Greetings and farewell from PSI President Susan Dowd Stone
Dear PSI members, visitors and associates:
After three wonderfully intense years as PSI’s conference chair and president, I will be leaving the board following our June conference in Houston. My decision to leave is based on furthering and sustaining opportunities associated with our mission through clinical work, research, legislative advocacy, consulting, teaching and writing. PSI’s Executive Board has moved that retiring PSI presidents will migrate to chair the President’s Advisory Council. This progression will ensure continuity of direction and maintain important national connections. I look forward to working with the President’s Advisory Council in this capacity and strengthening the ties of this talented group to PSI’s Executive board.
Please join me in thanking Sylvia Lasalandra for her able leadership of the PAC throughout the past year. Sylvia’s fundraising efforts, along with her event co-chair and PAC member Mary Jo Codey, are responsible for bringing more individual cash contributions to PSI than at any other time in its history! Sylvia donated countless copies of her book, A Daughter’s Touch to PSI and PPD events, and used many media opportunities to promote PSI’s mission. She was persistently recruited to join PSI’s board, but has chosen to remain as the fundraising chair on the President’s Advisory Council. We are so lucky to retain her talents!
Other Executive Board members announcing their departure are Claire van Blaricum, PSI’s Chairman of the board without whose guidance PSI’s administrative growth would not have come so far, Kathy Piasecki, who has worked as treasurer, website chair and other demanding roles critical to PSI’s forward movement, and Helen Jones, PSI’s secretary who will move her considerable expertise as a professor to work on PSI’s curriculum committee.
The PSI Executive Board welcomes new board members Pec Indman, co author of Beyond the Blues whose work in training will lend strong support to her role as Chair of PSI’s Curriculum Development Committee, and Dr. Ruta Nonacs, nationally known PPD expert/author/psychiatrist who instructs at Harvard Medical School and is the Associate Director of the Center for women’s Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital. There are still specific openings on PSI’s board including website chair and fundraising chair (with grantwriting experience). If you are interested, please contact Linda Klempner for more details.
The last three years have brought rapid growth to PSI’s organizational structure, financial health, name recognition, national advocacy, extension of mission and programs, and additional dedicated volunteers to our fantastic coordinator base. We have come a long way - yet - opportunities and challenges continue to present at rapid fire pace. Opportunities to further our mission, finally pass federal legislation protective to women and families and extend our message of hope beyond borders; and challenges to manage the growth necessary to advance mission fulfillment and continuing development of strategic relationships with other national stakeholders.
Education of health care providers and consumers is an important focus going forward and PSI is well prepared to lead the way. President-elect Birdie Meyer, along with her curriculum committee has been working on PSI trainings for many years. At this year’s PSI’s conference in Houston, and subsequently across the country, PSI’s beginning through advanced trainings will be available to communities, facilities and agencies. Receiving a PSI certificate of completion from PSI’s trainings will immediately identify you as someone devoted to the furthering of professional standards within this specialty. Whether you are a healthcare provider or peer support group leader - your completion of these trainings will help set a national benchmark for minimum educational credentials to declare a practice specialty or offer a community based support group. Birdie’s talents and expertise make her succession to president a most seamless and timely transfer of leadership. Please join me in welcoming her and offering her your support when she assumes this role on June 8th.
It has been a most memorable and life-changing experience leading this organization and working with all of you. The passion of women and advocates devoted to this cause is an incredibly powerful force which has mightily advanced in momentum and purpose. The many inspirational stories and unforgettable encounters I have been so privileged to experience will stay with me forever. Thank you for the generous support and warmth you have shown to me, to each other and those we serve. The strength of this unifying mission speaks to the universality of the motherhood experience which has no boundaries, politics or agenda other than the health of civilizations most critical dyad of mother and child.
Warmly,
Susan