Capability-Informed Competency Approach to Lifelong Professional Development

This article highlights how syndemic processes related to the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, racial injustice, and economic instability serve as catalysts for transforming psychology education and training from a competency-based approach to a capability-informed competency model. This article overviews a syndemic theory to highlight the value of focusing on capabilities to enhance competence. It details the advantages of a capability-informed competency model for doctoral health service psychology education, training, and ultimately lifelong learning in which individuals are empowered to apply the diverse competencies they amass in new ways and settings to meet needs informed by the public good. To illustrate this approach, we provide examples of trainees' engagement and leadership in an academic health center's comprehensive response to the COVID-19 crisis, including transitioning neuropsychological assessment to a virtual platform, launching innovative services for frontline healthcare workers, facilitating antiracism programming, and designing and implementing interprofessional advocacy activities related to current social, economic, and health crises. These examples highlight new foci and strategies for a collaborative approach to socially responsive growth and development in psychology, ways to facilitate trainees' application of existing competencies to new domains, and faculty and trainee reactions regarding a shift toward a capability-informed competency approach. The article concludes with guiding principles for creating and implementing a culture that maximizes trainees' acquisition of traditional competencies and nurtures their capability to respond to social problems and facilitate the public good throughout the professional lifecycle. Public Significance Statement The syndemic processes associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, and economic instability are profoundly impacting psychology education and training. This article highlights ways to capitalize on these syndemic processes to transform psychology education and training. It offers a blueprint for a capability-informed competency-based training culture that nurtures and empowers trainees to address societal problems in novel and creative ways throughout the course of their careers.