Last April, despite all our hopes, APA made the difficult decision that the convention was going to be entirely virtual for the second year in a row, due to concerns about travel and increasing cases of the delta variant of COVID-19. The Div. 18 program was excellent, however. There were several symposia on the impact of COVID-19 on clinical practice and supervision, as well as several on ways to create diverse, supportive, and effective communities for healing. Other presentations addressed novel approaches to assessing and treating violence, interventions for people with serious mental illness, technological advances in the field, resilience and the ethical issues that can arise in public service work.
Our poster session was equally impressive, with topics ranging from sex offender treatment to law enforcement training and outcome, the impact of involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations to the effectiveness of peer support interventions. We thank all the presenters for their energy, commitment and dedication.
The SMI Section business meeting did experience some “Zoom-bombing,” something that has, unfortunately, become all too common in a virtual postpandemic world. But they were able to work things out and get back online quickly, and the program committee was able to enable features of Zoom to allow all who were interested to attend the remainder of the hospitality suite programs without disruption.
At the division business meeting, each of the sections, clusters and committees presented on the work they have been doing throughout the past year. There’s too much to go into detail here, but suffice it to say that things have been quite busy for all of them. If you are interested in joining a section or a committee, please don’t hesitate to contact me (Jennifer Snyder) or our president, Tiffanie Fennell, and we will help connect you. Tiffanie.Fennell@va.gov
The division continues to do well financially, in large part due to the strong success of our journal, Psychological Services. This year, we began the search for a new editor-in-chief to take over from Pat Deleon, whose support and oversight of the journal has been crucial to its growth and influence today. We also fully funded our APF fund, and will be providing information soon on how to apply for those funds to support research and training activities.
Congratulations to our division and section award winners, who were recognized for early career achievements as well as distinguished career service. In addition, Deleon became the first recipient of the President’s Award for Distinguished Service to the Division, in recognition of his outstanding editorship of Psychological Services.
Despite the disappointment of not being able to meet in person this year, division leadership and membership joined forces to put on a truly memorable convention, full of engaging and relevant programming. And be on the lookout for the call for papers for next year in Minneapolis. I am sure that our Program Chairs Kate Morris and Melisa Rempfer are already working hard to plan for an outstanding convention.