership for ECPs, to make it less difficult for ECPs to become and stay members."
Logan has worked to educate PPA's leadership and broader membership on issues of diversity and inclusion through book discussions, presentations to the board, and webinars, articles, and presentations to the larger membership. As she notes, "our plan is ambitious and many of these goals are still in progress, but we believe most of these goals should be ongoing in nature rather than one-off initiatives."
Another arm of the PPA is the student membership organization, PPAGS, of which current CHC student Janeyshka Ortiz ‘24 serves as the president. PPAGS serves as the representative body for psychology graduate students, including students in all areas of study within the field of psychology. In addition, PPAGS promotes graduate student leadership development, communicates and advocates for the concerns of graduate students, establishes and maintains channels of communication between the organization, schools, universities, training centers, institutions, and the psychological community, while promoting the exchange of information among these groups.
“My role in PPAGS makes me better clinician, seeing that there is life outside of this and bringing it back, and being a voice of the students in the program to be able to connect to other opportunities” says Ortiz. “I always want to give back and PPAGs is platform to do that. It felt surreal that we were accepting the award, and the fact we won on diversity and inclusion. We did a lot of work and there’s still so much to do, and it feels like a step, and we are doing the right thing."
- Jaime Renman
