Founded in 1977, the Association of Veteran Administration Chief Psychologists or AVACP (Now Association of Veteran Administration Psychologist Leaders or AVAPL), is an organization dedicated to the improvement of the care provided by the Veteran Administration (VA), to assist the psychologists working for the VA, and to better the situations of the veterans they serve. The AVAPL is a non-profit organization with a voluntary membership of psychologists with various leadership roles within the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA). It originally started out as the AVACP, but due to the fact that fewer service chiefs are employed today, the name was changed. The AVAPL is involved in many activities dealing with their members and with veteran health care. The AVAPL sponsors training for new psychologist leaders in the VA, participating in conferences to address what must be done to improve veteran health care, and the abilities of those psychologists involved in it.
From the guide to the Association of Veteran Administration Psychologist Leaders archives, 1977-2000, (Center for the History of Psychology)