Division 49 April 2026 Board Meeting
April 22, 2026
1:00 – 2:30 p.m. EST
Virtual meeting
Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85356208765?pwd=3ZxQK8i1NwvobdKVRoaoVbFssazNWu.1
Board Members
o Amanda Acevedo-Morales, ECP
o Ilana Ander Student Representative (2025 – 2026)
o Bryan Bonner, Journal Editor
o Joshua “Ale” DeSilva, APA Council of Representatives
o Leann Diederich, Foundation Chair
o Dennis Kivlinghan, Treasurer
o Martin Kivlinghan, Research Domain Representative
o Ronn Johnson, Group Psychology Domain Representative
o Noelle Lefforge, Group Specialty Council Representative
o David Marcus, Fellows Chair
o Joe Miles, President
o Kristin Miserocchi, Program Chair (2025 – 2026)
o Jill Paquin, Practice Domain Representative
o Ernest Park, Secretary
o Megan Prass, Student Representative (2026-2027)
o Michele Ribeiro, President-Elect
o Rita Rivera, Membership Chair
o David Songco, Diversity Domain Representative
o Thomas Treadwell, Newsletter Editor
o Nathaniel Wade, Education and Training Domain Representative
o Kodee Walls, Incoming Program Chair (2027 – 2028)
Board members present: Division members present:
Amanda Acevedo-Morales David Chirko Ilana Ander
Joshua “Ale” DeSilva Guests present:
Dennis Kivlinghan David DeVito, Administrative Executive Martin Kivlinghan
Joe Miles Jill Paquin
Kristin Miserocchi Ernest Park Megan Prass Michele Ribeiro David Songco Thomas Treadwell Nathaniel Wade
Item 1: President’s Welcome (Lead: Joe Miles)
Joe welcomed attendees to the meeting. He stated the meeting would be recorded for the purposes of accurate meeting minute documentation.
Item 2: Brief Introductions (Lead: Joe Miles) Item 3: Member Period (Lead: Joe Miles)
Two non-board members were in attendance. Joe opened the floor to see if there were member issues to be discussed.
David Chirko stated that he hopes there would be a discussion about how membership is being augmented.
Joe said that hopefully we will get to that conversation.
Item 4: Agenda Review and Request for Items from the Floor (Lead: Joe Miles) Item 5: 2026 Midwinter Meeting Minutes (Lead: Joe Miles)
Joe called for a vote to approve the mid-winter meeting minutes. Ernest Park seconded that motion. The minutes were unanimously approved. Joe reminded everyone that the president only votes on motions when there is a tie, which is why he did not vote.
Item 6: Results of Electronic Board Vote (Lead: Joe Miles)
Results of the electronic board vote about working with the interdivisional group were discussed. The vote was that we would have someone work with the interdivisional group that’s trying to get a better understanding of professional placements within psychology. Joe thanked David Songco for pointing out the work of this other group, and maybe a question about whether or not we should spend the money. The vote was that we would be supportive of working with that group, but that we would not financially contribute. Joe Miles then asked if there is anyone who wants to be the person who works with that group for us.
David Songco said he brought the results of those emails to the attention of the integrated specialty care group, and now we’re linked together. David Songco volunteered to serve as a liaison between the integrated specialty care group and Division 49.
Joe thanked David Songco and asked him to keep us posted as things develop.
Item 7: Domain Reports (Lead: Nathaniel Wade)
There was one domain report from education and training. An action item accompanied the report. Nathaniel reported on the work that the committee’s been doing on the Lunch and Learn series. There are 5 events scheduled now. Most speakers have provided titles, dates and times for their events, and their CE stuff (e.g., overview of their plan, learning objectives). Nathaniel secured speakers for June, July, (no August because of the convention), September, and October. Kodee Walls and Kristin Miserocchi are helping, and the next step will be for Nathaniel, Kodee, and Kristin to get together and start putting together marketing materials.
Nathaniel wanted to make this an agenda item because they had been approved for $1500 for the series. But in developing it some improvements were made, so costs were more than expected.
Costs for the series are now $2100. Nathaniel asked if there were any questions.
Michele Ribeiro expressed excitement for the series and thanked the group for their work. She encouraged folks to put the event on their schedules and to send out emails to members and interested parties to hold the date. She recommended sending out an email announcement about the June event while marketing materials are being prepared so members can plan accordingly.
Before holding a vote on the expense, Joe asked Dennis Kivlinghan if he had any concerns from a financial perspective (there were no concerns).
Nathaniel made a motion to increase funding to $2100 for the year. The motion was seconded by David Songco. The motion was unanimously approved.
David Songco asked if the education and training events are free to attend.
Nathaniel said the intention is to make them free for members. The committee is contemplating a nominal charge for non-members, since the long-term goal is to develop the CEs into a small revenue source.
David Songco supported this idea and stated that it adds value to membership. Returning to
David Chirko’s point, free CEs would be a benefit that accompanies membership.
Item 8: Standing Committees
Item 8a: Awards (Lead: Michele Ribeiro)
There are 2 nominations for 2 of the awards. But Michele needs to follow up with David DeVito and Joe because she hasn’t gotten any nominations for the students’ travel Awards. She is hoping information about student awards is not being sent to an incorrect email or listserv.
Amanda Acevedo-Morales said she is still on the student listserv and she has not seen any mention of the Student Travel Award for the convention. She has seen announcements about the other awards, but not the Student Travel Award.
Ilana Ander said she would be happy to post information about the Student Travel Award on the student listserv.
David DeVito said information about all awards was posted on the general listserv and that all students are on the general listserv. But a follow-up post on the student listserv would be beneficial.
Michele said that students might want to nominate people for the other awards too (e.g., Teacher Award), so Michele will forward her email announcements to Amanda. She asked Amanda to post these 2 emails. She also asked Ilana to post information about the Student Travel Awards.
Michele encouraged people to nominate people for awards and to spread the word to other divisions (e.g., other division listservs like 17 and 12). Nominees and nominators don’t have to be a member of Division 49. The deadline is June 1. The committee (Michele, Maria, Riva, and Josh Gross) is ready to review applications.
Item 8b: Foundation (Lead: Joe Miles/David DeVito)
Note, the Moreland Award is not awarded until next year, 2027.
Joe mentioned there are 2 grants and that the deadlines are approaching.
Item 8c: Nominations and Elections (Lead: Michele Ribeiro)
Michele asked if anyone received the ballot in their email (several people raised their hands). Michele never received the ballot. She also received emails from other division members asking where the ballot was. Michele doesn’t know what happened, but mentioned that Avila left APA and someone new stepped in. She said it looks like an outside agency stepped in and perhaps some things got lost in translation.
Michele also mentioned that right now only students can vote on the student rep position. Non-students can see the student slate on the ballot, but there is no place for non-students to cast votes for the student rep position. This may cause confusion. Should everyone be able to vote on the student rep position, or only students? Michele and Joe want people’s opinions, and are especially interested in the viewpoint of students.
Ilana said her initial view is to allow everyone to vote on the student rep position. One reason is because there are only 50 student members, and they have been a little quiet so voter turnout might be low. Also, board members have gotten to know some of the student members, so non-students can be informed voters.
Megan Prass agreed.
Nathaniel agreed (given low engagement levels).
David DeVito asked if this is something that should be voted on. Michele said yes.
Joe moved that we have a formal policy that everyone votes on student representatives. Michele seconded the motion. The motion was unanimously supported.
David DeVito and Michele will talk to Keith (in charge of elections) to update the ballot. Keith should null it and then make a new ballot and have everyone vote again. David will check on that.
Joe asked David to make sure that this change is reflected in the policies and procedures manual as well.
Item 8d: Program (APA Convention) (Lead: Kristin Miserocchi)
Joe mentioned that the official program has been sent out. He thanked Kristin for
all of her hard work.
Kristin said the program schedule is still subject to change. Currently there are 5 sessions. She believes 3 or 4 of them are continuing education sessions. There are 25 posters spread out across 2 hours on Thursday (10am and 4pm). There is a virtual poster session
that was outside of Kristin’s control to schedule. It is scheduled by APA and is on Saturday. We have 2 posters included in that session. We also have at least 1 session on each day of the convention. Due to the programming hours limitations, we had to get creative about how to have business meetings and fellow addresses, so our business meeting and fellow address (by Noel) will be combined. The awards ceremony and social will also be combined. So, the social will be 2 hours, which is fine by APA. The board meeting will be Saturday morning at 8am (location: informal programming room, aka Division Engagement Space). We have the Division Engagement Space for the whole convention. If you have programming that you would like to have in that space (e.g., committee meetings, meditation hour), let Kristin know.
David DeVito mentioned the only 2 negative aspects are that we can’t afford the AV all day each of the days (so if you’d like to have internet connection, please look at Saturday because we will have internet that day for the board meeting), and we can’t have food from the outside in that space. They are strict about bringing in outside food and divisions have been fined in the past.
Ale DeSilva thanked Kristin for her work and asked if there were fewer proposals this year (given the unfilled programming space).
Kristin said we had fewer proposals this year (vs. last year), but more proposals than allotted hours. We only got 5 programming hours (vs. 7 hours last year). The unfilled space is because we didn’t have more programming hours given to our division. There
were 13 proposals this year and the top 5 were accepted. Kristin may contact authors of the proposals that weren’t accepted to see if they are willing to use portions of their symposia for CE webinars or something like that (in the informal space).
Ale DeSilva suggested that maybe we can advocate for more programming hours in the future.
Kristin mentioned the decline in programming hours is a function of lower levels of engagement and attendance in our programs (and Division membership numbers).
David Songco asked David DeVito if outside food could be brought in if it was a part of a small thank you bag (e.g., a hospitality effort to increase traffic). (David DeVito said he thinks that would be acceptable if done quietly; just can’t have displays of outside food).
David Songco asked David DeVito if the available space could be used to offer a hybrid type of event with maybe a CE (e.g., for the people whose proposals were declined, could they still present in the informal space? Make it a hybrid event open to people not
physically at APA?). This would help increase levels of engagement, so programming hours could increase in the future.
David DeVito replied that the use of the word CE with the APA convention might cause slight confusion because people might think APA CE’s are being offered. So we’d just have to be very clear that this was division only. Also, we’d have the expenses of AV for the projector, screen, and zoom capabilities. But, if enough CE folks sign up, that would balance out very nicely too.
Joe asked Kristin if those whose proposals were rejected had been invited to use the informal space for such purposes (because this type of practice may have been implemented in the past).
Kristin said they have not been invited to do so yet. One reason is because acceptance and rejection notices only recently went out in the past week or so. Kristin also mentioned that she did this last year, and only one person was interested in the opportunity (and Kristin and Michele were the only attendees).
Joe said we need to vote on any expenses for the social event. He asked Kristin if anyone has asked about catering orders and things like that.
Kristin said no. All that has been done so far is to submit a request for an informal room. David DeVito submitted this request but they haven’t followed up with any information or instructions about catering or anything.
David DeVito said when it comes to the informal room, they have so far asked how large of a space we wanted. He said we asked for a room for 25 people sitting in an open square. If that gets turned into a teaching space, we could probably squeeze in more people for that. For the social that is listed on the APA agenda, that’s going to be in like a ballroom area (standing room and some cocktails). We have not had any discussions about food from APA yet. We estimated about $4500 worth of food and alcohol at the social last year.
Kristin remembered that APA has already assigned a room for our social, so that’s taken
care of. But there has not been any discussion about catering requests.
Dennis looked through the invoices he’s gotten from APA because he anticipated a discussion about convention costs. He looked at the October invoice (the most recent one) and doesn’t see any copy of the final for the year so he doesn’t know if the information is right. We have a tab that says Convention and meeting expenses and for the APA social all that is listed is Prizes with a tab of $545 (David DeVito said that is incorrect and that was internal).
David DeVito said the invoice line that says APA Convention 2025 with a cost of $2000 may be close to being accurate, but is actually much less than we expected. We had estimated 50 people attending, and turnout was 44 plus. We projected costs for 2 buffets
and 100 cocktails (2 per person). It’s odd that the cost is so low and a round number (e.g.,
$2000), so the invoice numbers may be incorrect.
Dennis said he was told that the final year-end accounting was delayed, so he still hasn’t
seen that yet.
David DeVito asked if the $2000 is the convention chair stipend.
Kristin said she doesn’t get a stipend, but travel and hotel are covered (amount capped at
$2000). Conference registration for program chairs is comped by APA.
People agreed that the $2000 in the invoice might reflect the money for the program chair. But that means that we have not yet been charged for the 2025 social event.
Michele said it seems odd that APA would be that far behind in their bookkeeping. She asked David DeVito if he could follow up on this issue so the October invoice can be deciphered and so we can know about how much was spent last year.
Michele asked Dennis if he can make a note about the $2000 being used to support the program chair. He replied that this information is listed in the more detailed invoice he received (which specifies who the money goes to and what it is).
Joe said we don’t have the previous costs, so we don’t have enough information to vote on a number. So we will put a pause on that vote. And last year, we had a lot more food than we seemed to have needed, so that’s something to consider when we return to this conversation in the future.
Dennis raised another source of confusion about the budget. He mentioned there was a big jump in revenue from the Journal last year. It was $70K, while in previous years it had been closer to $50K. He talked to someone in the accounting division of APA and they said they would put him in touch with someone in the journals division to help him understand why that happened. After a couple of follow-ups, he has still not received any responses. Dennis would like to know if this increase was a one-time thing or something we can reliably count on.
David DeVito said he would be happy to look into the matter. But he said he should talk with Joe and Michele, considering the confidential letter they received warning that there’d be a $15K decrease in funding this year. David said they might want to strategize about the wording they choose when inquiring about this surprising increase in revenue.
Item 9: 2026 Midyear Reports (Lead: Joe Miles)
Reminder about mid-year reports for the August meeting. Joe will be asking for those by July 17th. David DeVito will send out a template on June 17th so people will have one month to complete their reports.
Item 10: 2026 Midyear Meeting
Saturday, August 8, 2026 8:00-10:30am
Washington DC, Rm Location: TBD Virtual attendance by Zoom
Item 3: Membership (continued)
Joe Miles asked David Chirko if he had membership issues he wanted to discuss or questions for the board. (poor internet connectivity/excessive static prevented discussion).
Towards the end of the meeting, David Chirko posted a comment saying we went down from 402 members to 363 members. Many students have left. Have we contacted them asking why and how we might get them back?
Joe does not know if we’ve ever done an exit survey. Neither does David DeVito. Joe said we
can bring up the idea to Rita and see if she’s interested in taking that up.
Other items:
Joe mentioned when Martyn Whittingham was at the January meeting, he had 2 positions. Noel is going to step into the one that he was in (working with Steven’s group with APA). The other one was working with insurance codes. Joe asked if anyone has any ideas, or if anyone wants to be the person who works on advocating for changes to the codes (related to payment).
Michele emphasized that the person working on the codes would be advocating from a high-level position. It’s an important role that impacts reimbursement and helps keep group psychotherapy practices on par with where we need to be.
Nathaniel agreed that it is an important role and something that he would normally be interested in. But the timing is bad so he cannot take on the role at this time. Nathaniel mentioned that someone who is going to do one of the Lunch and Learns (Carlos Canales) might be interested in the role. Michele asked Nathaniel to ask him. Nathaniel said if Michele forwards him the email from Martin which contained relevant details, then he would talk to Carlos.
Tom Treadwell mentioned that he has not received his stipend for the Group Psychologist. Dennis said he has put in that request to APA already. Dennis said he will follow up to see if the stipend request has been processed.
David DeVito asked David Songco if his survey (about understanding psychologists in practice and where psychologists work within the healthcare system) was addressed.
David Songco said not completely. The survey was just approved. He will send out an email to the whole division. If you know of other psychologists who work within the healthcare system, whether or not an APA member, please share the link. The survey aims to examine where psychologists actually practice within the healthcare system, and to understand their clinical requirements, compensation data, and RVU data so we can put this into a national report broken
down by zip code. This will hopefully empower psychologists to both advocate for increased pay, and show how essential we are to the healthcare system.
Michele reminded people to vote once the ballot has been fixed. The deadline for voting is May 14th.
Item 11: Closing
Meeting end time: 4pm EST