Building foundational knowledge competencies in professional geropsychology: Council of Professional Geropsychology Training Programs (CoPGTP) recommendations

By 2050, the US older adult population will have doubled to 83.7 million people from earlier in this century, and the workforce is woefully underprepared to meet the mental health needs of this population. Professional geropsychology has developed comprehensive geropsychology competencies for specialists. Generalists are unlikely to attain full specialty geropsychology competency, however, and there has been little guidance on what core knowledge is key for those who treat a small number of older adults, or how much training is needed. Based on a survey of geropsychology experts, this article presents recommendations for foundational knowledge competencies at the basic “Exposure” level of training for any psychologist who serves older adults along with recommendations for continuing education training time allocation.