Women's Issues in Rehabilitation Psychology

On April 7, 2005, the Executive Committee of Division 22 approved the formation of a section designed to address issues faced by women as providers, pre-service students and supervisees, colleagues, and consumers of Rehabilitation Psychology. The section will provide professional support for women who identify as Rehabilitation Psychologists in two ways. First, women will be supported through a formal network that exists to aid their promotion and advancement of women from student status through administration and governance in Rehabilitation Psychology. Second, the section will make training and information crucial to learning and success in Rehabilitation Psychology consistently and freely available to women in the interest of supporting and advancing their professional growth. Purposes of the Section include:

* Develop and expand education and training on women, across the lifespan, as providers and recipients of Rehabilitation Psychology, through mentoring, meetings, conferences, conference sessions, and the preparation and publication of technical and professional manuals, reports, guides, etc., pertaining to a broad range of women’s issues within Rehabilitation Psychology,
* Promote approaches and practices integral to the unique historical and future development of women's perspective in healthcare and rehabilitation.
* Develop professional literature to reflect cutting edge and other significant research pertinent to women in Rehabilitation Psychology, supported and encouraged by the Section membership and leadership,
* Coordinate efforts with other Sections of the Division of Rehabilitation Psychology, other divisions (e.g., the Society for the Psychology of Women), other divisional sections addressing women’s issues in psychology (e.g., the Division of Counseling Psychology’s Section for the Advancement of Women, the Society of Clinical Psychology’s Section on the Clinical Psychology of Women), the American Psychological Association’s Committee on the Psychology of Women, and relevant other organizations (e.g., the Association for Women in Psychology),
* Work toward formulating, refining, interpreting, and promoting practice standards and ethical principles and practices that are consistent with the Bylaws and Rules of APA and the Division of Rehabilitation Psychology for all psychologists who work with women, and
* Promotion of public and professional awareness of women’s issues in Rehabilitation Psychology.
* To promote research on the specific needs of female consumers of rehabilitation services during all phases of the rehabilitation process especially in those areas where their needs are very different from those of male consumers, and to promote the dissemination of this information in both professional psychology journals and the journals of other involved disciplines.
* To educate professionals working with female consumers both as patients and primary caretakers, regarding specific and different continuing needs of this population.
* To promote attitude change toward women in rehabilitation both as professionals and as consumers and to afford them the same dignity and opportunities as males.

The Section held its first meeting on April 8, 2005 to begin the nominations process for officers. Elections took place in the fall of 2005.

A special thanks goes to Drs. Kathleen Brown, Janet Niemeyer, Martha E. Banks, and Rochelle Balter for the development of the bylaws for the Section on Women’s Issues in Rehabilitation Psychology. Formation of the section involved extensive discussion among approximately one dozen members of Division 22 from August 2004 through April 2005. More than 30 Division 22 members provided endorsements for the Section, which was approved unanimously by the Division 22 Executive Board on April 7, 2005.