Forensic psychology opportunities in Canadian graduate programs: An update of Simourd and Wormith's (1995) survey.

Forensic psychology has gained momentum in North America in recent decades, and Canadian psychologists have made considerable contributions to the field. Strong student interest and a high demand for professionals, however, have not been sufficiently matched with the availability of formal forensic psychology graduate training, nor with sufficient scholarly discussion of this issue. The purpose of the current study was to update Simourd and Wormith's (1995) survey of forensic psychology training available in Canadian psychology graduate programs. Of the 39 universities with psychology graduate programs, 36 (92%) responded to the survey. Twenty-four universities (67%) offered some forensic opportunities for students, although there was considerable variability in the number of courses, students, and faculty members in the forensic psychology programs. Since Simourd and Wormith's (1995) survey, forensic training is available at 10 new universities. Of the 14 programs with forensic psychology content in 1995 and in the current study, however, more than half of them reported a decrease in the number of faculty and students working with forensic issues. Considering the continued demand for trained forensic psychologists in applied settings, further attention to the availability of both education and training in forensic psychology is therefore still needed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)