The American Psychological Association’s (APA) Public Interest Directorate has recently released a 2010 report from the APA Presidential Task Force on Psychology’s Contribution to End Homelessness.Helping People Without Homes evaluates contributing factors to homelessness in the United States and discusses the role that psychologists can play in alleviating homelessness.

A state report card issued from The National Center on Family Homelessness recently ranked Missouri 32nd (out of 50) in the nation for child homelessness, based upon the number of homeless children, their well-being, risk for child homelessness, and state policy/planning activities. A particularly poignant report from CBS News’ “60 Minutes” airing earlier this year, highlighted the living conditions of homeless children in the United States, and brought to light the continued need for informed action by both the private and public sectors.  An electronic copy of the APA report can be found by clicking here. 

Congratulations to Denise H. Bike, MS from the University of Missouri who is the South Central Regional Advocacy Coordinator for the APAGS ACT (Advocacy Coordinating Team).  She is MOPA's former Student Coordinator and is currently an officer in APAGs who is being funded by APA to attend and participate in the 2012 State Leadership Conference in Washington, DC. Also, your President and Early Career Psychology Chair has been granted funding to attend and participate in the 2012 SLC as an Early Career Psychologist Delegate.  I look forward to reporting back to MOPA on my experience in DC.  

The Mental Health in Corrections Conference, sponsored by Forest Institute will take place on March 8-10, 2012 in St. Louis, MO. 
For more information: http://forest.edu/mhcc.aspx 

Follow the link below to check out Missouri's Efforts re: Evidence-Based Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorders. From the website: The Missouri Autism Guidelines Initiative is now  focused on developing the first comprehensive guide to evidence-based Interventions. Building on the success of its first publication on Screening, diagnosis, and assessment for intervention planning, An advisory committee of parents, health care professionals, anIndividual with ASD, educators and service providers is working to Summarize the latest evidence-based and peer-reviewed research to helpMake information on interventions more understandable. The documentWill provide the tools for making decisions about selection, implementation,and evaluation of interventions. 

It will be published in Summer 2012.MOPA's own Dr. Janet Farmer, Dr. Micah Mazurek and Dr. Dawn Huber are all involved in this much-needed project.  www.autismguidelines.dmh.mo.gov