President’s Letter: Volunteers Key to CPNP’s Success

Bob Haight, PharmD, BCPP—CPNP President

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Every year, the CPNP Board meets for a 1.5 day retreat with the goal to review progress of the past year and identify concrete goals for the coming year. Due to ongoing concerns related to COVID we elected to meet virtually on November 15 and 16. Our newly elected 2022-2024 Board members, Amy Werremeyer, Suzie Harris, and Andy Williams, started orientation on the morning of November 15th as they start the ground running in advance of their official Board terms starting July 1, 2022.

With an aggressive strategic plan, one of our primary focal points is on our CPNP volunteers including recruitment, ensuring meaningful volunteer experiences, recognition, and personal and professional growth. Another significant topic during the retreat was consideration of a leadership development program. The goal was to answer the question: What is our role in cultivating leadership for our CPNP Members? The Board invited several other CPNP members of various backgrounds and tenures in CPNP as well as Foundation representatives to participate and contribute to the discussion.

Ultimately, the group recommended CPNP develop a Leadership Development program and work with consultants to create programming and activities intended to further develop leadership competencies. The group prioritized the competencies of self-awareness/skill development, advocacy, and leading change/change management. Staff, consultants, and volunteers will be diving into this project in 2022 with the goal to have inaugural programs and activities launching in 2023.

Leadership development programming can be a large undertaking for a smaller association like CPNP. However, CPNP members are our workforce and investment in them as our current and future leaders is critical. For example, some of our recent successes were significantly impacted by strong member leaders as follows:

• Community: In early October, CPNP community leaders provided over 10 hours of peer-to-peer informational and educational sessions on topics ranging from Buprenorphine Initiation, to Cultivating DEI, to Resident and Student specific programming. Dozens also participated in the CPNP Foundation’s offering of Mental Health First Aid and a pilot residency showcase. A special thanks to our community leaders, the Resident and New Practitioner and Student Committees, and CPNP staffers Katie Brase and Greg Payne for contributing to and managing this extensive event (register for enduring access here).
• Legislative Advocacy: During the week of October 25^th, over 15 CPNP Members participated in virtual Hill visits with congressional leaders in Washington DC. Facilitated by Laura Hanen of District Policy Group, our Governmental Affairs Consultant, these meetings allowed us to educate key Representative and Senator offices on the roles of psychiatric pharmacists and how we can improve patient care.
• Education: In early November, over 300 members participated in our inaugural, virtual CPNP Summit. CPNP staff, Substance Use Disorder Committee members Ericka Crouse, Cassie Davis, Erika Titus-Lay, Sarah Melton (CPNP Board Treasurer), and Troy Moore, developed and launched a 2-day conference in less than 6 months. Attendees responded favorably finding significant value from the conference focus on the treatment of co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders. You can register for enduring access to 7.5 hours of ACPE and BCPP Recertification credit here.
• Regulatory Advocacy: Past Presidents Megan Ehret and Ray Love have led the charge, bringing together large, national association stakeholders to advocate to the FDA to change the new Clozapine REMS. In conjunction with Executive Director Brenda Schimenti, Megan and Ray have shared their expertise with their fellow CPNP members and tirelessly communicated our concerns to the FDA to ensure our patients are able to continue on clozapine during the transition to the new system.

Now my ask—Please volunteer for CPNP Standing Committees and Editorial Boards on or before Thursday, December 2. Additional information on opportunities and a link to the application can be found in the Volunteer Center under My CPNP. After all, to quote Helen Keller, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

Happy Holidays!