President’s Column

Building Momentum: A Mid-Year Report

President’s Column

Building Momentum: A Mid-Year Report

By Adam B. Lewin, PhD, ABPP

When I wrote to you this spring, I offered a defining standard for everything SCCAP does: does it help someone do their job better, make their work more sustainable, or help them lead more effectively within complex systems of care? I promised that 2026 would be a year to experiment boldly. Half a year in, I want to report back — to share where we have set direction, what is now moving, and what is just ahead.

The short version: the work is underway, the roadmap is taking shape, and there is real reason for optimism about where we are heading.  In March, your SCCAP leaders — programming leaders, student representatives, early-career colleagues, and most of the executive board — gathered for our Midwinter Meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida. By design, this was a generative working session: a chance to think hard about our portfolio and its impact — what we do well, what we are missing, and what brings the greatest return for our members. A few principles guided every conversation: that our programs should build lasting professional identity, not just deliver one-off events; that we must stay strategically aligned rather than spread thin; that staff time and volunteer capacity are real, finite resources; and that everything we do should serve clinicians, researchers, trainees, and early-career members without losing our sense of mission. Above all, we asked where SCCAP can offer a community our members cannot find anywhere else.  Those conversations have since translated into action. Over the past several weeks, the Executive Committee has approved a series of decisions that will shape the year — and hopefully the years — ahead.

We are reimagining our webinar program. Under the leadership of Jamie Micco, Ph.D., ABPP we are targeting 8–10 webinars a year and piloting new formats and content. Early feedback and participation have been outstanding, and Dr. Micco and Dr. Tamara Del Vecchio are now examining engagement data so we can be strategic about future content across both online and in-person programs. We have also committed to a 2027 Clinical Practice Institute (CPI), held virtually in January–February 2027 and co-chaired by Dr. Regine Galanti and Dr. Micco, with a timely focus on adapting evidence-based treatments for autistic youth — practical guidance clinicians can put to use.   We are also moving toward the return of an in-person SCCAP Conference in 2028. The vision is to co-locate all of our programs in a single location — a scientific program, an in-person Clinical Practice Institute, our Leadership Education to Advance Diversity programming, and career-development offerings — bringing together scientists and clinicians, early-career psychologists and senior leaders. This is the destination our roadmap has been building toward: piloting and refining concepts in 2026–2027, then integrating in 2028 into a true flagship that can serve as our professional home in the years that follow — a distinctive community for child psychologists regardless of work setting.

But we don’t have to wait until 2028. In August, SCCAP leaders will be at the APA Convention in Washington, DC (August 6–8). Rather than holding board activities throughout the meeting, I have asked our board to attend SCCAP’s presentations at APA and to support our students at the poster sessions. Sarah Dickinson, Ph.D., ABPP (Program Chair and APA Council Representative-Elect) and team have assembled a fantastic program.  I hope you will not only come for the outstanding learning opportunities, but introduce yourself at our programming and join us at the SCCAP Membership Meeting and Social Hour. Your attendance helps us earn more programming slots at APA — and gives you a direct opportunity to tell us what content, formats, and speakers you want us to pursue.

I am grateful to the Board, Executive Committee, committee chairs, student leaders, and staff who have contributed to this work. Much of what we are doing is not flashy. Strategic planning, governance, succession models, administrative infrastructure, budget alignment, and evaluation frameworks rarely make for exciting headlines. But they are the work that allows a society to be sustainable, flexible, and relevant.  If there is one message I hope you take from this update, it is this: SCCAP is not simply planning more programs. We are working to build a more coherent professional home — content that is useful, meetings that build community, leadership pathways that develop people, and systems that let the organization grow without exhausting the volunteers and staff who make it run.

My challenge to all of us is to keep using the same lens: does this make SCCAP more relevant to clinical child and adolescent psychologists across the career span? If the answer is yes, then we should build it well, evaluate it honestly, and connect it to the larger community we are trying to create.

None of this happens without you. Roughly 180 members volunteer their time each year, and the vitality of this Society lives in our SIGs, our committees, our webinar faculty, and the everyday generosity of members who pitch in. If you have been looking for a way in, this is the year. There are many societies competing for your time. SCCAP is the true professional home for clinical child and adolescent psychology. Let’s keep building the content — and the community — that earns that title.

With appreciation,

Adam B. Lewin, PhD, ABPP
Board Certified Child and Adolescent Psychologist
Professor with Tenure, University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine
Chief, Division of Pediatric Neuropsychiatry
President, Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology