Attending via video: Earl Turner, Rick Short, Tom Gross, Liz Gershoff, Christina Rodriguez, Mel Schneiderman, Neko Milton, Amy Damashek, Sonia Rubens, Mary Ann McCabe, Spencer Evans, Paula Fite, Mirian Ofonedu, Jen Woolard
Review and approval of Midwinter Meeting Minutes
Minutes from the Midwinter Meeting were reviewed. It was noted that the discussion of creating social media videos was missing and needed to be added. Paula moved to approve as amended, Amy seconded, motion to approve passed.
President’s update
Earl provide a summary of prior strategic plan discussions and identified key highlights. He reviewed the APA convention collaborative session on Advocacy to Promote Social and Emotional Development on Youth, offered as a live webinar on August 8. The webinar on Mental Health Among Black Boys is planned for August or September. Earl is coordinating with other potential organizations for participation on the initiative related to suicide awareness. He asked board members to email him with suggestions. The virtual panel discussion plans to highlight concerns in different communities, research funding, and prevention.
Earl led a discussion about liaisons to other APA divisions, including Div. 53. Board members noted that the activity of liaison positions has waxed and waned over the years; activity and information sharing occurred more often when members of our division Executive Board also served as members of other division boards.
The board discussed the social media campaign designed to promote knowledge about board members’ work, the division, and psychological science through short videos. None have yet been created so Earl offered example scripts for audio or recording videos and encouraged board members to commit to recording their entries.
Advocacy update
Mel described a two-pronged approach to his initiative to end the use of corporal punishment. He and Liz Gershoff met to develop a plan for advocacy efforts, including some discussion with APA staff. Mel described an overall effort to partner with advocacy groups, state psychological associations, other APA Divisions to advocate for eliminating corporal punishment. He hopes to apply for a CODAPAR grant to support the collaboration and a congressional briefing in spring 2021. He also described “No Hit Zones” and the potential to help professionals learn how to implement them in the community.
Social media and communications
Sonia gave an overview of the website activity and analytics included in her report, which indicates the number of unique visits has increased compared to similar time periods in 2018 and 2019. Efforts include updating and modifying the home and resource pages, and expanded the site to include pages for the DREAM SIG and the Presidential Task Force. The board discussed our listservs, with an increase in the division and student listserv membership. The student listserv remains relatively dormant, and the board discussed the pros and cons of maintaining that listserv or merging it for a single division-wide listserv. Spencer reviewed the division’s social media accounts, which have seen overall increases in engagement. It appears that tweets and images are more successful than Facebook in attracting new followers. He noted that the past six months have been particularly good in accelerating engagement, in part likely due to the number of new events and greater activity and engagement with other content. Spencer noted that Earl has been particularly active on social media through his own account and the presidential twitter account; his activity has raised the profile of the division social media presence. Spencer asked that board members connect their own social media accounts with division accounts and to contact him with ideas for material to post.
Membership update
Current membership is 840, a net increase of 21 percent over last year. More detail about strategies and possible effects are provided in the membership report. Discussion ensued about membership and strategies for identifying and retaining new members. These include having email text that can be used by board members, in addition to other advertising materials (e.g., brochure, flyers); increasing activity on the listserv and social media about activities and events (e.g. virtual meetups at conferences). It is important to remember that the listserv is not the same as the membership list; some members are not listserv members, and some listserv members do not belong to the division.
Treasurer’s report
Paula reviewed our current budget status, noting that expenses for the midwinter meeting were higher than expected, likely because several people had to spend an extra night to attend a meeting on the west coast. That overage does not really cause problems because other expenses will be lower due to the pandemic and a virtual APA convention (so no in-person expenses for this meeting, for example). Our balance looks good even though we have a small net loss this year.
Awards and elections
Amy recapped the awards that were announced at APA convention (see report for details). Winners of the Hobbs award (Barbara Fiese), Child Advocacy Award (Bill Beardslee), and Early Career Award (Amber Hewitt) each presented during our awards ceremony. Board members spoke highly of the symposium and noted there was quite good attendance at the talks.
Amy described meeting with Sonia and Lisa to discuss dissemination and promotion of new Advances issue. An email was supposed to go out to members for the most recent issue but did not. Jen Woolard indicated that was her fault and that information will go out about it to members. The board discussed the Citizen Psychologist Award program and the search for co-sponsors for the planned webinar with Maureen Kenny, last year’s winner. Amy noted the Officer’s Manual should be updated to include the award activities in the schedule and past president’s list of responsibilities.
Council representative
Mary Ann reported on activities from the August APA Council of Representatives meetings (see summary in her report). She noted that recommendations regarding restructuring of council is expected this fall and discussed potential implications. Her report provides detail on the National Academies forum, which our division helps sponsor. Activities this year include workshops related to the NAS report on adolescence. A virtual workshop on anti-racism and well-being is planned for the fall.
Advances
The board discussed the recent Advances issue on foster care and several issues in process and planned, as well as the inquiry by authors of the youth suicide volume for financial support to defray open access fee costs. Lisa has submitted her resignation as Advances editor effective July 21 so the board will need to recruit a new editor. Discussion ensued.
MAL task forces and diversity
Mirian described the successful launch of the Diverse, Racial, Ethnic and Multicultural Special Interest Group (DREAM SIG) in June with a webinar on policy impacts of COVID 10 on children and families, featuring Anita Thomas. The SIG has 50 new members. The SIG created a resources list of anti-racism resources for parents and professionals that is available on the division website. The SIG’s APA convention meeting featured a discussion with Mr. L-Mani S. Viney about best practices for partnerships and collaborations between researchers and communities. Over 100 people registered for the virtual version of the Walk-a-Mile session this year, which focused on the experiences of immigrant families. The session included an expert panel discussion and then case scenarios discussion.
President-elect
Liz described her meeting with Mel and folks from APA about ideas for advocating about the prevention of violence against children. Ideas include a congressional briefing, working with state/local advocates and psychology associations, and promoting No Hit Zones. She has worked with Tom Gross, who agreed to chair the division’s APA programming for a second year, to identify four themes: Prevention of violence against children, parenting in a pandemic, innovations in child and family practice, and interconnections among practice, policy, and research.
The board discussed the role of graduate student representative and when/how that could be implemented. Discussion also focused on liaison positions to other divisions, their purpose and activity, and ideas moving forward.
Decisions about whether the midwinter meeting will be virtual (likely) will be made by December.
Student board update
Neko discussed plans for a virtual policy panel later this year with student representatives from Divisions 53 and 54. He has been in contact with members of the student board regarding this event and the role of the board more generally.
Section on Child Maltreatment
Stephanie described efforts for continued membership growth and engagement of section members, including the dissemination of information in the newsletters. The section has voted to add a mid-career award to the annual awards (see report for award description), which were announced at the division’s awards ceremony during convention.