About the CDP

Missions and Goals

Sites and Structure

Personnel

The Structure of the CDP

CDP Program Description (PDF)

The Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP) is designed to provide training to professionals throughout the United States. To best position personnel to accomplish this mission, the CDP is dispersed geographically. Designed using a “hub-and-spoke” framework, the CDP is headquartered at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, MD and has satellite sites at ten Military Medical Centers across the country. Each of these satellite sites houses a Deployment Behavioral Health Psychologist (DBHP), a specialist with training and expertise in deployment-related behavioral health issues and their treatment. The DBHPs will provide ongoing training and consultation to professionals and trainees at the Medical Centers, to the broader military behavioral health community and to civilian professionals who are providing care to military personnel and their families.

Programs at the CDP

The CDP conducts a series of training and education programs designed to prepare behavioral health professionals to address the deployment-related needs of military personnel and their families. The core training experience at the CDP is a 2-week long intensive course held jointly at the USUHS in Bethesda, MD and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in Washington, DC. CDP 2 Week Training - What We Do (PDF)

The CDP also conducts a series of seminars and workshops throughout the United States on topics pertinent to deployment psychology. These seminars aim to provide training for professionals who have not attended the intensive course as well as updated information to those who have. In addition to providing ongoing education to military professionals, these efforts are designed to train civilian psychologists/physicians/mental health workers in clinical care issues relevant to returning veterans and their family members. This program of seminars is designed to attract providers from across the nation and will attempt to target areas where military personnel and their families are unlikely to have ready access to military or veterans medical services.

Placing CDP personnel at sites across the United States provides the Center with resources to maximize our training and outreach efforts. CDP specialists will be available to provide ongoing training and supervision of military psychology interns and consultation to fellow professionals on deployment-related behavioral health care. In addition, these specialists also will work with community-based professionals and organizations to extend education and training opportunities into the civilian community.