From a July newsletter article, Getting to Know SCASP's New Strategic Plan, by SCASP President, Beth Howell, MSAP, ABSNP, LPES. Want more articles like this? Join SCASP for the entire newsletter.

Three years ago, SCASP developed and adopted its first strategic plan in many years. That plan helped shape, define, and guide our practices during these three years. Its development was instrumental in moving the organization forward with a more focused direction. Because of the plan, SCASP has been able to be more involved with the advocacy of our profession; to be more focused on the structure and offerings of our professional development; to make great technological advances with our website, social media reach, and handling of our membership applications and registrations; to set forth a systematic process to review organization procedures along with reviewing and updating the SCASP Constitution and By-Laws; and to be able to examine our membership needs so we can be more responsive to them.

At the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year, we began the process of reviewing the current Strategic Plan so we could start to develop our new Strategic Plan that would begin in the 2016-2017 school year. As a committee of board members, organization members, and even NASP leadership members, we worked hard to think about what our priorities and goals needed to be as an organization. This was so the profession of School Psychology can be extended in South Carolina and so we, as an association, can provide the best support and service to all school psychologists in our state so that YOU can support all students (and their families) in the state.

SCASP was chosen to participate in a State Planning Retreat held at NASP headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland in November of 2015. The focus of this retreat was to determine how NASP could help state associations further the goal of promoting school psychologists as mental health professionals. As a direct result, the SCASP Board voted to elevate the strategic goal at the time focused on advocacy to the highest priority within our plan. We felt that as an association we needed to help all school psychologists in the state realize they are indeed mental health professionals and can advocate for this position.

With the renewed focus on advocating for our role as mental health professionals, the Strategic Planning Committee resumed the work of developing new or updated goals that would reflect our priorities as an association. At our annual Board Retreat and summer Board Meeting held the weekend of June 12, 2016, the board finalized and voted to approve the new SCASP Strategic Plan. We feel our main goals for the upcoming three years need to be focused on the following:

1. Facilitating Advocacy Initiatives and External Communications

2. Increasing Recruitment, Retention, and Diversity of Members

3. Optimizing Procedural Quality and Excellence

4. Promoting Quality Professional Development

We are excited as a Board about the direction in which we are heading. We have posted the full strategic plan on our website under the Home Tab (http://www.scaspweb.org/Strategic-Plan).