My presidential year has been filled with fun, productive and rewarding work; it is hard to believe that the year is almost over and that this is my final president's column. I had a chance to reflect on the year at the APA convention last month. It was a great opportunity to spend time with the SPP Board of Directors, to recognize the Society's award winners, acknowledge service to the society, and to inform the membership about the current activities of the society. In this column, I will summarize a few updates from these convention activities.

SPP Executive Board recognition

At APA, we recognized the outstanding service of our outgoing Board members including Amy Lewandowski Holley (2012 APA program chair), Gerry Koocher (past-president), Annette La Greca (APA council representative), Christina Duncan (secretary, two terms), Celia Lescano (member at large, diversity), Paul Robins (member at large, student/trainee development), Christopher Cushing (student representative), Lindsey Cohen (list manager, three terms), and Denny Drotar (JPP editor). Two board members are completing terms but returning in a new capacity to the board in 2013: Dave Janicke finishes as newsletter editor and will join the board as member at large for student/trainee development and Michael Roberts completes his term as historian and joins the board as APA council representative. Heather Yardley will stay on for another term as webmaster. I want to extend a special thank you to the 2012 SPP Board of Directors for their hard work this year — I could not have asked for more exceptional people to have spent the year working with.

2012 SPP Board of Directors, left to right back row: Christopher Cushing, Heather Yardley, Gerry Koocher, Ann McGrath Davis, David Elkin, Ric Steele, Christina Duncan front row: Paul Robins, Amy Lewandowski Holley, Celia Lescano, Annette La Greca, Tonya Palermo, Mike Rapoff, Dave Janicke. Not pictured: Grayson Holmbeck, Michael Roberts

SPP awards

At the SPP Awards and Business meeting, we honored this year’s award winners including the many students who have won travel and research awards from the Society, and the professionals who won awards including Meg Zeller, winner of the Logan Wright Distinguished Research Award, Ric Steele, winner of the Martin P. Levin Mentorship Award, and Laura Simons, winner of the Routh Early Career Award. Ric Steele and Laura Simons presented outstanding award addresses about experiences with mentorship and as an early career professional in SPP, respectively. We also conferred three newly elected Division 54 Fellows: Terry Stancin, Lori Crosby, and Beth McQuaid. Last, Christopher Cushing (Student Representative) accepted the APAGS-DSRN Outstanding Division Award for 2012 (recognizing a division that demonstrates an exemplary level of commitment to providing opportunities for graduate student development) on behalf of SPP. Congratulations to all of these talented individuals!

New vision and mission statements

In my updates to the membership about the state of the society, I showed SPP’s new mission and vision statements that were approved earlier in the year. Our mission statement is, The Society aims to promote the health and psychological well being of children, youth and their families through science and an evidencebased approach to practice, education, training, advocacy, and consultation. Our vision statement is: “Healthier children, youth, and families.” The work on redefining our mission statement has been important for guiding the Board this year in selecting goals and objectives that align with our core purpose.

SPP finances

At our business meeting, David Elkin, SPP treasurer, gave a financial overview and reviewed our long-term financial goals. We discussed with the membership the benefits of a small dues increase to allow the division to continue to move forward with new initiatives. Division members voted to approve a staggered dues increase that will increase regular membership dues by $5 in 2013 and in 2016. There will be no change in students’ dues. This dues increase will enable SPP to focus efforts and resources on carrying out our strategic plan.

New journal

We have made significant progress on several new initiatives this year. During the APA convention, we had an opportunity to meet with APA journals and our incoming editors (Jennifer Shroff Pendley and Doug Tynan) for the new Division 54 journal, Clinical Practice in Pediatric Psychology. We are all excited for the launch of the journal this fall. See update from the editors in this issue of Progress Notes.

Advancing education, enhancing resources

In line with our objective to advance and support education in pediatric psychology through a yearly national conference, Michael Roberts and Ric Steele (conference co-chairs) have been planning the national conference that will take place April 11-13, 2013, in New Orleans and it looks like it will be another outstanding program. In her new position as 2014 National Conference Program Chair, Lisa Schwartz is already working closely with the Board on plans for the 2014 conference, and the Board is considering how best to organize and carry out a yearly national conference for our membership.

To enhance focus on evidence-based practice and extend the value of our Division 54 website to members, the Committee on Science and Practice made tremendous progress on an evidence-based practice resource library this year. We completed our first two projects (fact sheets and assessment resource sheets) with the contributions of many Division 54 members. The committee will continue developing new resources over the coming year and plan to involve the SIGs in this effort.

My presidential address at APA focused on interprofessional collaboration and implications for training pediatric psychologists. The area of education and training during a time of evolving health care system changes has been on my mind. In particular, I am concerned that pediatric psychology has not yet kept pace with the paradigm shift in professional psychology and in health professional education and training toward developing core professional competencies as a basis for defining and measuring learning outcomes.

During our Executive Committee meeting, I commissioned a task force in the area of training in pediatric psychology called the Task Force on Competencies and Best Training Practices in Pediatric Psychology. This task force will be chaired by Dave Janicke and myself, and we are joined by an excellent group representing different levels of pediatric psychology education and training including Larry Mullins, David Elkin, Beth McQuaid, Paul Robins and Yelena Wu. Our charge is to address the need for contemporary training guidelines in pediatric psychology, and specifically the establishment of core competencies in pediatric psychology. We will keep the membership updated as we begin this work.

Liaisons and SIGs

At the Executive committee meeting, the Board of Directors reviewed reports from all of our liaisons to various committees within and outside of APA. I want to take a moment to thank each of these individuals for the important representation that each of them provide to the society. We also discussed the tremendous growth of SIGs (we now have 14 SIGs). In her role as member at large for membership, Ann Davis will be working with the SIG chairs to develop policies that can provide additional guidance for their important efforts. We also had a chance to review updates from all of the SIGs, which confirmed the incredible breadth of work being done by these members. The Board will be continuing to think about ways to collaborate with SIGs and to share resources with our membership.

New SPP board members

In closing, I would like to welcome new members to the SPP Board of Directors. The following individuals begin terms of service in January 2013: Jennifer Lee (student representative), Anne Kazak (historian), Avani Modi (secretary), Anna Maria Patino-Fernandez (member at large, diversity), Susanna Patton (2013 APA program chair), Lisa Schwartz (2014 national conference program chair), Laura Simons (newsletter editor), and Tim Wysocki (president-elect). As we near the end of 2012, I look forward to continuing to work with the board as I transition into the past-president role. It has been an honor and privilege to serve the membership this year. I extend a warm welcome to Mike Rapoff as he steps into the presidential shoes in January.