Time has flown by since many of us saw each other at our annual section meeting in Orlando. We had strong attendance--somewhere around 50 people packed the room as Chair Elect Christi McGeorge led a Mentoring themed activity in which we divided up as mentors or mentees and met some people we'd never talked to before. We hope to follow up at next year's meeting with a speed-mentoring activity.

I hope that this message catches you before you take off to spend the end-of-the-year holidays on a ski slope without internet access. I have several news items to share:

1. Kathleen Briggs Award (and request for donations to the Award fund)
2. Winners of this year's Poster Awards and Paper Awards
3. Announcement: a new Focus Group proposal
4. Announcement: looking for ways to raise money for the section
5. Reminder: time to prepare proposals for the 2012 NCFR Conference in Phoenix

Kathleen Briggs Award

The big news in the Family Therapy Section this year was the selection of Karen Wampler and Richard Wampler (both at Michigan State University) as co-recipients of the first Kathleen Briggs Mentoring Award. The award was established to honor the memory of Kathleen Briggs, whose career was so clearly focused on the goal of building the next generation of family therapy scholars and practitioners through personal mentoring relationships.

After years of planning, with your donations and with matching funds from Past
Section Chairs Volker Thomas and Colleen Peterson, we were delighted to be able to present this award at an NCFR plenary session. But declining interest rates have hit us hard. Further donations will help make it possible to continue offering the award on a regular basis and--we hope--increase the amount of the award in future years.

Poster and Paper Awards

Jessica N. Fish won the 2011 Outstanding Student Poster Award for "The Role of attachment and differentiation in extradyadic experiences," with co-authors Thomas Pavkov, Joseph Wetchler, and Jerry Bercik. And Rashmi Gangamma won the Outstanding New Professional Poster Award for "Relational ethics, differentiation & relationship satisfaction in couples," with co-authors Suzanne Bartle-Haring, Michael Knerr, and Jennifer Collins. Each of the poster winners will be receiving a check for $125 from NCFR.

Erika Lynn Grafsky won the 2011 Outstanding Student Paper Award for "The disclosure to family experience of queer youth." And Markie L.C. Blumer won the Outstanding New Professional Paper Award for "Exploring Intergenerational Clinical Mentoring, with co-authors Mary Sue Green, Ashley M. Barrera, and Desiree Compton. Each of the paper winners will be receiving a check for $500 from NCFR.

New Focus Group Proposal

For several years we have talked about the fact that our Section is one of the few that does not sponsor at least one Focus Group. NCFR Focus Groups are one of the ways in which people make connections with members of other sections; the Sexuality focus group, for example, has drawn participants from the Family Therapy, Education and Enrichment, International, Public Policy, Religion and Family, Feminism and Families, and Family Science sections.

At this year's Business Meeting, as we talked once again about the goal of creating a meaningful focus group that would represent our section in the larger NCFR membership, Karen Wampler proposed a focus group on Mentoring. The idea was extremely popular. We passed a sign up sheet to get a minimum of 15 charter members for the application, and it came back with 33 names.

We will now submit the application through the NCFR Board. Once it is approved NCFR can put the Mentoring Focus Group on the program (for Phoenix, we hope) and reserve a room for the group to meet. The final challenge is, we need to actually have people show up when the group meets. Please help to spread the word!!

Proposals for the NCFR Conference in Orlando

You may have already received an invitation to send in proposals for the 2012 Conference, chaired by FT Section member Leigh Leslie. The theme, "Families and Health," will show off an emerging theme in family work of all kinds. After about 30 years of intense activity in the area of Medical Family Therapy and Collaborative Healthcare, we hope that our members will be involved in many health-related proposals for posters, papers, symposia, and workshops.

But the program process is experiencing some changes, so you don't have to just sit back and quietly submit through the official proposal process! If you would like to drum up section support for what you are thinking about, contact me directly. Policy changes in NCFR have created extra opportunities for sections to sponsor events that don't have to go through regular channels. At the same time, as in years past the total number of "slots" available for our section will be computed based on the number of official submissions that designate FT as the section for review.

New Website

On Ground Hog Day 2011 a new NCFR website was unveiled. It offers many new ways in which Sections can support their members. Among the most important is the new ability for members to access conference presentations from past years, both recordings and presentation slides. I encourage you to go to the site and search for your favorite clinical and scholarly interests--see what has been happening!