Public Psychology: A Competency Model for Professional Psychologists in Community Mental Health

Recent attention to gaps and inadequacies in U.S. community mental health systems has revived efforts to improve access and the quality of mental health care to underserved, diverse, rural, and seriously mentally ill populations. The importance of elements such as evidence-based practice importation, needs assessment and evaluation, and mental health care disparities in this effort calls for innovation and leadership from professional psychologists. Yet, psychologists have been diminishing in representation from public mental health settings, and there have been limited efforts to comprehensively define the competencies required of practice in the public psychology specialty. This article presents the unique functional and foundational competencies required of psychologists to lead a transformation in the public mental health system. These public psychology competencies provide a foundation for professional psychologists to meet the challenges of a changing public mental health services context and promulgate effective evidence-based community systems of care. With education and training efforts, exposure to the public psychology competencies established in this study can aid in the transition of more psychologists into the public sector.