Relevance and programming help MSPP reach 35th anniversary

Relevance and programming help MSPP reach 35th anniversary
(April 2009 Issue)

By Jennifer Chase Esposito

As New England schools raise tuition and downsize campuses and the professors who populate them, the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology (MSPP) is celebrating 35 years as an institution of higher education that brings mental health providers to the community that communities actually need.

That's more than just an educational mission for the school: it's a social one," says Nicholas Covino, Psy.D, MSPP president since 2002. "A university has a mandate to develop new knowledge. A professional school is obliged to apply knowledge and know where the application is needed." The school's milestone is being celebrated this year by honoring professors, graduates and the platform for learning that has helped 1,200 graduates become well-equipped mental health providers that the school is pleased to have as alums.

Since its founding in 1974, Covino has attributed the MSPP's success to always asking one question: Where are the mental health needs of the community and how best can MSPP train professionals to meet them? "Relevant" is a word seldom used to describe colleges or universities, which are typically praised for their steadfast curricula based on history and name recognition. But MSPP's relevance has equated answering community needs, shaped the school's programming and is lauded for increasing yearly applications from 125 to 400 and building a student body with an on-average GRE score that in 2008 was 100 points higher than previous years.

Twenty-five percent of MSPP's applicants are accepted, an increase largely attributed to two of many innovative programs: a Latino mental health program in 2004 that is helping mental health care professionals serve a growing population in Massachusetts and a forensic program that better prepares mental health directors to work within the state's court system.

"Less than two percent of mental health practitioners could serve the Spanish-speaking [population]," says Covino. Today, through the Dr. Cynthia Lucero Center's Latino Mental Health Program, students interested in working with clients from Latino cultures are sent to Spanish language and Hispanic culture immersion programs in different parts of the world; conduct volunteer mental health work in various Latin American settings; and have their Clinical Seminars coursework taught in Spanish, by Spanish-speaking professors. The program has grown from eight to 30 students in five years.

MSPP's Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology trains students in psychology as it relates to applying psychological principals to legal issues facing not only working in the court system, but handling the nation's high number of mentally ill incarcerated individuals.

"The experiential education model we work with is a training model whose time has come," says Covino. "To spend 20 hours a week under supervision allows people to get to know themselves as clinicians or school psychologists. It gets them to see how evidenced-based treatment influences individuals." And, says Covino, students working with real people out in the field results in giving students who might sit silently in a class of 20 a chance to discuss working one-on-one with clients with their supervisors. "It brings liveliness back into classrooms when a student can say, 'Well, I saw a person with depression today,'" says Covino. "It's vibrant. Experience is quite moving to students."

Amid the yearlong anniversary festivities, in 2009 the school will honor Stanley Rosenzweig, Ph.D., one of MSPP's founders; three graduates - Denis O'Brien, Ph.D., Psy.D., Christopher Newell, Psy.D. and Caroline McCabe, Psy.D. - and Frances V. Mervyn, Ph.D., MSPP dean of students, whose student mentoring reached many.