By Chris Thomas, AAPP Foundation President
It was so great to see so many colleagues, donors, and Legacy Partners in Atlanta for the AAPP 2023 Annual Meeting. Thank you to everyone who stopped by the Foundation Booth, to everyone who financially supported student registration grants. With your donations, 28 students received financial support to attend what we all know to be the premier national conference on psychiatric pharmacotherapy.
Do you remember your first AAPP Annual Meeting? In the small, albeit growing world of psychiatric pharmacy, the experience is more like a family reunion. Friends, colleagues, residency programs, community groups, and others meet for three and a half days to focus on our profession, our patients, and our “why”.
At the 2023 Annual Meeting, the Foundation was especially proud to live the “why” by supporting the “Stories Among Us: Lived Experiences with Mental Illness” session. Moderator Kelly Gable, PharmD, BCPP, Professor and Director of Well-being and Resilience, SIUE School of Pharmacy, Edwardsville, IL, led attendees through an emotional, thought-provoking, and deeply personal session where four individuals shared their personal experiences with mental health. For some of the presenters, it was the first time they bravely shared their story publicly. To round out the session, the AAPP Foundation sponsored a 20’ wide by 8’ tall display to showcase the additional mental health stories that were shared by AAPP friends, colleagues, and peers. AAPP Foundation is proud to help reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness and to support an opportunity for attendees to share their lived experiences in a safe space.
The AAPP Foundation additionally and proudly sponsored the session, “Understanding the Unique Mental Health Needs of the Refugee Population,” presented by Arash Javanbakht, MD, at AAPP 2023 and hosted displays for 5 Foundation grant-funded research posters! Congratulations to our grant recipients and thanks again to the donors that make these grants possible.
We plan to continue to support these impactful kinds of initiatives. To make that happen, we need your support! Please consider a financial gift to help us continue to put mental health at the forefront of our conversations alongside all of the great work we do as a Foundation and with our partners at AAPP.
Not just looking back but looking forward, AAPP Foundation activities and grants are in full swing. Applications are currently being accepted for Defining the Future Research Grants (due 8/31) and Collegiate Chapter Impact Grants (due 9/28). We are also pleased to be part of The AAPP Outcomes Initiative, a large-scale grant program intended to fund research to generate high-quality large sample size (n) data sets that evaluate the impact of integrating psychiatric pharmacists into team-based mental health care in studies with multiple research sites and investigators. The RFP is now live and seeks to fund two high quality multi-site research proposals, each with a maximum budget of $250,000! We strongly encourage all interested parties to attend the open question and answer (Q&A) session on July 20 at 11AM Central.
In addition to multiple grant offerings, we are currently fundraising to support continued student grants for the AAPP 2024 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida. Students are incredibly grateful for the support of these grants which provide them with a look into a future as psychiatric pharmacists. We encourage you to give today to continue to support the future of the profession.
Finally, in the next few months, we will be kicking off our Annual Giving campaign. Any contribution that you can make, whether a financial donation or simply sharing our posts and messages with others, is appreciated. The Foundation is supporting more high-level initiatives than ever before, and we appreciate your continued support to do so.