PSY 496: Applied Project Communication Competency: Presenting Mental Health Information Ashford University

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Running head: PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTH INFORMATION1Final ProjectCommunication Competency: Presenting Mental Health InformationAshford UniversityPSY 496: Applied ProjectInstructor:University attached:Date:Discuss the development and significance of forensic psychology, highlighting both its historicalcontext and modern-day applications. In your response, include an analysis of the educationaland training advancements within the field, as well as the emerging competency standardsrequired for practitioners. How do portrayals in popular media impact the public’s understandingof forensic psychology? Be sure to reference at least three scholarly sources to support yourarguments.Word count requirement:1,500-2,000 words.

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PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTHINFORMATION2IntroductionAs the final project of this course, the requirement was to prepare a fullyfunctional website containing the following information, each of the parts in a tab or pagethat was linked within the website. This word document has compiled all the writteninformation that was in the website to be submitted for the convenience of grading for theinstructor.Thewebsiteofmyfinalprojectis:http://tonygusm.wix.com/guzmanpsy496finalproI.Home PageGreetings readers,My name is Antonio or Tony Guzman from San Diego, California. I am 28 yearsold and a former Marine only two years ago where I was privileged enough to be able toexplore and travel the world and gained a lot experiences,that up till now,still did notseem aallpossible to happen. After being in the marines I continued on and provided myservice to the National Guard. Additionally I have also worked as an Analytical Linguistfor the government where I came across working on many criminal cases, something I’mtruly passionate about as I get to work first hand with issues that affects the society andcommunity directly.

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PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTHINFORMATION3Having introduced my passion within this topic, I have also taken the initiative tofurther improve myself by obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology so as I couldprogress into a Master’sprograminForensic Psychology, which would help me reach mygoal of an ultimate career, becoming an Agent for an agency. The skills that I havegained in my undergrad program in Ashford University as well as the work experiencethat I have accumulated I believe I could apply in the work force in my career of choice.Upon graduation I hope to get confirmation of my application to a CriminalAnalyst internship and continue enriching my experiences as well as knowledge andskills on the related field of Forensic Psychology and it also deepens my understanding ofthis field that I would like to be a part of. I would like to be able to have a passenger seatexperience of filed work and learn from the great minds within this field and acquire theuseful skills on my own through a firsthand experience.-TonyII.Literature ReviewThe topic of my interest is Forensic Psychology, which is the application ofpsychological knowledge into law and justicerelated mattersin order to better evaluatecompetency of the interviewed eyewitness or interrogated suspects and criminals so as ajust and deserving sentence to be carried out by the convicted criminal.As highlightedwithin the article by Piotrowski in 2012, the attention and focus that forensic psychologyhas received is in a stationary state with moderate attention within this fieldbut it should

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PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTHINFORMATION4not be neglected and receive a decline as I believe this field to be of critical importance inthe process of evaluating thereliability ofverbal evidencethat were collected from allrelated personnel regarding the case being dealt.Compared to the early past, the field of Forensic Psychology has surely observeda growth of popularity with individuals showing interest on participation at some pointpossibly to be partly due to portrayals in TV shows or such entertainment programs beingroutinely showed on the television at home or by the great convenience of internet,viewed from tablets or mobile phones on the go. Although it should be noted that not allportrayal of the characters from televised drama are accurate to their real responsibilitieswithin the real world and the entertainment companies should be more responsible andnot indirectly spread inaccurate portrayals of the professional figures as it probablyaffects the choice of the younger generation of a future career that they would need tostart working towards from a young age.The program shows does however accuratelyshows the impact that the role of forensic psychologists plays in affecting the decisionswithin a court case by their professional evaluation that is able to provide substantialevidence that is accepted by the people of the court for consideration that is eventuallyreflected in the decision that they make at the end.According to Otto &Heilbrun in 2002, the American Psychological Association(APA) has just recently in 2001 officially states forensic psychology as a formaldistinguished specialization although it has a long history dating back to a lineage asearly as 1900, that has witnessed rapid growth throughout (Otto &Heilbrun, 2002 as citedin DeMatteo, Marczyk, Krauss & Burl, 2009). DeMatteo andcolleaguesin 2009 hasfurther continued to elaborate the a proof of the growth can be seen in the focus and

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PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTHINFORMATION5development that was done in terms of the educational and training programs that hasbeen developed throughout the yearsfor the convenience of the students as well asprofessional individuals to have access to as well as empower themselves. With that inmind DeMatteo and colleagues (2009) constructed the article on summarizations of thevarious programs curricula that are available and identifies the core set of individualskills that are important for consideration in preparation of a doctoral-level forensicpsychology curricula so as the students that graduate from it will be fully prepared to facethe real world with more options of roles to be assumed by forensic psychologists.The article by DeMatteoet al. in 2009has also stated that a recent cause thatdrives more general clinical practitioners into the field of forensic psychology was due tothe changes in the health care reimbursement system for psychologist and also forensicservices are not usually bounded in terms of finance by managed care making theforensic option more appealing and pose as a better choice to them. The article reportedthat the authors have mainly evaluated and summarized the trend within the tertiaryeducation programs as well as training programs that was made available by professionalacademicestablishmentsandinstitutionsthroughtheevaluationofsurveysbeingcollected from the past as well as recently (DeMatteoet al.,2009). They noted a definitelytrend in the varieties that were made available throughout the years and many high-ranking psychology departments have found to offer at least one law-psychology coursewithin their establishments and forensic psychology is found to be most popularlyamongthem (DeMatteoet al.,2009) in terms of undergraduate training in forensic psychology.For the case of graduate programs, they noted that the programs could be categorized byprogram focus; such as clinical forensic psychology or non-clinical forensic psychology,

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PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTHINFORMATION6by training models; such as clinical scientist practitioner and nonclinical scientist-scholar,as well as the degree awarded; such as doctorate or masters, all programs has thepossibility of being conducted from the span of 2 to 7 years in total in order to obtain thecompleted title; an astounding 10 years is recorded for students that conducted joint-degree programs (DeMatteoet al.,2009).As concluded by the article, there are a total of seven area of competencies that astudent should develop in order to better adapt to the educational curricula and it wassuggested that a model curricula be constructed with these seven points as the keybackboneof the program so as graduates of better qualifications could graduate and giveback to the community with their knowledge and skills acquired from the program(DeMatteoet al.,2009). The seven areas include, Substantive psychology; aimed to equipthe students with core knowledge on the basic areas of their major discipline, Researchdesign;preparesthestudentforthebasicconductofaresearchorhavequickunderstanding of the results presented in a research, Conducting research; studentsthemselves be wholly involved in performing and conducting the research for theculmination of a doctoral dissertation, Legal knowledge; all matters related to legalaspects such as competence to stand trial and mental state at the time of the offence,Integrative law-psychology knowledge;to equip the students with the knowledge of theprocess and all the roles of each individuals within the court process, Ethics andprofessional issues; the basics as well as specialized issues related to forensic matters,and finally Clinical forensic training; that prepares clinical forensic psychologists to facethe challenges found in the real world.

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PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTHINFORMATION7As much as it is important to have the best curricula developed in order to trainbetter and more adeptly prepared individuals that graduate from tertiary institutions andenter their respective forensic psychology related career in order to give back to thecommunity, with the spot light in these recent decade being placed on the field offorensic psychology, it would also be wise to monitor the standards of currentlypracticingpsychologistwithinthefieldaswellsothatthequalityofforensicspsychologists would not decrease following the recent hype of focus within the field.Ashighlighted in the article by Varela & Conroy (2012) the growth of forensic psychologythat was immense in the past three decades, has pushed forward a necessity to develop ataxonomy of competency standards required in order to evaluate a practitioner of theircompetency within the field of forensic psychology to be applied onto the real world.They have also highlighted that the field of forensic psychology has been specialized anda generalized competency standardthat is common among practitioners and researchersof the general field of Psychology are necessary within the forensic field but a specializedspecialty competencies have been developed for subspecialties of forensic psychology,which areimportant for all applications within forensic work (Varela & Conroy, 2012).The article by Varela & Conroy(2012)has also begun by shedding light on theemergence of forensic psychology as a specialty within the field of psychology, statingthat it had begun in the efforts of the great HugoMunsterbergin 1908 to have thepsychological findings be acknowledged as a force to be reckon with by the judicialsystem and the court room. Collective works within the field of forensic psychology suchasscholarlyarticles,scientificresearchandprofessionalcourtroompracticeshasblossomed and well known acknowledged top class journals such asCriminal Justice and

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PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTHINFORMATION8BehaviorandBehavioral Sciences and the Lawwere established and dedicated to thedistribution of the research materials that are regularly accessed by the mental health andlegal constitutions to keep up to date with the recent advancement within the related field(Varela & Conroy, 2012).With such an impact onto and contribution from the field offorensic psychology it is only a matter of standard procedure to keep the competencies ofpracticing individuals in check with certain guidelines and referring checklists that hasbeen developed following the bloom of the field of forensic psychology.Varela & Conroy in 2012 has listed out the developed competencies for sixfunctionaldomainsinclusiveofassessment,intervention,consultation,research,supervision-training, and management-administration, further categorizing them intocompetencies with relation to knowledge, skills, and attitudes in tabulated forms. It isnotedthattherearemorecompetencyevaluationsforthefunctionaldomainofAssessment and Intervention, and Consultation and Management Administration areconsiderably less (Varela & Conroy, 2012). All of the listed points are extremely relevantand applicable to the field of forensic psychology and especially with the specialtycompetencies that has specified criteria regarding certain issues within the functionaldomain that was listed.The article was prepared as an aim to provide practicing forensicpsychologists with a convenient access of the list of competencies, the authors haveconcluded with an expectation of the list to be updated with more addition in the futureby the coming generation of forensic professionals.Other than the aspect of working professionals that should be taken note of, thetypes of practices being applied should alsobe reviewed for theefficacy of theassessment being applied as well as the efficiency of the practitioner on applying the

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PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTHINFORMATION9techniques.McLaughlin and Kan in 2014 have conducted a practice survey with aims ofproviding information about the current trends among forensic psychology evaluators andestimates how “typical” practices follows best practices. The article has discussed theuseof assessment tools in evaluations of four common cases of forensic mental healthassessments being dealt by forensic psychologists, which are competency to stand trial,mentalstateattimeofallegedoffence,nonsexualviolencerisk,andresponsestyle/malingering and provided and updated information about the assessment tools(McLaughlin &Kan, 2014).A large number of forensic evaluators, 102 out of 115 in profession psychologicalpractice has shown to apply assessment tools during their assessment session with theclient, and there are 4 types of assessment tools available, multiscale inventories, forensicassessment/relevantinstruments,cognitive/neuropsychologicalinstruments,andprojective techniques, among which multiscale inventories is extremely popular amongthe evaluators being applied in evaluations of mental state at time of offense and theremainingthreeassessmentshoweveriscommonlyappliedwiththeforensicassessment/relevantinstrumentsassessmenttool(McLaughlin&Kan,2014).Withrelation to application on all four forensic issues, projective techniques are recorded to bethe lowest in comparison to other tools (McLaughlin &Kan, 2014).An online survey with three sections was performed onto the large sample offorensic evaluators, where the first section was performed to obtain personal information,inclusiveofage,race,gender,graduatetrainingandsuchinformationfromtheparticipants and also the estimated portion of the participant’s practice being dedicatedfor the conducts of forensic related practices within their professional establishments as

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PRESENTING MENTAL HEALTHINFORMATION10well as their frequency on performing such practices (McLaughlin &Kan, 2014). Thesecond section is a personality measure following the Goldberg Five-Factor Markers andthethirdsectionisthemainsurveycontainingfoursubsections,eachdedicatedindividually to the four forensic cases, in order to get the evaluators responses on the useof the four listed types of assessment tools (McLaughlin &Kan, 2014).The article ended with a stressed importance of remaining updated on the latestadvancement and development in terms of research and literature being published withregards to the application of assessment tools and its efficacy with no bias on theevaluator’s experience, training, or duration of degree attained (McLaughlin &Kan,2014). McLaughlin and Kan in 2014 has also noted several limitations of their study,which includes the recruitment of their sample population was done a way that might notbe able to represent the “average” conduct of a forensic evaluator, to which they suggesta further improvement to be made about this would be to recruit participants in personinstead of what they have done which was recruitment through e-mailing (McLaughlin&Kan, 2014). There was also the concern that the study did not choose to specify on theapplication of one specific type of assessment tool on overall to the other forensic issuesor specify one forensic issue to be tested with a few assessment tool but instead haddifferent tools tested on different forensic issues (McLaughlin &Kan, 2014). A finalconcern noted by the authors areinclusion of their rationale on the choice of assessmenttools as well as rationale of rejection within the survey that they have not included toperform, as this would be able to provide more information on the standards of care(McLaughlin &Kan, 2014).

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