By Cynthia Kirkwood, CPNP Foundation President
When November hits, so do cooler days and anticipation start to build for the wonderful holidays that are just around the corner. It is a time of anticipation of seeing family and friends, and a time to count the many blessings in our lives.
It is also a time to realize how fortunate we are to have CPNP as an organization that supports our future psychiatric pharmacists and us in our professional endeavors as psychiatric pharmacists as we serve those who are living with psychiatric, neurologic, and/or substance use disorders. CPNP is there for each of us for a quick consult on a difficult clinical case, offering quality recertification training, representing us in coalitions and on the Hill, helping to develop our students through student chapters, serving as a hub for jobs or residency positions, and offering us networking and peer to peer exchange through communities and our annual spring conference.
As the philanthropic arm of CPNP, the CPNP Foundation is proud to lend our support, funding trainees and practitioners through student registration/travel grants and research grants and offering and subsidizing the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Training at the Annual Meeting. For CPNP 2020, the foundation is pleased to be able to increase the number of student travel grants up to 25 and to offer MHFA for the third consecutive year. Our theme for 2020 is Why Care?, a public message campaign developed by our partners at NAMI. During CPNP 2020 we will be showing how we care by sharing this message and supporting the assembly of toiletry kits to help the Dallas homeless. We, of course, need your help to provide all of these services and ask that you please support the goal to reach the $40,000!
It has been my distinct privilege to serve as president of the Foundation for the past two years. The members of the Foundation board are a truly dedicated, hard-working group of individuals. I extend my sincere gratitude to staffers Katie Brase for her extraordinary organizational skills and to Brenda Schimenti for her exceptional guidance as our Executive Director. In January 2020, Michael McGuire will become the next CPNP Foundation President.
Remember to think of CPNP Foundation as you consider your end of year giving. Thank you.