My first few months at the College have been a humbling experience, indeed. Psychology is a well-established profession in Ontario, and I feel a sense of pride in our legacy which has been driven by you, our registrants, and the incredible services that you provide to the public everyday. I firmly believe that we have some of the best psychology talent in the world here in Ontario, and I thank our registrants for their heroic work.
As you may be aware, the College has been involved in a judicial review of an Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee (ICRC) matter that has attracted global attention. Understandably, there has been considerable interest in this case and a desire for more information from the College. However, it would not be appropriate or fair for a regulator to comment on active proceedings. As registrants, you have the right to share your personal information with the public, whereas the College must honour its legislative and ethical duty of confidentiality regardless of the dissemination of information through the media and other sources. As the Registrar, I will treat all of our registrants with dignity and respect, regardless of whether or not a case is before the Courts; this is my unwavering commitment to all of you. Updates from the College on this matter will be provided in alignment with publicly available information as would be the case for any of our registrants.
As I reflect on our current state, I have the thought that the College is at a historic juncture. You may have seen some updates to the Strategic Direction section of our website to reflect our new strategic plan. If not, please take a moment to review. This is an exciting opportunity for the College to modernize and adopt best practices in continuous quality improvement, Right Touch regulation, and member engagement to serve the public interest in delivering safe, high-quality psychological services. The strategy is grounded in an ecological model of self-regulation with four layers of interacting subsystems: Excellence in Care at the core, Membership Engagement as a driver of quality care, Innovation in Regulation to modernize College processes, and all of which is embedded within a Continuous Quality Improvement Culture. I am excited to share that we will be conducting a comprehensive review of the Standards of Professional Conduct and the next edition of HeadLines will feature the inaugural member’s article in a new series. Lastly, we are getting closer to onboarding Behaviour Analysts to the College, a first for any jurisdiction in Canada. This is an exciting time at the College as we prepare to welcome the profession of Applied Behaviour Analysis
Thank you all for your commitment to safe, high-quality care!
Tony DeBono, MBA, Ph.D., C.Psych
Registrar & Executive Director