Greetings from your student representatives

Welcome students to a new and exciting year! Please allow me to introduce myself. I am the section graduate student representative and am very pleased to have the opportunity to work with you this year! I am a graduate student at Oklahoma State University and a psychology pre-doctoral intern at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. My clinical interests include parenting and assessment and therapy in populations concerning child maltreatment and developmental disability. My current research activities include examination of the psychometric properties of inventories related to child maltreatment and intergenerational trajectories of parenting practices. Also, please allow me to extend a very warm welcome to Anna Westin, the incoming co-student representative. Anna is a psychology graduate student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her clinical interests include assessment, prevention, and intervention related to trauma and child maltreatment among low income families. Her research focuses on the promotion of positive youth adjustment among disadvantaged populations, with a particular emphasis on understanding how contextual variables influence the experience and response to stress and trauma. She is a great addition to the team and we are very excited to have her on board. Anna and I look forward to serving as student representatives for the section and collaborating with students who have interests in child maltreatment, assessment, prevention, and policy.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Kate Cuno, our previous section graduate student representative, whom I worked alongside last year as the co-student representative. I am grateful for the guidance, support, and leadership she provided during this past year. Kate demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities throughout her term as the section student representative, particularly in her active role in establishing the Student Advisory Board. I will do my best to uphold her standards this upcoming year. Kate’s next steps include completing her psychology pre-doctoral internship at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center this summer and obtaining a postdoctoral fellowship in the area of child maltreatment. I anticipate we will see more of Kate throughout the years, as she is highly committed to serving youth and families in the field of child maltreatment.

Increasing student membership remains a top priority for the section this year. The first year of membership is free; however benefits of membership do not end. Therefore, we encourage you to renew your application as soon as you can. There are many benefits to membership in the section, including dissertation award grants, poster presentation awards, involvement with the Section Student Advisory Board, all of which are wonderful additions to your CV. Specific goals of the Student Advisory Board are to increase student membership in the section, provide valuable resources for section members, and collaborate with students on tasks and activities that will promote and grow the section.

The Student Advisory Board consists of four positions held by Section student members including Diversity, Public Policy, Newsletter, and Communications. Anna Westin, the co-student representative and the Diversity Chairperson, is developing documents related to issues of diversity and maltreatment and plans to disseminate these through various outlets. She is also developing a fact sheet on Pacific-Rim cultures and child maltreatment with a goal to disseminate at the APA conference in Hawai'i. Katherine Stanford, with the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is our Public Policy Chairperson and in charge of developing fact sheets related to pending legislation and child advocacy resources and research for dissemination. Mallory Malkin, with the University of Southern Mississippi, is our Newsletter Chairperson and Sarah Kelly, with Wheaton College, is our Communications Chairperson. Mallory and Sarah plan to coordinate with the student representatives and the Section Executive Board to develop website and social media outlets for the section.

If you are interested in becoming involved with student activities within the section or with the Student Advisory Board, please email Brittany Reyes or Anna Westin.We would be thrilled to include you in our exciting student activities. We look forward to hearing from you!