Looking forward to seeing you in San Diego this March

As we enter the New Year, it is a time of both reflection on all we’ve accomplished in 2014 and anticipation for all 2015 has to offer. Last year was a great year for our division. We held a successful annual meeting in New Orleans, a great divisional program at APA in Washington, and had over 90 of our members volunteer to serve on committees and in other positions of service. Our student committee led the way in pushing us forward by disseminating information about our Division and our field via social media and through their monthly webinar series. Our website was re-designed and we improved both our membership management and email communication processes.

As we look ahead to 2015, we anticipate an exciting program for our annual meeting in San Diego in March and for our division at APA in Toronto in August. In addition, we are pleased to be a part of the International Conference on Psychology and Law to take place in conjunction with the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law and hosted by the European Association of Psychology and Law in Nuremberg, Germany from Aug. 4-7. 

We also look forward to further development of our website and additional means of engaging with our members in 2015. I have been working with a great group of individuals who have generously volunteered their time to assist in developing a communications strategy for the Division and we look forward to presenting an initial draft at our executive committee meeting in March. I invite you to attend the annual general meeting to find out more about these developments.

On the topic of our annual meeting, I’d like to thank Nancy Panza and Christina Finello, co-chairs for the 2015 meeting in San Diego, for their hard work in putting together a stellar program for this event. The final program will be released shortly so watch for that but initial highlights include keynotes by Dr. Lee Goldstein, Dr. Itiel Dror and Mr. John Philipsborn.

In addition to a great conference program, our continuing education committee, chaired by Karen Galin, has put together a great day of full-day and half-day workshops, which include: Kirk Heilbrun presenting on Quality Considerations in Conducting Juvenile Forensic Evaluations; Randy Otto presenting on Expert Testimony; Julian & Judith Ford presenting on Evidence-Based Trauma-Specific Services for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: Bringing the TARGET Model to Youth, Staff, and Key Stakeholders; Gerald Koocher presenting on Ethics in Forensic Practice; and Robert Cramer presenting on Core Competencies in Suicide Risk Assessment and Management: A Workshop for Psychological Professionals.

Please join us in San Diego on March 18 for these preconference workshops on from March 19–21 for a great annual meeting. I look forward to seeing you all there and wish you all the best for the new year.

Patty