Children, Youth and Family Committee

Mission:
The Michigan Psychological Association (MPA) Committee on Children, Youth, and Families (CYF) ensures that the mental health needs of children, adolescents, and families receive attention from MPA.  It interacts with and makes recommendations to the MPA Board, MPA committees, state organizations, health care organizations, and state legislature surrounding the mental health needs of youth and families.

Chair:
Sarah Witherell, PhD

Committee Members:
Blake Lancaster, PhD
Morgan Daugherty, BA (Graduate Student Member)

How the Committee on Children, Youth, and Families fulfills MPA’s Mission
The CYF represents psychologists’ interests by:
  • Identifying, promoting, and creating education opportunities for psychologists to deepen and expand the skills needed to evaluate and treat the unique psychological needs of children and youth
  • Connecting psychologists across the state who have specific clinical, research, educational, or policy interests regarding this population
  • Providing educational updates to the MPA membership regarding special topics concerning this population
 The CYF represents the mental health needs of the public by:
  • Monitoring for legislative actions that may impact access to or quality of the mental health care children, youth, and families receive
  • Advocating for appropriate legislative and policy changes to positively impact the mental health care of children and youth
  • Developing and cultivating relationships with psychologists throughout the state who have been involved in policy work involving the mental health care of youth
  • Maintaining a distribution list of psychologists across the state who have interest in treating this population to improve the ease of obtaining appropriate referrals
Membership
To meet our goals, certain subgroup populations of MPA member psychologists should be represented on this committee, including, but not limited to:
  • Clinical Child/Adolescent Psychologists
  • Developmental Psychologists
  • Pediatric (Health) Psychologists
  • Pediatric Neuropsychologists
  • Psychologists conducting research with or advocating for children, youth, and families
  • One graduate student interested in this population
2020 Priorities
  • Work through the appropriate steps to request a rule change to allow Michigan psychologists’ diagnosis of ADHD to be accepted by schools for educational planning
  • Maintain a referral list of psychologists specializing in working with children and adolescents and make this available to MPA membership (available in the Members Only section of the website)
  • Provide education to MPA members and the public on relevant topics related to the mental health needs of children and adolescents

Check out MPA's Resources for Children, Youth and Families!

Connect with us!
If you are interested in joining this committee, or have any suggestions or questions, please contact CYF Committee Chair, Dr. Witherell.