Capt Carrie Kennedy, PhD, ABPP
Police and Public Safety Psychology
CAPT Carrie Kennedy, United States Navy is the Division Chief, Psychological Health Center of Excellence. Previously she served as Group Psychologist, Marine Corps Embassy Security Group and Aerospace Neuropsychologist, Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, in addition to overseas tours in Japan and Bahrain and deployments to Cuba and Afghanistan. She received her PhD from Drexel University and completed her neuropsychology postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia. She is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association (APA) and the National Academy of Neuropsychology, and serves on APA's Council of Representatives. Awards include the APA Division 19 Charles S. Gersoni Award and she is a two-time Navy Psychologist of the Year winner. She serves on the editorial board of Psychological Services and is board certified in both Clinical and Police and Public Safety Psychology.
 
Q. What motivated you to seek board certification?
A. Board certification is the highest standard for psychologists. Given the stakes involved in military and law enforcement operations, individuals, agencies and society require the highest qualified psychologists. While I feel that my experience becoming boarded in Clinical Psychology definitely increased my competence in making good clinical decisions for service members, strictly clinical work is not the only function that military psychologists perform. And as military psychology does not have a specific board by which to pursue board certification, I asked the police and public safety board members if military psychologists might find a home here, and they opened their doors to us, noting more parallels than differences in such areas as personnel selection, crisis/trauma response, ethics, fitness for duty decisions, and the like.
 
Q. What did you learn about yourself and your practice while doing board certification?
A.  Embarrassingly enough, I learned that police psychologists had already invented several wheels that I was actively trying to re-invent at one of my duty stations. In addition to a course correction, I became connected to others in the field and gained a vibrant network of peers and mentors outside of the military, which has only increased the quality of my work for DoD.
 
Q. What advice would you give to a candidate for board certification in Police and Public Safety Psychology?
A. Approach the board certification process as a formative opportunity. The amount that you learn while completing the board requirements is MORE than worth the late nights and weekends you spend working on your practice sample and studying for the oral examination. Simply put, the board certification process will make you a better psychologist.
 
Q. What have you found most valuable or rewarding about board certification?
A. Board certification has made me not just better at my job, but also a better mentor to junior military psychologists. The process makes you think more broadly, provides real life examples of great mentors, and gives you a better perspective of the field.

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Lewis Schlosser, PhD, ABPP
Police and Public Safety Psychology

Dr. Lewis Schlosser is the managing partner at the Institute for Forensic Psychology. He is a licensed psychologist in New Jersey and New York. Dr. Schlosser is Board Certified in Police and Public Safety Psychology; he is also Board Certified in Counseling Psychology. He is a former tenured Associate Professor at Seton Hall University and former in-house Director of Psychological Services for the New York City Correction Department. Dr. Schlosser has conducted over 7000 law enforcement recruit and fitness for duty evaluations. Dr. Schlosser is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Police Psychological Services Section. He currently serves on the Executive Board of the Police Psychological Services Section as the Membership Chair. Dr. Schlosser is also an affiliate member of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police and the Bergen County Police Chief's Association.

Q. What motivated you to seek board certification?
A. I sought board certification to demonstrate my commitment to the field of police and public safety psychology. By earning my ABPP in this area, it communicates to the outside world that I am a competent professional and my professional focus is on serving police and public safety agencies. In addition, I am someone who prides themselves on being a high achiever and always pushing myself to be the best that I can be. Seeking board certification was a personal challenge to join the ranks of those police and public safety psychologists I admired as the leaders of our field.

Q. What did you learn about yourself and your practice while doing board certification?
A.  Through the process of becoming board certified, I was able to really explore what I was doing in the field and why I was doing it. Engaging in the personal self-study process solidified some of the things that I was doing, and it also made me realize that other things needed modification. During my oral examination, I received good feedback from the committee; it was constructive in nature and the intent was clearly to help me. In a way, the committee was mentoring me even as they were evaluating my competence as a police and public safety psychologist.

Q. What advice would you give to a candidate for board certification in Police and Public Safety Psychology?
A.  The process is time consuming, but rewarding. Set concrete and specific goals (including timetables) for the different aspects of the process, and make a plan so you can be successful with completing your materials while managing your current workload. Personally, I reserved one morning per week to work on my application, and this was helpful to keep things moving forward. I would also encourage candidates to push through the challenging parts of the process because the end result is very rewarding. I always remember the exchange from A League of Their Own when Geena Davis says that it just got too hard; Tom Hanks replies, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard…is what makes it great.”

Q. What have you found most valuable or rewarding about board certification?
A. Beyond the pride that comes from having earned board certification, I have found that being board certified has been advantageous to my career in many ways. Whether I am giving a presentation to a group of law enforcement professionals or testifying at a hearing regarding someone that I have evaluated, I am very confident in my abilities and my competence after having gone through the rigorous, yet rewarding process that is board certification.

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Gina Gallivan, PhD, ABPP
Police and Public Safety Psychology
 
Dr. Gallivan is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in the State of California. She has been licensed since 2002, and Board Certified in Police & Public Safety Psychology since 2011. She began her law enforcement training at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, where she completed a pre-doctoral internship and a post-doctoral fellowship in law enforcement psychology. Dr. Gallivan currently conducts pre-employment psychological screenings, fitness for duty evaluations, consultation, and management of peer support teams, and psychological debriefings for over 60 police and public safety agencies in Southern California.
 
Q. What motivated you to seek board certification?
A. Becoming board certified was an opportunity to prove my proficiency, and competence.
 
Q. What did you learn about yourself and your practice while pursuing board certification?
A. I had three children (including a newborn baby) at the time that I was seeking board certification. I learned that with determination and patience, I could accomplish something that seemed very overwhelming at the time. The process taught me the importance of having detailed paperwork in my practice, and not to hesitate to call attorneys anytime, for any type of consultation. During the process, all of my consent forms and protocols were reviewed by an attorney who was specialized in law enforcement employment. This gave me confidence that I was running my practice well.  I was also reminded of the importance of regularly attending conferences, and reviewing the legal cases in our field.
 
Q. What advice would you give to a candidate for board certification in Police and Public Safety Psychology?
A. I would advise candidates not to give up. Many candidates feel demoralized after not passing the first time around. I encourage people to trust the process, and persevere. It is not an insurmountable task, and it is definitely worth the effort!
 
Q. What have you found most valuable or rewarding about board certification?
A. Board certification has opened professional doors. Since becoming board certified, I have been asked to serve on various boards and committees, which has allowed me to spend time with many talented people in our field. It has also validated a lot of hard work and good training, and it has allowed my clients to trust in my proficiency. I see a trend in solicitations for contracts for psychological services in law enforcement, requesting practitioners who are board certified. I think that board certification might eventually become mandatory for securing law enforcement contracts in the future.

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Robert J. Cipriano Jr, PsyD, ABPP
Police and Public Safety Psychology

Dr. Cipriano has been a licensed psychologist in Florida for 14 years and is Board Certified in Police and Public Safety Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). He attended Florida State University as an undergraduate and the APA accredited PsyD program at Carlos Albizu University for his graduate studies, specializing in clinical psychology with a tract in forensic psychology. He completed his APA doctoral internship in clinical psychology through a consortium at Central Louisiana State Hospital and Pinecrest Developmental Center in Pineville, Louisiana. His areas of interest are trauma and resiliency, threat assessment and management, and operational psychology. 
 
Q. What motivated you to seek board certification?
A.  My rationale for seeking board certification was to challenge myself as a service provider within the specialized field of Police and Public Safety Psychology. A significant goal of mine is to reduce the level of stigma among police officers and other first responders when personal and professional problems arise. Attaining board certification demonstrates credibility, competence, and proficiency as a provider of psychological services to police and public safety, which I believe will aid that process.
 
Q. What did you learn about yourself and your practice while doing board certification?
A.  I learned that I was still capable of commitment to an important professional goal,  a crucial element to this attainment. I also improved the depth and breadth of my psychology practice overall, enhanced my professional relationship with esteemed colleagues, reassessed and revitalized my future goals as a mid-level career psychologist, and renewed  my interest in a specialty practice in which I have invested valuable time and resources.
 
Q. What advice would you give to a candidate for board certification in Police and Public Safety Psychology?
A.  Persevere with the board certification process because it builds your knowledge, competence, proficiency, and perhaps most of all cultivates  an  enhanced sense of self within one’s profession and specialization. 
 
Q. What have you found most valuable or rewarding about board certification?
A.  Attaining board certification strengthened my sense of accomplishment that aided me in accepting new challenges within the specialty practice. For example, I have noticed improvement in resiliency skill development, heightened flexibility, enriched meaningfulness of my work, and augmented self-efficacy, all of which have been extremely rewarding.

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Monica J. Pilarc, PhD, ABPP
Police and Public Safety Psychology

Dr. Pilarc attained licensure in 1998 after completing an APA-accredited doctoral program from Texas Woman’s University and an APA-accredited internship through the New York State hospital system. She started her assessment work in forensics and soon after was asked to develop trainings in police stress/suicide and suicide-by-cop for a local criminal justice academy. She’s spent time on both sides of the psychological examination process. As part of her relocation to Seattle to work in corrections, she successfully underwent a mandatory pre-employment polygraph and psychological examination. She later accepted a position working with a local police psychologist. For the past 14 years, she’s committed her practice to Police and Public Safety Psychology, with an emphasis on assessment and short-term treatment interventions for a variety of public-safety positions and personnel.

Q. What motivated you to seek board certification?
A.  Board certification represents proficiency. Given the emphasis on integrity within the public safety professions, I figured I should exemplify the same virtue and pursue board certification as an expression of due diligence to the agencies I serve, and as an expression of my commitment to the profession. Board certification is increasingly recognized as representing confirmation of competence of those in our line of work. I also want to inform public safety agencies that we do indeed embody the highest professional standards in order to foster trust, professionalism, and collegiality among those we serve.

Q. What did you learn about yourself and your practice while pursuing board certification?
A.  I learned that I had a good foundation clinically but that a number of my professional practices were out of date, including consent forms, interview format, and report format. The process has been very humbling but also empowering. I developed a stronger connection to my work, both personally and professionally, as a result of seeking board certification.

Q. What advice would you give to a candidate for board certification in Police and Public Safety Psychology?
A.  Know your stuff, and be prepared to learn more. Our field is dynamic in that we respond to changing regulations and case law, and states have differing expectations regarding the work that we do. Know your state’s expectations, and be aware of, and maybe adapt to, standards that involve a higher degree of professionalism. And definitely attend conferences relevant to our unique line of work in order to stay current with emerging practices. Police and Public Safety Psychologists assume a huge level of responsibility and are frequently expected to advise departments and agencies we serve, so we need to be proficient, or at least conversant, in broad areas of the specialty. Be patient but committed.

Q. What have you found most valuable or rewarding about board certification?
A.  I’m an out-of-house psychologist, and several agencies that I serve have asked if I’m board certified. Board certification has increasingly become a desired standard. But I didn’t expect the sense of personal and professional pride that I experience upon being asked if I’m board certified. My practice is much tighter and in line with professional and legal expectations. And I feel more connected to those of us who are committed to this line of work.