Greetings/Saludos,

Promoting the needs of psychologists in Independent Practice is a major goal of Division 42. As such, the members of your Advocacy Task Force (Jeff Barnett, Chair, Laura Barbanel, Jean Carter, Bonnie Markham, and myself) have been very busy working on a number of issues, activities, and initiatives. Our advocacy mission is to:

1. Develop an advocacy agenda for Division 42

2. Seek ways of pursing and supporting this advocacy agenda through all available means and resources

3. Seek active input from YOU in developing this advocacy agenda

4. Communicate actively with the members of Division 42

5. Work closely and actively with other advocacy groups to ensure that they aggressively support and pursue our shared advocacy goals

We are exploring several mechanisms to pursue our advocacy agenda. We are collaborating with the Committee for the Advancement of Professional Psychology (CAPP) and the American Psychological Association Practice Organization (APAPO) to further enable them to effectively carry out this advocacy agenda. We want to ensure that APAPO and CAPP hear our voice and thus, that they aggressively pursue an advocacy agenda consistent with the needs of Division 42 and its members.

To this effect, I am pleased to announce that I appointed Jean Carter — past Division 42 president — as our official liaison to both CAPP and to its Integration Work Group. With this renewed relationship, we continue to work on strengthening our Federal Advocacy and Public Education Coordinator roles.

In addition to appointing Jean to these two new advocacy roles I appointed Jeff Barnett as Division 42's representative to the planning committee for an advocacy summit sponsored by Division 55 (Psychopharmacology). Elaine Levine — Division 55 president— envisions bringing together leaders from the practice divisions and APA leaders for an advocacy summit in New Mexico. She hopes that the leaders share lessons learned from their successful pursuit of prescriptive authority and how they may impact an expanded advocacy agenda for APA divisions. Plans include briefings with New Mexico legislators who were helpful to them as well as other experts. The advocacy summit is tentatively scheduled for February 2007.

To further our advocacy needs, we are in the process of developing a Division 42 and AAP/PLAN collaboration. The idea is to join forces with key advocacy activity people from each state, province, and territory who share our common advocacy interests. I will have more specific information on this initiative following our Board meeting in August.

Please share with us your views on advocacy issues and needs. Tell us which issues are important to you and that you would like to see Division 42 work for support. As always, contact me about these and any other issues of concern to you at cultura@starpower.net. You may also contact Laura Barbanel at lbarbanel@earthlink.net or Jeff Barnett at drjbarnett1@comcast.net.

Gracias,

Lillian