SCP Early Career Professional Slate Candidate Statements

Jacks Cheng, Ph.D.

What is your vision for ECP-Chair Elect for SCP?
As a queer immigrant of colour, I take great pride in being a counseling psychologist who leads through social action and liberation in collaboration with the communities I lead. I envision an SCP that is truly a home for ECP, where we both remove barriers to leadership and involvement in governance and also support and celebrate ECP excellence, especially for folks who are underrepresented in SCP and APA. As consistent with SCP and APA’s strategic plans and initiatives, I take an anticolonialist and strength-based approach to my vision: I aspire to decentralize ingroup culture and access to institutional knowledge in order to facilitate indigenous and innovative contributions from ECPs who have not been involved in SCP. Specifically, I intend to achieve these goals through implementing a sustainable leadership structure and pipeline at the state and local levels to (a) foster ECPs’ participation and belongingness to SCP, (b) increase ECP representation in local government and institutional regulations, (c) allow ECP to mentor and benefit from each other’s experiences and expertise during professional development. The purpose of such a vision is ultimately to disrupt practices rooted in white supremacist values that elevate current members in power and dissuade outsiders, and to discover and share power with hidden talents not otherwise empowered.

How would you address this vision and support the division’s efforts to address anti-Black racism within our structures and practices? 
In my vision of SCP, anti-Black racism is recognized as a primary symptom of white supremacy that is omnipresent in the history and structures of SCP and APA. It is entrenched in our organization, such as in how perpetuating a white “professionalism” in how we conduct our “business” that undervalues and erases Blackness, in focusing on individual responsibilities in building an antiracist organization, in educating future counseling psychologists with white eurocentric traditions, in neglecting to look inwards and act on our internalized white supremacy. I am acutely aware of the power vested in the position as ECP Chair-Elect by SCP members, and I intend to use it to disrupt white supremacy and anti-Black racism. At the core of my commitment to antiracist and anticolonialist work is the importance of community and accountability. I would specifically support initiatives such as (a) a thorough examination of our policies and procedures to address blindspots and include explicit antiracist guidelines in the way we connect with each other (e.g., meetings, expectations, elections); (b) deliberate and continuous outreach to our sibling divisions and organizations to coordinate efforts dismantle white supremacy within our discipline; (c) a mechanism that celebrates the everyday work of counseling psychologists and students in a way that removes heroic or capitalistic narratives informed by white supremacy

Marissa Floro, Ph.D.

What is your vision for ECP-Chair Elect for SCP?
My vision for SCP as ECP-Chair-Elect is holding SCP accountable to the values of Counseling Psychology that attracts so many ECPs in the first place: appreciation of culture and community, holistic conceptualization of the whole individual across the lifespan, and the ongoing push for liberation. I specifically chose counseling psychology doctoral programs because of their clinical, advocacy, and research foundations of social justice and have continued to feel gratefully grounded in these values through the start of my career, COVID-19, and ongoing wave of hate crimes and manifestations of oppression. And what better way to manifest appreciation of development across the lifespan than to connect different generations within SCP. Connecting the passion, training, and energy of ECPs with the greater SCP structure would bolster the division’s strategic plan. Bringing the networks, knowledge, and credibility of the division to ECPs would provide guidance, mentoring, and community that so many of us lose once we leave our graduate programs. SCP, like so many institutions, should continually be evolving and innovating- what better way to do so than with the talent and skills of ECPs that were born within a digital age and have freshly acquired feedback about training that will shape the next generation of counseling psychologists? This innovation, rooted in social justice, will continue to attract future generations of counseling psychologists that will continue to enact change in the world. ECPs embody this future that so many SCP elders envisioned and I would be honored and humbled to represent them.

Tiffany Williams, Ph.D.

What is your vision for ECP-Chair Elect for SCP?
I am excited to put my name in the hat for the opportunity to serve as chair of Division 17’s Early Career Professional (ECP) Executive Committee. I am a licensed Psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department of Tennessee State University. I earned a PhD in Urban Education: Counseling Psychology and a MEd in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Cleveland State University and completed my predoctoral internship at the University of Missouri Counseling Center and my postdoctoral training at The Ohio State University. As a future chair, my vision is to continue the tradition of offering a safe, non-judgmental, cohesive, and affirming space for ECPs. It is my belief that the ECP executive committee is a platform that we can use to communicate, empower, and support each other through the many challenges we face, as we transition and solidify our professional identities as psychologists. Through my leadership, should I be elected to serve as chair, it is especially imperative to me that I try to strengthen our base and build more meaningful and lasting connections with ECPs across settings (e.g., clinical, academic, etc.). It is important for us to come together and support each other as we navigate the typical experiences and challenges ECPs face as well as those that are nuanced and exacerbated by our sociopolitical climate (e.g., double pandemic, racial tension and injustice, violence toward communities of color, etc.).

How would you address this vision and support the division’s efforts to address anti-Black racism within our structures and practices? 
In the sake of transparency, it is important that I share I fully support Division 17’s social justice advocacy efforts to identify, unveil, and address anti-Black racism within our institutions, practices, and systems. If elected as chair, I would align with these efforts and intentionally engage the ECP committee in activities to embrace the anti-black racism (and other oppressions) eradication movement. For example, Dr. Della Mosely and colleagues planned and coordinated the Academics 4 Black Lives event that was described as a healing, meaningful, and supportive space for Black and non-Black identified individuals. It is through grassroots advocacy efforts such as these where the ECP committee can make a presence, offer resources, and ultimately serve as a platform to broadcast our message [condemning the perpetuation of systemic racism]. Under my leadership, we can develop a workshop series that reveals anti-Blackness in our professional spaces (e.g., academic, clinical, etc.), describes ways in which it informs ECPs