Early Career Award For Distinguished Professional Contributions

This award was established to honor early career achievement in professional contributions to Counseling Psychology. The award was originally funded by National Career Assessment Services Inc as the Fritz and Linn Kuder Early Career Scientist/Practitioner Award; in 2015 separate scientific and professional awards were created and are both funded by the Society/Division 17. The award and its associated monetary prize is voted annually by the Society/Division 17 Executive Board at its mid-year meeting. Announcement of the Award winner is made at the annual APA convention. The procedures to be followed in the nomination of candidates, selection of an Award winner, and presentation of the Award are detailed below.

Award Amount: $1,000

 

CRITERIA:

  1. The Early Career Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Counseling Psychology was established to honor distinguished professional contributions by an early career psychologist (ECP) to Counseling Psychology. Recipients of the Award should have an established record of the practice of and leadership in counseling psychology. 
  2. The recipient must have received the doctorate degree within ten years prior to receiving the Award. Current members of the Society/Division 17 Executive Board are not eligible during their term of office.
  3. The Award should be given to persons whose principal professional identification is as a Counseling Psychologist and are members of the Society/Division 17.
  4. Though the Award ordinarily will be voted annually, the Executive Board may elect not to make an Award in any given year.

PROCEDURES:

  1. A call for nominations for the Early Career Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Counseling Psychology will appear in the fall issue of the Society/Division 17 Newsletter or the currently used publication medium. 
  2. Nominations for the Award are to be in the form of a letter (from self or other) that makes the nomination and discusses the contribution to the profession of counseling psychology that justifies the nomination. The nominee’s vita and a total of no more than three letters of support (including the letter of nomination from self or other) should be submitted.  All letters should directly address how the nominee meets the award criteria.
  3. The Chair of the Awards and Recognition Committee (or the Chair’s designee) will be responsible for collecting nominations and for obtaining evaluations of the nominations from the Committee. Each reviewer will rate and then rank the nominee and send both ratings and rankings to the Chair (or the Chair’s designee) who will then compute mean ratings. Based on these mean ratings the Chair will submit a rank ordered list of nominees to the Society/Division 17 Executive Board prior to the mid-year meeting of that group.
  4. Election of the Award winner will be decided by written or verbal ballot at the mid-year meeting by majority vote of the voting members of the Executive Board of Society/Division 17 who are present. The Award winner will be notified by the President following this mid-year meeting but no public announcement of the winner will be made until the Society/Division’s business meeting at the APA Convention.
  5. The Chair of the Awards and Recognition Committee will provide the winner’s name and contact information, social security number, and the name of the award won to the Society/Division 17 treasurer by June 1st. The treasurer will prepare the check and give it to the Society/Division 17 President for presentation at the Annual Business Meeting in August.
  6. After the APA Convention, an announcement of the winner will be published in the fall issue of the Society/Division 17 Newsletter or currently used publication medium, and The Counseling Psychologist.
Note: SCP’s most recent strategic plan (2019-2024) includes goals such as elevating impact of counseling psychology and supporting counseling psychologists’ advocacy to promote client and community wellbeing, equity, and justice. Our current President Reynolds stated, “Every day we strive to build a more inclusive, just, and equitable profession and ensure that our work is centered in liberation and healing to dismantle oppression in all its forms, uplift all communities who are marginalized, erased, and harmed, and transform our policies, structures, and practices so that we may all one day be free.” This work is particularly important now given multiple pandemics experienced in recent years and our continued fight to support marginalized communities.
Therefore, we invite all nominations to address the ways your nominees strived to make this change. The submission materials should address how the nominee aligns with and/or applies counseling psychology values, particularly as it relates to counseling psychology’s focus on Liberation Anti-Black Racism, Advocacy and Engagement.