The Summer Treatment Program SIG Updates

The Summer Treatment Program SIG Updates

By Katie Hart, PhD & Sarah Tannenbaum, PsyD, ABPP
Co-Chairs, STP SIG

Summer is coming! Summer Treatment Programs (STPs) across the country are busy planning, recruiting, and coordinating efforts for this year’s programming. If you would like to learn more and connect with those involved in these preparations, we invite you to join us!

The end of 2025 and start of 2026 were very productive for our SIG. During the ADHD SIG pre-conference meeting at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) in November in New Orleans, we held our annual meeting of STP directors and those interested in STPs. Our discussions focused on the development of a centralized website for STPs where programs can register, gaining access to important programming resources, updates on new STP innovations, and connecting with other programs. We also explored possible research collaborations and agreed that a quarterly call would be ideal to maintaining support and connection throughout the year.

During a clinical roundtable at the conference, six current and former STP directors (Alexa Matlack, University of Washington, Camp APEX; Gregory Fabiano, FIU Center for Children and Families, Western New York; Katie Hart, FIU Center for Children and Families, Miami; Kelli Lupas, Cincinnati Children’s; Leah Guterman-Sugarman, formerly Child Mind Institute; and Vasco Lopes, formerly Child Mind Institute) shared their perspectives on navigating accessibility, cultural adaptations, and fidelity in the Summer Treatment Program. Collectively, these directors shared lessons learned from more than 40 summers of implementation and impact. Thank you again to Emi Carpenter, doctoral student at Rutgers, who organized!

Kicking off 2026, we held our inaugural STP SIG Quarterly Support Call on February 6th, with 18 members and STP administrators in attendance. The discussion focused on sustaining STPs year to year, and attendees were encouraged to share resources with one another for building strong financial portfolios to create long-term success. STP developers alongside Dr. Pelham, Beth Gnagy and Andrew Greiner, shared their goal of creating a guide for STP adaptations, as well as their insights on barriers and facilitators to implementation on over 35 years of STP experience. It was determined that the FIU STP, serving as a central STP home and home to STP developers, will be responsible for developing and regularly updating their website to include a database of STP locations across the country and globally, along with other important STP resources and updates. A survey will be distributed this spring for programs to register their STP – so stay tuned! If you or members of your team are interested in joining our next call on May 8th from 3:30-5:00pm EST, please contact Kat Hart at (khart@fiu.edu).

Also coming up in 2026, we will gather for our annual SIG meeting as part of the ADHD SIG pre-conference convening at ABCT during the 2026 conference in Baltimore, Maryland. We hope you can join us there!

For those of you interested in joining, the primary goal of the STP SIG is to provide a professional forum that supports clinicians, researchers, students/trainees, and administrators in the successful implementation of STPs. We invite you to join our listserv and share emerging or promising practices and interventions that can enhance the STP by increasing access, promoting equity, increasing diversity, improving training practices for the next generation of child mental health practitioners, and incorporating more family and stakeholder feedback and voice into intervention strategies.

As we have said before, an STP takes a village, and we are here for you! Please join us in connecting with colleagues around the world through this program that has changed our lives and so many others. We welcome all your feedback, questions, comments, and insights about STPs. Let’s keep STPs and Dr. Pelham’s legacy going!