Sarah Ward, PharmD, BCPP
Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in Mental Health
VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System - Chattanooga
Consumer Relations Committee
The CPNP Consumer Relations Committee is highlighting the volunteer activities of CPNP members to increase awareness of these activities and to provide insight and guidance to other CPNP members that may be interested in getting involved in volunteer activities in the future. This month, CPNP would like to highlight the volunteer efforts of Lindsey Kennedy.
Lindsey Kennedy is a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist with University of North Carolina (UNC) Health Care. She is also the UNC PGY2 Psychiatric Residency Program Director and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at UNC. She is an active member in the community through the Friends of Lakewood Elementary Parent Teacher Association (PTA). She was one of the founding members for this PTA organization, which is only 3 years old, and has served as President for multiple years. She notes that creating the PTA was challenging, but rewarding as it has helped provide much needed support for the teachers and parents when dealing with the school administration.
With the PTA she has been able to meet with the kindergarten classes 2 to 3 times per year and teach them mindfulness techniques. This interest first started with teaching her children mindfulness and realized this could be taught to other children at their school. Her hope is to expand these teachings to other grade levels and the parents. She noticed during her time with the students that the teachers were learning and interested, so she hopes to earn funding to train the teachers too. She states it is always nice when the children will remember her when they see her at other events. She is known as the “Starfish Hand” lady to some of the children as this is one of the mindfulness techniques she teaches.
In addition to teaching mindfulness, she participates in the school’s science night every year. She has pharmacy students join her for this event. Some previous presentations have included antacid tests, pills versus candies, and Smarties solutions. This has been a great way to demonstrate pharmacists outside the traditional role that most people are familiar with. Besides spreading information about mental health and pharmacy, she has also realized she has a talent for face painting which she does at the PTA booth during school events.
For those CPNP members that would like to get more involved in the community, she encourages you to think outside of the box! Being involved with your local school’s PTA is a great way to promote and advocate for mental health and the profession of pharmacy. This also shows that pharmacists are knowledgeable about more than just medications.