Course Details
| Course Title | ABPPSP: Navigating the Law in Police & Public Safety Psychology: What’s Changed Since 2012 |
| Date |
12/2/2026
|
| Provider | CONCEPT Continuing & Professional Studies (Palo Alto University) |
| Phone | (650) 434-2381 |
| Email | caps@paloaltou.edu |
| Website |
https://training.concept.paloaltou.edu/courses/LIVE-Navigating-the-Law-in-Police-Public-Safety-Psychology
|
| Location | Palo Alto |
| Credit Hours | 1.5 |
| Instructor(s) | David M. Corey, PhD, ABPP, Mary Comperini, PsyD, CCHP, ABPP, Carrie Kennedy, PhD, ABPP (Clinical; Police and Public Safety), and Philip Trompetter, PhD, ABPP |
| Method of Instruction | Virtual (Synchronous/Live) |
| Approving Agency | APA |
| Course Syllabus |
Training outline.pdf
|
Course Description
This 4 CE unit course has been approved for 1.5 hours of POST CPE
The legal landscape governing police and public safety psychology has changed substantially since the original Core Legal Knowledge document was published in 2012. Courts have refined the standards for when an employer may compel a fitness-for-duty evaluation, whether by individualized referral or by categorical policy, and have reaffirmed long-standing limits on what the evaluator may disclose. They have extended professional liability and discovery exposure to preemployment evaluators and reshaped the constitutional analysis of police use of force. The litigated application of statutes such as the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act has also sharpened the boundaries of permissible inquiry in employment evaluations. During the same period, ABPPSP broadened its definition of the specialty to encompass military, aviation, and national security psychology, and the revised resource adds the authorities that govern practice in both areas, including military confidentiality, command notification, the military psychotherapist-patient privilege, and the national security adjudicative guidelines. This four-hour interactive workshop introduces the newly revised Core Legal Knowledge resource, an update to the 2012 document prepared by experienced public safety psychologists. Participants will receive a substantive update on these developments and will learn a practical method for locating and applying governing legal authority with the resource’s searchable companion file. The workshop is organized around the four functions of daily practice: preemployment screening, fitness-for-duty evaluation, treatment and confidentiality, and organizational consultation across the specialty’s expanded population contexts. Each content block concludes with a realistic practice scenario, written in two tiers of difficulty and resolved with the resource, so that the workshop serves participants ranging from graduate students to board-certified specialists. This program is intended for police and public safety psychologists at every stage of professional development: graduate students preparing for careers in the specialty, early-career psychologists building a framework for legally informed practice, candidates preparing for ABPPSP board certification, experienced practitioners updating their knowledge of legal developments since 2012, and board-certified specialists seeking a practical method for applying legal authority and researching legal questions in diverse public safety settings.
Course Objectives
- Describe the major legal developments that have altered the psycholegal context of public safety assessment, treatment, and consultation since publication of the original Core Legal Knowledge document in 2012, and distinguish new legal authority from established authority newly incorporated as the scope of the specialty has expanded.
- Describe among constitutional provisions, statutes, regulations, case law, and professional standards; explain the hierarchy of legal authority; and identify when a practice question is governed by authority outside the scope of the Core Legal Knowledge resource, such as state statutes and regulations, signaling the need for jurisdiction-specific legal consultation.
- Describe locating governing legal authorities using the searchable Core Legal Knowledge companion resource to resolve realistic practice questions in preemployment screening, fitness-for-duty evaluation, treatment, and organizational consultation, and to support preparation for board certification in police and public safety psychology, as well as ongoing practice research.
- Describe intersecting legal authorities to complex practice scenarios, including those involving competing statutory obligations and limits on the scope of disclosure, and integrate legal authority with professional standards and sound psychological judgment.