Dismantling barriers in professional psychology: Supporting formerly justice-involved students and trainees.

In the United States, approximately 1.9 million adults are incarcerated, 5.5 million individuals are under some form of correctional supervision, and nearly 80 million people live with the collateral consequences of having a legal record. Given the continued popularity of psychology as an undergraduate major, it is conceivable that formerly justice-involved people are and will continue to be our students, trainees, and colleagues. Meanwhile, colleges, universities, academic disciplines, and professional organizations are increasingly engaging in discussions around inclusion of people with lived experience, and in 2022 the American Psychological Association took a concrete step to foster more inclusion for formerly justice-involved psychologists by removing the felony history question on its membership application. However, to our knowledge, there are no resources that explicitly detail the experiences of formerly justice-involved people in professional psychology. This paper - written by formerly justice-involved psychologists and our allies - detail our own experiences in health service psychology training programs. By sharing these experiences, we identify discriminatory policies that restrict access, impede advancement, and create unique and hidden difficulties for justice-impacted people in health service psychology. We also describe strategies to improve practices in training programs and offer suggestions to psychology leaders invested in fostering inclusion and belonging for formerly justice-involved people.

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Publication Details

Journal
Training and Education in Professional Psychology
Published
2025-06-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000515
Primary Topic
Counseling Practices and Supervision
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Dismantling barriers in professional psychology: Supporting formerly justice-involved students and trainees.

Ryan E Flinn, Violeta Blanca Jaure, Cory J. Cascalheira, Lisa De La Rue et al.
Training and Education in Professional Psychology
Counseling Practices and Supervision
article

Dismantling barriers in professional psychology: Supporting formerly justice-involved students and trainees.

Ryan E Flinn, Violeta Blanca Jaure, Cory J. Cascalheira, Lisa De La Rue, Kristen M. Abraham, Carlos Mahaffey, Grant Tietjen, Christopher R. Beasley, Lara M. Stepleman, Tracie L. Hitter, Raiza M. Beltran, Kevon-Mark Jackman, Bradley D. Custer, Kimberly Fuentes, Melanie M. Wilcox, Erin E. Bonar, Terrill O. Taylor, Bryce Redd, Ian W. Holloway, Patrick F. Hibbard, Eduardo Yespica Mendoza, Mohamed Elnakib
article en

Abstract

In the United States, approximately 1.9 million adults are incarcerated, 5.5 million individuals are under some form of correctional supervision, and nearly 80 million people live with the collateral consequences of having a legal record. Given the continued popularity of psychology as an undergraduate major, it is conceivable that formerly justice-involved people are and will continue to be our students, trainees, and colleagues. Meanwhile, colleges, universities, academic disciplines, and professional organizations are increasingly engaging in discussions around inclusion of people with lived experience, and in 2022 the American Psychological Association took a concrete step to foster more inclusion for formerly justice-involved psychologists by removing the felony history question on its membership application. However, to our knowledge, there are no resources that explicitly detail the experiences of formerly justice-involved people in professional psychology. This paper - written by formerly justice-involved psychologists and our allies - detail our own experiences in health service psychology training programs. By sharing these experiences, we identify discriminatory policies that restrict access, impede advancement, and create unique and hidden difficulties for justice-impacted people in health service psychology. We also describe strategies to improve practices in training programs and offer suggestions to psychology leaders invested in fostering inclusion and belonging for formerly justice-involved people.

Training and Education in Professional PsychologyVol. 19(3)
New Mexico State University (US), University of Minnesota (US), United States Department of Education (US), Johns Hopkins University (US), University of California, Los Angeles (US), Purdue University West Lafayette (US), University of North Dakota (US), Augusta University (US), Johns Hopkins Medicine (US), University at Albany, State University of New York (US), Behavioral Health Systems (US), VA Puget Sound Health Care System (US), Michigan Medicine (US), Positive Action (US), Chestnut Health Systems (US), University of Washington Tacoma (US), University of Maryland, College Park (US), University of Detroit Mercy (US), University of San Francisco (US)
National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse
Gender equality
Openalex Percentile: Top 86%
Counseling Practices and Supervision
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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