David M. Corey, PhD, ABPP, Mary Comperini, PsyD, CCHP, ABPP, Carrie Kennedy, PhD, ABPP, and Philip Trompetter, PhD, ABPP, present a live virtual professional training program on Navigating the Law in Police & Public Safety Psychology: What’s Changed Since 2012 in partnership with the American Board of Police and Public Safety Psychology (ABPPSP).
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.
Upon completion of this training, participants will be able to:
David M. Corey, Ph.D., ABPP, is board certified in forensic psychology and in police and public safety psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology, and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Division 18). In practice since 1980, he limits his work to suitability and fitness evaluations of candidates for, and incumbents in, positions of public trust or safety, and has conducted more than 5,000 fitness evaluations and 40,000 suitability evaluations. He is the coauthor of Assessing Police and Other Public Safety Personnel With the MMPI-3 (University of Minnesota Press, 2024), Evaluations of Police Suitability and Fitness for Duty (Oxford University Press, 2020), the California POST Psychological Screening Manual (2024), a series of evidence-based MMPI-3 and MPQ interpretive reports for public safety selection, and the Personal History Survey, along with more than 40 other peer-reviewed publications. He is the founding president of the American Board of Police & Public Safety Psychology and chair of the Specialty Council for Police & Public Safety Psychology. He is licensed in eight U.S. states and the Republic of Ireland.
Dr. Phil Trompetter is a California-licensed clinical psychologist with nearly fifty years of experience in police and forensic psychology. He is board-certified by the American Board of Police and Public Safety Psychology (ABPPSP) through the American Board of Professional Psychology and served as president of ABPPSP from 2016 to 2017.
Dr. Mary Comperini has served in California’s state system since 2009, bringing more than 16 years of experience in forensic and correctional psychology. Her career has included work with some of the state’s most high-risk populations, beginning at Porterville Developmental Center’s Secured Treatment Center, and later contributing to the activation of the California Health Care Facility (CHCF) in Stockton. In 2015, she joined the California Men’s Colony, where she has advanced through multiple leadership roles, including Senior Psychologist Supervisor, Chief of Mental Health, and a temporary assignment as Chief Executive Officer.
Dr. Comperini earned her Doctorate and Master’s degrees in Clinical Psychology, as well as a Post-Doctorate Certificate in Forensic Psychology, from Argosy University in Schaumburg, Illinois. She also holds a Master’s degree in Education with an emphasis in Community Counseling, and a Bachelor’s degree in Communications with a focus on theatre arts, both from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh.
She is board certified in Police and Public Safety Psychology (ABPP) and is proud to be the first correctional psychologist to earn this certification. In addition to her clinical and leadership roles, she serves on the American Board of Police and Public Safety Psychology and contributes to a subcommittee dedicated to revising certification criteria to better reflect the role of correctional psychologists. She is passionate about expanding pathways for correctional psychologists to pursue board certification, strengthening their professional identity and recognition within the broader field of public safety psychology.
Her pre-licensure training included extensive work in correctional, juvenile, and forensic settings across Wisconsin, Illinois, and California. She has provided subject matter expert testimony in California courts and has chaired or co-chaired numerous professional committees, including the Competency Evaluation Standards Subcommittee at Porterville Developmental Center, the Psychology Ethics Subcommittee, and the Behavior Management Plan Review Committee at CHCF. She also represented Mental Health on CHCF’s Medical Ethics Committee and currently serves on the Use of Force Executive Review Panel at the California Men’s Colony.
In addition to her professional accomplishments, Dr. Comperini integrates her lifelong passion for theatre and music into her work and personal life. She has witnessed firsthand the transformative power of the creative arts in fostering healing, resilience, and expression—particularly for individuals coping with grief and trauma within correctional environments. Music, in particular, provides her with both balance and a creative outlet, which she considers an essential source of resilience and renewal. She also encourages staff to engage in their own acts of renewal and self-care, recognizing that sustaining well-being is vital to the demanding work of correctional and public safety psychology.
Carrie H. Kennedy, Ph.D., ABPP, is a neuropsychologist with specialization in military psychology and aeromedical psychology.
An active-duty captain in the U.S. Navy, she has served for 27 years. Assignments have included overseas service, deployment to a combat zone, and clinical, embedded, and operational positions. She currently serves as Lead, Naval Air Training Human Performance Team.
She is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association (APA) and the National Academy of Neuropsychology, and currently serves as APA Division 19, Society for Military Psychology President and Member-at-Large, American Board of Police and Public Safety Psychology. Awards include the APA Division 19 Charles S. Gersoni, Robert S. Nichols, John C. Flanagan, and Distinguished Mentor Awards, and she is a two-time Navy Psychologist of the Year winner.
Dr. Kennedy is board certified in both Clinical and Police and Public Safety Psychology.
• Individualized assessment requirements and the limits of categorical disqualification
• Evaluator liability: the extension of professional duty and malpractice principles to preemployment evaluators
• Permissible inquiry under the ADA, the ADA Amendments Act, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act: what may be asked, when, and of whom
• Discoverability of screening records and the evaluator’s documentation practices
• Tiered scenario: The Disqualified Candidate. In the threshold tier, a conditional-offer candidate discloses a family history of psychiatric illness during the evaluation. May the evaluator inquire further, and may the information inform the suitability determination? In the escalation tier, the agency requests the full evaluation report including the family history; the candidate is later screened out, requests his records, and retains counsel. Participants sequence the evaluator’s obligations under GINA’s acquisition and disclosure rules, ADA confidentiality provisions, and documentation and disclosure-scope standards, resolving the scenario with the companion resource.
We are proud to partner with The American Board of Police and Public Safety Psychology (ABPPSP) for this training. ABPPSP became a fully affiliated specialty board of the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) on October 21, 2011. Police and Public Safety Psychology is concerned with assisting law enforcement and other public safety personnel and agencies in carrying out their missions and societal functions with optimal effectiveness, safety, health, and conformity to laws and ethics. It consists of the application of the science and profession of psychology in four primary domains of practice: assessment, clinical intervention, operational support, and organizational consultation.
Palo Alto University, Continuing & Professional Studies (CONCEPT) is approved by, recognized by, or maintains sponsorship provider status with the following boards and agencies. We maintain responsibility for all content in our CE/CPD programs. For more information, visit here.
American Psychological Association (APA): Approved sponsor of continuing education for psychologists.
Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB): Approved continuing education provider (ACE program, Provider #1480), 11/22/2023–11/22/2026.
Canadian Psychological Association (CPA): Approved to sponsor continuing education for psychologists.
National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC): Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP No. 7190).
Palo Alto University, Continuing and Professional Studies (CONCEPT) is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Palo Alto University, Continuing and Professional Studies (CONCEPT), is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. Palo Alto University, Continuing and Professional Studies (CONCEPT) has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7190. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Palo Alto University, #1480, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Palo Alto University maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period 11/22/23-11/22/26. Social workers completing this course receive (clinical or social work ethics) continuing education credits. Continuing and Professional Studies, Palo Alto University, is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0103. Palo Alto University, Continuing and Professional Studies (CONCEPT) is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. Palo Alto University, Continuing & Professional Studies (CONCEPT), is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0356. Palo Alto University, Continuing and Professional Studies, is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0073.
