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APA Division 50 Programming Update

SoAP Box: 
APA Meeting Announcements

Summer 2020

Susan Collins, PhD & Megan Kirouac, PhD

APA Division 50 Programming Update
Susan Collins & Megan Kirouac
SoAP (Division 50) Co-Chairs
2020 APA Convention

Hello fellow SoAP Members,

We recognize it has been a challenging time for so many in our Division 50 Community. We know that you are working hard to support your colleagues, friends, families, students, clients, patients and communities as you navigate both the centuries-long pandemic of anti-Black racism and the months-long pandemic of COVID-19. Thank you for all that you do.

For our part as APA 2020 Convention Program Committee Co-Chairs, we acknowledge we must do more to ensure our programming:

  • Sheds light on the systemic racism inherent in US drug policy and its vast and indelible harm to Black, Indigenous and other Communities of Color.
  • Acknowledges that we, through our roles within interlocking institutions of oppression – academic, research and treatment systems—have been complicit in this marginalization, violence and mass incarceration, and
  • Reflects the important work being done by and in Communities of Color and other marginalized communities.

In collaboration with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, we are doing our part to build positive, systemic changes into our committee’s processes. First, we have requested that APA’s Board of Convention Affairs instate programming review criteria that positively weights diversity, equity and inclusiveness in program submissions. Second, we have ensured that this year’s Program Committee Awards highlight the work being done by students and early career psychologists of color. Third, we are working with the DEI Committee to hone and manualize our committee’s processes to ensure our division’s APA Convention content serves as a platform for work being done by and in communities of color and other marginalized communities affected by substance-related harm.

This year’s virtual programming includes divisional and collaborative symposia, posters, and skill-building sessions that are moving towards these principles. We will be elevating SoAP’s 2020 theme, “50 Years of Harm Reduction: Past, Present and Future,” and highlighting APA and Division 50 priorities, including early career and student contributions, diversity and inclusion, collaboration across divisions, and APA’s focus on “Deep Poverty.”

That’s right, the APA 2020 Convention has gone virtual!

Paraphrasing APA President, Dr. Sandy Shullman, we view this as an opportunity, not a consolation prize. Our content will be more accessible than ever. The registration fees have been lowered by 85% ($50 for members, $15 for student members). All APA programming may be viewed on-demand for a year, meaning even more exposure for the important work you all have been conducting. Convention program content will begin streaming at 12pm ET on Thursday, August 6. We will be in touch through the listserv and on the SoAP website to provide links to up-to-date convention information and material.

So, what’s in store at the APA 2020 Virtual Convention?

  • See your colleagues and support students and early career folx at our Big Live Event!

The Early Career Investigators Poster Session and Social Hours will be hosted live on Zoom by Dr. Bettina Hoeppner (sponsored through her R13 from NIDA and NIAAA). It will feature a welcome from Division 28 and 50 presidents, acknowledgment of our division’s award winners, poster presentations, and live presenter/audience Q&A. Mark your calendars and join us on Friday, August 7th from 4-6pm ET!

  • View on-demand Division 50 symposia and posters that amplify the lived experience of people who use substances, inclusive harm-reduction strategies, and interventions in diverse populations, including:
    • Deconstructing “Treatment”: Importance of harm reduction in criminal justice reform
    • Paradigm shift: Research on the introduction of harm reduction into diverse settings and populations
    • The traditional gender-role hypothesis: Alcohol use and other health risk behaviors among Latinas
    • Mobile assessment and intervention in addiction: Recent advances (sponsored by Division 28)
    • E-cigarette use among youth: An examination of behaviors, motives and policies
    • Ethical considerations of court-ordered treatment
    • Advances in substance use disorder research: Comorbidity and its underestimated implications
    • An update on alcohol use disorder: From etiology to treatment
  • Brush up your clinical skills with harm-reduction trainings
    • User-driven harm reduction 101: Naloxone, clean works and safer-use strategies
    • Loving people who love alcohol and drugs: Harm reduction psychotherapy for family, friends and community
    • Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy: Bringing relational, psychodynamic, cognitive, behavioral and mindfulness strategies together in a harm-reduction frame
  • Cross-cutting Collaborative Symposia for the main APA program:
    • Harm reduction or harm induction? Exploring the current research on e-cigarettes and vaping
    • Diverse translational perspectives in the development of opioid and substance use disorders
    • The past, present and future of NIH sex as a biological variable policy
    • A push and a nudge: Leveraging behavioral economics to improve scientific health

We hope to see you virtually in August! Until then, we wish you and your communities strength, healing and wellness.

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