APA guidelines: their importance and a plan to keep them current: 2013 annual report of the Policy and Planning Board

When guidelines are approved by APA, they become association policy, and it is imperative that they remain current. The revision of guidelines poses several challenges to the association. These challenges range from the availability and allocation of resources to support the complicated processes involved in developing and updating these policies to the lack of a clearly defined process that includes identification of tasks, assignments of responsibilities, and so forth. For this reason, the APA Board of Directors asked the Policy and Planning Board (P&P) to work with the boards of the four directorates (i.e., the Education Directorate, the Practice Directorate, the Public Interest Directorate, and the Science Directorate) to create a proposal that would (a) make recommendations with regard to how the review and revision of guidelines documents might best be accomplished in accordance with the APA Strategic Plan and existing policies and procedures and (b) make suggestions regarding the association resources that might be required. The Board of Directors approved the proposed review process in December 2013.