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APA’s strategic planning effort took a sizable step forward last month when the Board of Trustees voted to endorse "work plans" to increase the effectiveness of APA’s governance structure, improve member recruitment and retention efforts, and ensure that the Association’s voice is heard in external arenas.
The Board also approved draft statements that describe APA’s vision, mission, values, and goals.
The vision statement was developed by the Task Force on Strategic Planning, chaired by past Assembly Speaker R. Dale Walker, M.D. It notes that APA "is an organization of psychiatrists working together to ensure humane care and effective treatment for all persons with mental illnesses, including substance use disorders. It is the voice and conscience of modern psychiatry. Its vision is a society that has available, accessible quality psychiatric diagnosis and treatment [as well as] prevention services."
The four-part mission statement points out that APA’s mission is to "promote the highest quality care for individuals with mental illness and substance use disorders and their families; promote psychiatric education and research; advance and represent the profession of psychiatry; and serve the professional needs of its membership."
A lengthy list of values that guide the Association was also endorsed by the Trustees:
The task force then used these statements of vision, mission, and values to arrive at seven goals toward which APA works. The goals are to promote the rights and best interest of patients and those who use or might use psychiatric services; to improve access to and quality of psychiatric services; to improve research into all aspects of mental illness, including causes, prevention, and treatment; to improve psychiatric education and training; to promote optimal conditions for practice and career satisfaction; to foster collaboration among all who are concerned with medical, psychological, sociocultural, and legal aspects of mental health and illness; and to improve the way APA functions in service of its mission.
Concerning its review of the structure and the effectiveness of APA’s governance system in representing members, the task force, on a schedule that takes it through July, plans with the help of a consultant to study several other models of association governance and then develop alternative recommendations for restructuring APA’s governance process. At a forum in April a work group of the task force will assess the alternative models according to "agreed-upon evaluation criteria" and then recommend a "preferred" alternative.
In the area of membership recruitment and retention, the agenda calls for a 10-member work group to examine dues; the value of membership to psychiatrists; special concerns of members-in-training, early career psychiatrists, and members of minority and underrepresented groups; and APA’s membership processing system. The task force plans to present recommendations in each of these areas to the Board in July.
The third issue the task force will scrutinize concerns APA’s involvement in external areas such as medical education, research, outreach to the general public, and relationships with corporate leaders and public policymakers. The Association has to play a role in all these arenas if it is to achieve its goals and fulfill its mission.
The task force’s work plan in this area involves ranking priorities and related goals, determining what resources will be devoted to them, and reassessing current APA activities to cull those with lower priorities whose resources can be allocated to the most pressing activities and initiatives.
Walker, who is also chair of the psychiatry department at Oregon Health Sciences University, emphasized that the smaller work groups assigned to study each area have broad representation from all levels of APA membership, from officers to general members. Once the work groups have completed their assignments, the task force will use their ideas to develop recommendations that Walker will bring for action by the Board and the Assembly.
"APA is at a critical time in which it’s important to reflect on our traditional organizational structure before we begin to implement new priorities for the Association and for mental health in general," Walker said. Psychiatrists need to understand the "value APA represents for its members." He added that one of the goals of this strategic planning effort is to take more effective steps to make members more aware of where the Association is going and what it is doing to respond to their concerns.
Walker invited members who have suggestions for the strategic planning process to forward them to him via the task force’s staff liaison, Claudia Hart, at 1000 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, Va. 22209-3901; phone (202) 682-6091; e-mail chart@psych.org.