Attendance
Present in person: Jennifer Kaminski, Jenelle Shanley, Amy Damashek, Anita Thomas, Vanessa Hara, Christy Olezeski, Paula Fite, Christina Rodriguez
By phone: Mindy Willing, Mirian Ofonedu, Sonia Rubens, Jill McLeigh, Mary Ann McCabe
The 2017 Convention Meeting minutes were approved.
Reports
Jennifer Kaminski, President 2018
Presidential theme: Connecting members. Jen wants to focus on getting members talking and collaborating. She emailed members about upcoming conferences attending/presentations to connect members (members opt in and agree to have info shared). Jen heard from a few members. Jen will send one more inquiry out.
Sonia Rubens, MAL: Communications & Technology 2018-2020
A communications committee was suggested to support Sonia. Ideas include: Twitter dialogue, private Facebook group for students to post/discuss, Zoom meetings. Posting ideas: APA convention, other conference presentations, Advocate, internet search of fellows and members to promote everyone’s work, cross posting info from Advocate, Mary Ann suggested posting information from the National Academies Forum on Promoting Children’s Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Health
Due to limited resources, Jen suggested leaving ‘non-members’ on the Listserv. The pros and cons of this option were discussed. Jen will continue to brainstorm ideas on how to make the cross-check of membership versus Listserv registries process more efficient. Anita suggested reaching out to members to confirm who is receiving/accessing our emails/Listserv.
Process of updating website is more a smooth and efficient process with APA office. About once a month Sonia receives emails from people to post their “resources” on our website. She screens them for appropriateness and compliance with APA rules. Link to Listserv on website is not clear how to access or promote on main page. Advocate on the website requires a different format that the PDF to promote web searching of the content.
Mirian Ofonedu, Program Chair
Social hour is Thursday 6pm to 7pm. ECP Social Hour is Friday 6pm to 8pm. Walk-a-mile session will give insight into what it is like for families to find treatment and assessment. Div. 52 has offered to use space for international mentoring meeting.
Anita Thomas, Past President 2018
The board considered and voted on nominations for the Hobbs and Lifetime Awards, and no nominations were received for Distinguished Contribution. The board approved the Diane Willis Award Committee’s recommendation for the recipient.
Anita put forth a list of candidates for each of the following elected positions for 2019: two candidates for president-elect and two candidates for member-at-large for Task Force and Diversity Initiatives. The Board approved the slate of candidates.
Vanessa Hara, Student Representative 2018
Vanessa has been engaging students in the board to keep them involved. Many are interested. This could increase student membership. Student board has four members. Ideas: student-oriented lunchtime chats; connecting with students at various universities, child programs and related programs to facilitate interest; send letters to “student ambassadors” following conference; student brochure focused on opportunities and experiences available. Christina suggested soliciting current and past student members’ involvement and experiences with the division (testimonials). Sonia encouraged involvement of students in social media. Also suggested: student editorial opportunity with Advocate.
Joaquin Borrego, MAL: Task Force Coordinator & Diversity Activities 2016-2018
Joaquin has been working with liaisons with other groups. Paula suggested that Mindy could include in her discussion with new members what other divisions they are a part of to seek out potential liaisons.
Mary Ann McCabe, Representative to APA Council 2017-2019
Mary Ann provided highlights of the upcoming (March) meeting of the APA Council of Representatives. Among the items to be discussed was transparency of discussions and votes (record them and post on website for members to see/review) — Mary Ann plans to vote in favor since she represents members. Another item concerned APA clinical practice guidelines best standards/practices for specific conditions, which are typically done through systematic review (“gold standard”). APA recently completed one guideline for post-traumatic stress disorder. Debate was anticipated because some common treatment approaches are not well supported due to insufficient research. Another critical item concerned the recent proposal for recommendations about students graduating with a master’s level degree in psychology. Proposal was coming to Council for APA to develop accreditation process, which would come back to Council for approval. Finally, Council will be voting on a workgroup to examine a governance structure to expand the American Psychological Association’s advocacy efforts, integrating APA’s 501(c)6 and 501(c)3 advocacy work. Christina sent a link to the board email showing how this change will likely expand our advocacy opportunities.
Christina Rodriguez, MAL: Advocacy Coordinator 2017-2019
Christina is working to bring in people to create materials for tool kits for advocacy issues (how to engage in local advocacy). Christina has many potential collaborators in mind to get the membership involved. Jen suggested that Christina talk about her article points in one of the potential lunch discussions.
Amy Damashek, President-Elect 2018
Amy is considering submitting a CODAPAR grant and considering advocacy training for graduate students. Another option would be to advance the success of infoaboutkids.org website dissemination.
Christy Olezeski, Member-at-Large: Early Career Psychologists 2017-2019
Proposed activity: Closing Gaps in Child Abuse Reporting and Training on College Campuses. An ECP member did an SRCD fellowship and is proposing in a document (and ECP committee supporting) that members on campus should be mandated reporters. Looking for support from the Div. 37 Board and then will look for a senate lead.
Paula Fite, Treasurer 2018-2020
Provided overview of budget. Trend every year recently is that we lose members — we need to budget for this fact. Most expensive item: mid-winter meeting. The budget was approved by the board.
Mindy Willing, Membership Chair
Mindy is very new to the position. She will learn theprocesses of how students (first year and renewal), ECPS (first and renewal), members and non-members of APA to sign up/register. Membership to dos: How do we reach out to new groups and solicit new members? Need to track year- to-year renewals.
Lisa Gennetian, Advances in Child and Family Policy and Practice
Send Lisa any potential authors for her list of suggested topics.
Jill McLeigh, Advocate Editor
Jen suggested having an “associate editor” to help ensure it is web ready and to have someone ready to step up as editor after the end of a term.